Belize with Louise!! The Caribbean “island” attached to the mainland!

So we set off from The Chetumal Hostel at 7.15 am to catch the Premier Line primera class bus direct to Belize city, which we were assured by Lilia, our host, departed at 8 am. There wasn’t one! At the ADO terminal we are informed that other than the 5am & 6am buses the next one is at 11.45am! Not something the guide books or the Premier Lines website tells you. We catch a cab to the Nuevo Mercado as we are told that there are many primera class buses that leave for BC from there about now. There aren’t! The first Premier Lines bus is at 10 am. Instead there is a Co-operative Society bus with a friendly driver leaving shortly - it’s an old American school bus - so rather than wait for 2 hours we hop on - fare only 65 pesos each - primera class is 100 pesos!. We have the wind for air con!

There are only 5 folks on board when we start - Belizeans returning from a shopping trip to Mexico; apparently it’s cheaper there. Given the age of the bus & it’s initial start we wondered if it would make the 4 hour journey at all. First stop was the border crossing - leave Mexico - passport stamped and as we are returning soon we pay 100 pesos each to keep our visitors cards or we’d have had to pay $30US each when we fly back to Mexico city on our way to Buenos Aires. Travellers beware - no guide book gives you this information, we got it off someone’s blog by chance.

A few hundred yards ahead we get to the Belize border. Everyone gets off and get all our luggage to go through immigration and customs. First surprise everyone speaks English! Formalities take 5 minutes - they ask M a few questions and don’t even look at our bags - and we are off again. First stop is Corozal the first town on the Belize side. A host of folks get on among them a number of Mennonites - folk that are similar to the Amish community in the US. They seem out of place in this part of the world - originally from the Netherlands, they apparently settled here in 1958 coming via Prussia & Canada when they were asked to integrate or pay taxes which they are philosophically opposed to. They now are the main dairy, veg and fruit producing community in the country. They have a distinctive look (all are white with blue eyes); the men wearing straw panama style hats and dungarees or trousers and braces, and the women wear long purple/blue dresses (they look like winter dresses) and bonnets or headscarves. They pay no taxes but are valued within the community for the work and contributions they make to the infrastructure of the country - roads, schools and hospitals (even the recent extension to the airport!)

As we leave Corozal it becomes evident that the bus will stop whenever and wherever anyone want to catch it (even 10 yards apart if hailed ) - so we make tediously slow progress to Orange Walk town our next stop - half an hour late. Orange Walk is one of the main centres where the Mennonite community is based in large numbers. The drive through the Belize side sees us passing a similar landscape to the Yucatan but much greener with a hint of tropical vegetation, however the houses are distinctly Belizean made of wooden construction and on stilts to withstand both hurricanes and flooding. Each parish has its own hurricane shelter as well. The bus fills with local people and the atmosphere is filled with locals, families and kids, many standing in the aisles, all in conversation. A totally local feel and more life than on the primera class buses we have been used to; it’s fun and a treat to observe it all.

The bus finally gets into Belize City at 11.30 am (12.30 Mexico time) and take a taxi to the hotel - we could have walked it, but didn’t realise how close it was.

The Belcove is a nice place by the swing bridge (made in Liverpool and the only one still in operation in the world - sounds more interesting than it looks!) - nice room, air con - much needed here - with helpful staff with a great Belizean restaurant (Marlin’s) next door on the water front. It’s a great location to get to most things and places. Brodies supermarket is 2 blocks away as are the ATMs etc. We go to Marlin’s regularly for lunch and dinner - some great local food - rice & beans or stew beans and rice with chicken, beef or pork stew, chicken curry or fish and lobster - all with the local chilli and onion in vinegar salsa + Marie Sharp’s Habanera sauce - awesome stuff. And all washed down with some local Belikin beer. We also try Neries II as recommended by LP and the folk at the hotel - and try conch soup - pretty good. Every thing come with rice & beans, or stew beans & rice!! All pretty cheap - about £2 for a meal per person.

Belize City has a reputation as an unsafe place. However, whilst the place has definitely seen better days, folks are generally very helpful and friendly with a great sense of humour. The centre of town is pretty run down - roads full of potholes with no tarmac & most buildings look in need of repair and a good painting job. There are many folk unemployed & living in poverty, many suffering from alcohol and drug abuse, street homelessness is common and the city has an air of a place that time has forgotten. This in a city which used to be the capital under British rule. The only area in the town centre which looks well kept is the “tourist area”, 2 large blocks of shops where the “cruisers” come in & get bussed in & out to see the city or go on excursions. All this is in a gated area with heavy security and even we could get in without ID - maybe we didn’t quite look like tourists with our tans!!!! Driving into the suburbs however, the houses are in better condition and there are a number of smarter restaurants and attractive green spaces along side the sea line.

