Belize

Our Travel Blog

February 13, 2008

We left on feb 12th around 12:00pm to Vancouver airport headed to L.A. THe flight was about 5 hours long and I could not sleep at all due to a bad cough. Christianna could not sleep as well as I was keeping her up. L.A was a blur as it was just killing time before our next flight to El Salvador. It was nice being back to where I was born even though we never left the airport. From there we flew to Belize, our first official destination.
We caught a cab to the water taxis in Belize City. Belize City itself was OK upon driving through a small part of the city, still to hard to judge as we did not spend so much time there. The water Taxi ride was about 45 min long and both Chrissy and I were falling asleep from exhaustion. The waters in the caribbean sea were so nice and blue and we could see all the coral reef underneath. We travelled to a small Island called Caye Caulker which is very beautiful, the people were nice and the weather was very hot. We received burns on our very first day, we justified it by calling it our base tans, still, Chrissys farmers tan was something to behold. We rented a small cabana by the ocean for 40 US dollars a night, its basic with a bed, bath, tv, and two fans. Even though the Cabana is hot in the inside, the cool sea breeze keeps it nice and cool. We are still catching up on sleep but are gathering more energy by doing nothing and sleeping on the beach. Belize itself has been pretty affordable, you get $2 Belizean dollars for every $1 US. The dollar beers are great!!


February 14, 2008

Today was sort of a busy day. We needed to find a new place and preferrably with a kitchen. Not so easy to do on a limited budget as they are more costly and are hard to find. While having breakfast the owner of the restaurant had two rooms available (both with kitchens). We went to check them out and they were both really nice and perfect. We are currently renting a whole house for $55 US which includes free bikes as well. We have gone shopping and now have food for a couple of days which set us back only $35 compared to the $15 dollars a meal we were having before. This is great for saving money and its great having an entire house to ourselves. Later in the evening when the sun was setting, we went to a place called "The Split" which is where the locals go to swim. It was our first time getting into the water since arriving and we must say the carribean waters are so refreshing. Though we didnt see any yet, there are seahorses that come out and swim around you. Island life is a lot different, everyone seems to know each other everyone is relaxed and very friendly.
We are looking forward to relaxing on our two hammocks, watching the albatross float around and enjoying the cool belizean breeze. Life couldnt be better here on the island.


February 15, 2008

Today was a relaxing day, we woke up around 11am and watched TV for a few hours. We are both still suffering from this cough so we walked to the pharmacy for some codene laced cough syrup and groceries. We headed to the beach to meet up with a girl we met our very first day named Carly,shes a girl from New York who shared a cab with us from the ariport to the water taxis. She was accompanied by a guy named Luke who is from Vancouver Island. We hung out at a place called the Lazy Lizard and then moved to a Canadian Sports bar where we had a few beers. While enjoying a drink we noticed a big outdoor basketball tournament right next to the beach. We watched a couple games between some local teams. One of the team names was Island Vibes and the other was Blacknaibahood (black neighbourhood), it was alot of fun as it was a close game. As intense as the game was, we could still notice the island lifestyle as a dog casualy sauntered across the court, kids slept on cement steps and played marbles on the sand, plus we couldnt help notice the ocean just thirty feet from the court. We later strolled along the beach until reaching a dock where we sat down for a while, gazed at the stars (the Big Dipper is up side down here), and talked till about midnight before calling it quits and heading home.


February 16, 2008

Waking up this morning was a rather rude awakening. There was a very strong downpour around 7am which was so intense that it sounded like a tornado was passing through town. We later found out they get four times stronger than what we heard, both Chrissy and I were stunned by the sound. We reawoke around 10am, packed our things, and moved to the smaller house right next door. This place is only $32 dollars a night with a kitchen, fridge, cable TV, and a hammock. The place is much smaller than the last one but it is perfect for the two of us. We decided to get to the beach as soon as we could as lately we have been getting there as the sun is coming down, we got small tans and the sun felt great as we snorkled the aqua marine waters. Shopping for food has turned out to be quite fun as we stroll through town hitting all the locals shops looking for cheap, tasty, local food. We did pretty well and only managed to spend $35 for lots of food, we should be good for a couple of days. We ran into Luke who we invited over for dinner and some beers, we played cards and got to know each other a little better. We have now booked the snorkelling tour with this local named James. He is litterally the guy "Red" from the movie "Shawshank Redemption". Looks like we are going on a sailboat cruise along with some serious snorkelling. Christianna is super scared in doing this as fish freak the hell out of her but, she will be conquering this fear as there are plans to feed sharks!!!