There is a real mix of races in Belize - Indians, Chinese (both of whom seem to run many of the businesses), Creoles, Mayans and Garifunas (also called Black Caribs of African/American heritage & ex slaves - they describe themselves as a tribe) not to forget the Mennonites. There are only about 290,000 Belizeans in the country - 45% live abroad, mainly in the US, because of the poor job situation here. The country’s economy is built on agriculture (citrus fruits - mainly oranges - & bananas & sugar cane) and though some welfare exists - basic health care only - the major stuff has to be paid for & insurance is expensive. There is mandatory free education and some form of affordable housing provided by the government. They also have a social security system similar to the UK. The country has a debt of US$3 bn which per capita is about the highest for a developing country. They have very few natural resources & even though they have discovered oil recently they gave away most of the rights & profits to the oil companies - global multinationals. We are however struck by the co-operative ethos of lots of businesses together with the range of Credit unions in existence. There is a very open and high profile campaign about safe sex & the problems of HIV/AIDS - more than we have seen in any other country & even though this is a highly Christian society. We couldn’t get any facts on the scale of the problem though!

The country has recently voted in a new government & are hoping for better things. The political history is somewhat chequered and Belizeans seem resigned and sceptical after years of largely one party rule which had a reputation of corruption. The Belizean dollar is pegged to the US dollar on a 2bz to 1 US $ - so the xash is traded freely - so you can get your change in US $s. The currency is stronger than the Mexican Peso - so Belizeans regularly make trips to Chetumal to buy all sorts of goods to take back home. The 3 things that unite them are Punta rock - their version of reggae/R&B, rice and beans & the political issues with Guatemala! They have a century’s old dispute with Guatemala who claim ownership of about half of Belize, which even today has been sent for arbitration to the US - amazing. Also the Mayan history of the peoples spanning these two countries together with the drug problems in Guatemala makes for an unholy truce (after many skirmishes across the borders over the years). Despite all this, Belize feels like a Caribbean island with a real laidback feel to it (some say they have elevated “taking it easy“ to another level!).

The weather is variable with sunshine, clouds, showers etc all changing every hour. As the forecast is for choppy seas - we settle for catching up on our emails and confirming out next RTW ticket and a trip through Indochina with GAP - overland in October/November. We also start planning the Argentina & Brazil parts of our trip. The TV in the hotel has 113 channels - so Louise shouldn’t get bored. We watch Balboa (Rocky 1007 or something!) for some light entertainment & episodes of MASH - M’s favourite from the past. There really isn’t much to do in BC & any tours that exist are ridiculously expensive; you can do them much more cheaply by negotiating transport with a local cab or take a bus & pay the local entry fee - and this is what we plan to do.

As the sun shines the next day we take a trip to Ambergris; 1.5 hours by boat on seas that change from brown to green to perfectly clear aquamarine. It’s a long thin island with some very expensive pads and hotels along its frontage and also some good cheap local eateries - we have a great shrimp burrito from Waraguma, a Salvadorian eatery as a take-out washed down with some Belikins on the beach - this is living!!. This is the place to go diving as it sits on the worlds 2nd biggest barrier reef; the snorkelling is supposed to be excellent too.

We go in the cab to the airport to collect Louise - she’s due in at 4-45pm. Though her plane is 30 mins late, there are none of the traumas of Sarah’s flight fortunately. We see her going through immigration then get a frantic text; she can’t remember the name of the hotel and they won’t let her through without it! The wonders of technology and then she’s with us - big hugs, huge smiles and complaining at M for being so brown!!

Sunday is the last day of the Caye Caulker lobster fest which is just fantastic - a real carnival atmosphere, live reggae music and more lobsters than we’ve ever seen in our lives and all at ridiculous prices!! BBQ, kebabs, lobster tail burgers - and only £7 for a huge one! We go for a combo of 2 whole lobsters with butter garlic, lobster kebab and a great BBQ red snapper - all with rice & beans, potatoes and salad - and the chilli onion salsa + Marie Sharp‘s chilli sauce. Yum! CC is a very colourful and small island which has a very, very, very relaxed feel to it. Loads of backpackers and the reef not far off shore. We are to spend our last 5 days here before Louise goes back to London and we fly to Guatemala - so I’m sure more of this place later.

Zoo’s are not normally something we go for, but Belize zoo has a great reputation for animals (none of which have previously been wild and which would not survive in the wild) in their natural habitat - wetlands and tropical forest (and lots of mossies and little blood sucking bugs - we discover!!). We go by local bus (so the whole thing costs us £5 each as opposed to £35 through a tour company!) and it really is good. We see tapir, peccary (and smell them!!), black howler and spider monkeys, crocs, various bids including the Toucan - the national bird, and a variety of cats including puma and jaguars - beautiful. It’s definitely recommended and is doing some great work protecting endangered species.