February 17, 2008

We keep telling ourselves that we will be waking up early but we just cant seem to get there. 11:00 seems to be the usual but we did tell ourselves we would relax the first couple of weeks. Today was a day of leisure and hitting the beach. While at the beach we ran into Luke once again (such a small town) and we decided to meet up for a few beers on a nearby dock to watch the sun set. It was our first beautiful sunset in Belize, the palm trees, town, and ocean waters were bathed in fiery red and gold colors. We sat there till it was dark and just chatted away. We enjoyed a nice Fajita dinner before calling it quits. We have had our first annoyance of the trip from a local guy named James. We had met him originally upon arriving in Caye Caulker and all he tried doing was making a sale to us no matter what we were doing. It got to the point where he would show up at night just to make more sales. We got the feeling he was using the money for drugs as we ran into him one morning and he seemed very cracked out. We did get what we were paying for but always had an uneasy feeling for it. We will not be to easy in befriending pushy locals no longer.

February 18, 2008

The trip we bought through James has finally arrived. We woke up this mornig very excited and nervous at the same time. Today is our big snorkelling tour!! We set sail at 10am on a beautiful morning on a locally made sailboat. The plan was for three stops, lunch, and rum punch. The first stop helped us to get aquainted with our snorkelling gear while in a comfortable environment. The first stop was called Coral Gardens where we saw many tropical fish and amazing coral formations. The next stop was definately the highlight and very exhilarating. We were greeted by three sharks,a few stingrays,and many big fish all jumping at the food that our captain was throwing out. They got so close to the boat our captain almost picked up a shark by its fins. Then we got to the point where we had to jump in, YIKES!! I kept telling myself "You only live once before jumping in" and Chrissy kept telling herself to "face my fears". Even though they were only nurse sharks it was still quite intimidating. The stingrays stingers were really scary as they were super long (about 4 feet). They would be floating by and under us without us even knowing they were there. Chrissy got so scared at one point she tried to climb on top of me and was pushing me down onto a stingray, I had to quicky push her off. We laughed it off and kept going. Our last stop was called Hol Chan. It was a very protected coral marine park that had some interesting fish as well. I was nervous as 4 foot barracuda kept eyeing me down and trying to get closer. They are known to be aggressive,bite, very fast and they have very big teeth. Our guide dove into a cave and coaxed out an eel which was really cool too. Once on shore the rest of the day was a write off as Chrissy got a really bad sunburn and possibly a bit of sunstroke. Regardless, it was an amazing day.

February 19, 2008

Today we left the island to head off to our next adventure. The plan is to travel by bus to a small inland town called San Ignacio. It took about two hours from Belize City and we got to see a bit of the countryside and talked with locals and other travellers. By the time we got to San Ignacio we were absolutely exhausted from the heat and from carrying our heavy packs. San Ignacio is a cute little mountain town with lots to do and has a better feeling of how the people live in Belize. We stayed in the first place with available vacancy and took a long nap. Afterwards we headed off for a bite eat and checked out other places we could stay, while enjoying this small town vibe.

February 20, 2008

We went to a local restaurant called "Pops" which is as close to an American diner as you can get here. Chrissy enjoyed a local specitly called fried jacks which is a type of fried dough that is very tasty and used to sop up your breakfast just like you would toast. We had to wash clothes for the first time as our stinky laundry bag was getting full. We sat in the shower manually scrubbing, rinsing, and ringing our clothes. It was quite the ordeal just to save ourselves $6 dollars at the laundromat. Nevertheless, our clothes are looking good. Afterwards, we headed to the internet cafe for the first time before enjoying some spicy pizza at a local pizzeria. At this point we could start to see the lunar eclipse happening so we headed to our hostel to watch this with our hotel manager, Steve. Quite the amazing site...neither Henry or I had ever seen one before.

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