So, having spent 4 days in BC it’s time to move on to Hopkins, a small community in the south to experience the rural life and the Garifuna community. Despite all the advice about bus timings - we arrive to find that the only express bus is at 4pm not 9am as we’d been told. So we hop on a local bus - this time with some form of air con & music from a radio station which kept us amused for the 3 hour journey to Dangriga. Then we take a cab to Hopkins - which is 4 miles off the main highway and accessed via a road that was recently washed away in the floods, to our hotel by the sea - The Tipple Tree Beya, run by Tricia, a very helpful English lady from Devon who’s been here for 11 years. The Tipple Tree is a great wood built house with an open verandah on the ground floor in front of three letting rooms and Tricia’s apartment upstairs with an enclosed verandah with picture windows looking out onto the beach and sea. M thinks he’s found his dream home and is hatching plans for building somewhere like it back home. We get two of the big rooms including fridges & tea/coffee making kit & the large verandah with 6 hammocks - take your pick. Hopkins is a very very chilled out place - and without the right weather could be a challenge as there’s not much to do when the sea is churned up due to the rains. We are somewhat lucky as the sun shines on us - we are really pleased for Louise as she was getting a bit down with all the cloud & rain. There’s a supermarket in town & plenty of local “restaurants” - rooms in front of the owner’s home. We lunch at Yugadah - fresh fish burgers and a fish burrito washed down with ( Marie Sharp’s Chilli sauce for M & Belikin of course, and have dinners at Innies and Iris’s - shrimp, fried fish, fried chicken and the most tender pork chops ever - great stuff. We also order some Huudit - a Garifuna dish of mashed plantain served with fish cooked in coconut milk - not bad at all.

Next stop is Tobacco Caye for a couple of days - an island only 200yds long and 100yds wide some 12 miles off the coast and right on the reef. We get a cab back to Dangriga and then take the water taxi to TC. What a white knuckle ride!!! The swell, until you get inside the reef, is huge and we slam up and down. Very sore bums by the time we get there! But it’s worth it. A real desert island feeling. We have two over the water cabins with deck and hammocks and plenty of sea breeze to keep us cool - which is good as the sun shines and it’s really hot. Lou’s tan comes on nicely. We see some beautiful spotted eagle rays from the pontoon and a few colourful fish when we go snorkelling. A tropical rainstorm is forecast but fortunately doesn’t materialise while we’re there and thankfully, the trip back to Dangriga is much smoother.

And so on to Placencia further south along the coast. We take the local bus which flies along for the first 30 minutes, then the rest of the two hour trip is on dirt tracks - very dusty and bumps that compete with the TC water taxi! The landscape though is very hilly and tropical with acres of orange groves and banana plantations. We have to cross a river on a make shift pontoon brigde as the recent floods had washed away the more permanent one!! The evidence was astounding. Placencia is a small village on a spit with the sea on one side and a lagoon on the other. It mainly consists of restaurants, hotels and supermarkets, with a handful of tour shops offering very expensive snorkelling & diving trips. (We decide to leave these until we get to Caye Caulker). Sea Spray Hotel is right on the beach and we have a lovely room with sea views, tv and aircon. It also has one of the best restaurants in town - De Tatch - great seafood specials every night and great fish and shrimp burrito’s for lunch. Again the weather is kind to us so more tanning & swimming - oh and watch Nadal beat Federer in the men’s Wimbledon final (well almost saw him win - the cable connection went down at the vital moment!).

Louise has been here a week already! And so we head off for our final few days with her on Caye Caulker starting at 6am with the bus to Belize City or so it says - when we get near Dangriga we have to get off and board another bus going to BC in the other direction - this apparently is a normal change over. We get the water taxi to Caye Caulker & book into our hotel - De Real McCaw which is just off the beach - nice room, fridge, tv, air con - what else do you need when it’s hot hot hot!

Days on CC are spent taking in more sun, snorkelling, diving and a day trip across to Ambergris Caye - mainly for more of the wonderful burritos!. The half day snorkelling is good fun - especially the visit to shark ray alley. We don’t see any sharks but masses of rays arrive - apparently attracted by the sound of the boats. They feel very fleshy and soft as they swarm around you. There were, however, loads of sharks when we dived at Hol Chan. It’s quite unnerving dropping into a family of nurse sharks - even though we know they don’t eat meat. Lou said she’d be happy with seeing a shark and ecstatic if she saw a shark and a turtle; we did so she smiled all the way back.

So it’s our last full day in Belize - it’s sunny again - so it’s last minute tan top up time for the ladies and we head for the Sports bar & grill for a special lunch to celebrate Louie’s 22nd birthday. We have grilled lobster, shrimp linguine & shrimp burrito - all washed down with a beer, Pina Colada & 2 Margaritas!!! Now that’s how to finish a holiday. We catch the water taxi back to the Belcove for the night & are up early to see Louise off on her flight back to London. It’s been great having her here for the 2 weeks & she’s been very good at keeping off the booze which she intends to make up for when she gets to London on the 13th which is her actual birthday. Happy Birthday Louise!!!

We kill time & lunch at Neries with lovely oxtail and relliano - a black soup made with pork, chicken and black recado - yum! (M’s choice despite my protestations - I hate it that he’s right all the time!!!!). Then it’s time to get a cab to the airport (our driver on both trips is Cleveland an great character who tells us a lot more about the place & the people) and our TACA flight to Guatemala city ………….. See you there.

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