I don't Belize it

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We got to experience our first border crossing going from Mexico to Belize on Wednesday (17th). We had two options, to take a taxi to the Mexican border, do the formalities, walk across the bridge into Belize and take a taxi to the immigration building and then get a bus to Belize City which sounded like a lot of hassle, or get a direct bus to Belize City that would stop at the Mexican border, wait for us, drive us over the bridge to the Belize immirgation building, wait for us and then continue onto Belize City. No prizes for guessing what we picked! After a breakfast of street tacos we hopped on the direct bus and had no problems doing the border formalities. There was a bit of confusion though as there is a departure tax for Mexico, and if you depart by land and are not returning to Mexico you pay nothing, but if you are returning you can choose to pay then and pay 1/2 price or pay the full amount when you return. When we´d flown to Cuba we hadn´t been given a choice, but hadn´t realised there was a land departure tax also so had spent all our Mexican Peso! As always they will accept American dollars so we had those. So we then got back on the bus, driven to the Belize immirgation place where they speak English! Was soooo nice after the not much english speaking in Cuba - apart from hey lady where you from! Can you tell how sick I got of that! Anyway, we got to pick how long we wanted our visa for so I´d said mabye 5 days or 6 so he gave me 10, for some reason Lorna got a month. Our bus broke down about 30mins out of Belize City so we had to wait while a replacement came out. It was in the middle of nowhere really and there was a shack beside where we stopped that had music playing and when we got off it was playing Grandma got run over by a reindeer! (I checked the spelling of that for you Katrina, was tempting to spell it incorrectly)

When we arrived into Belize City we went to one of the accommodation places in my guide book called the Seaside Guest House. The view from the veranda at the back was the draw of the place. It looks straight onto the water and out to the ocean, with a palm tree to the side. While Mitch was showing us the view there were dolphins swimming in the bay. There were 2 hammocks as well which were very comfy and turned out to be great to watch the sunrise from. We'd wanted to go to the Blue Hole so walked round to a hotel that apparently organised tours - read apparently. It was a nice walk around the water and got to see massive black bird things getting fed fish guts from the fisherman on the way. And yes, the hotel didn't organise tours! On the way back to the guesthouse we bought water taxi tickets to go Caye Caulker the next morning, as there were companies there that ran tours to the Blue Hole. We also went to a supermarket and bought some bread and bits and pieces, and they had an M&M ice cream cookie that sounded good so I got that. It was about 2-3 hours later I remembered I'd bought it, just as was going to bed! It was really good though cos the ice cream had all melted into the cookie dough stuff so was kind of like raw cookie dough.

Bright and early the next morning we got the 8am water taxi out to the Caye. Was a splashy journey but nice as such a hot day. Coming up to the Caye it was sooo pretty. The photos don't do it justice. It was even nicer than the Cuban beach. It's just a wee island so we walked up to one end and back to the middle. We visited the dive centre that went to the blue hole but they said it was pointless if going only to snorkel, and to dive you had to be a certified diver. So we booked a snorkel tour with Star tours which included going to the Barrier Reef, Sting Ray alley and the Coral Gardens. To kill the hour we had to wait we went and sat on a kind of dock at the end of the island and fed the fish our sandwiches since the bread wasn't that nice! The snorkel trip was really cool. We went out to the reef, which is the second biggest in the world and biggest in the northern hemisphere. I got totally soaked and my sunscreen got all runny and went in my eyes, which mixed with the salt water fully hurt! One of the guys had his hat blow off his head so the boat doubled back to get it. The fish weren't that colourful but there were a few to see. We then had to go back to the island and pick up 4 more people so got to go back to the reef a second time for free. There was a girl from the UK on the boat with her dad who decided that snorkelling wasn't his thing and they were going to get off when we went back to pick up the other folk. The girl was 9 and was upset, but we'd thought it was her that wanted to get off so being the nice people that we are we offered to look after the girl so she could keep snorkelling, since she was having such a good time - and it was her first time. Oh and my snorkel fell apart as I was leaning over the boat and the mouth piece fell into the water, but the tide carried it under the boat and I jumped in to look for it but couldn't find it - that's what you get for Ebay shopping. One of the guys from the boat found it though yay.

So we headed along to Sting-ray Alley which was appropriately named. The boat driver had brought along some small fish to feed the sting-ray to attract them over to us. But to start with we got to feed the seagulls by holding a fish above your head and they'd swoop down and take it! When we went to get in the water one guy fell in backwards, like you normally do when going snorkelling, and all the stingray swamped him and the captain then said oh don't go in that way or they'll feel threatened! Good to know huh. It was kinda freaky to start with, what with the whole Steve Irwin thing. Each time they swam underneath me I would literally cross my arms across my chest. And jump when something solid and silky would brush past my leg or body! After I realised the guy was right and they wouldn't actually sting you it was a bit better. Lorna opted to stay in the boat as she is not one with the fish, so had done well to snorkel at the reef. Our third stop was the Coral Gardens which was similar to the reef but a bit more shallow and the current was pretty strong here. We took the girl out and you have to swim between the coral which was easy enough on the way out but trying to get back in she started to panick and we then got caught in the currents and I ended up getting pushed onto the coral while trying to keep her off it! I managed to get through and went back to help Lorna get the girl through and then she got pushed onto the coral and started screaming her head off! In the end we went one on either side and kinda dragged her back through it and get back to the boat. I felt bad cos her dad couldn't do much sitting in the boat and there we are with his screaming daughter! She got a bit of a gash on her leg but it looked worse than what it was, and the cookies I had in my bag helped her feel better.

That night we went out with some of the people staying at the guesthouse to a place called Macey's Diner and had Macey's chicken which was so yummy. The next morning some of us went to Big Daddy's for breakfast and I had fry jacks which were kinda like doughnut texture but went really well with the bean paste stuff or with maple syrup. Both of us were going out to Altun-Ha and the Community Baboon Sanctuary and the American guy joined us on that too. Altun-Ha is a Mayan city still being excavated so was small compared to the other ones we'd been to. After that we went to the Community Baboon Sanctuary and turns out baboons in Belize are actually howler monkeys, so no red-assed primates running round. But the howler monkeys were soo cute. I had a banana in my bag that I had planned on eating before getting to the monkeys but the guide said to keep some so we could feed them! We'd thought we'd stay behind the fence and next thing the guy was climbing through it - I managed to rip my trousers on the barbed wire! All of a sudden there was a monkey walking towards us and then we noticed the 10 other ones up the tree! There were two mummy ones with babies, one of which was only 10 days old so it looked like a wee mutant. We took some banana each and the monkeys came to life when they saw that. One was trying to climb my leg to get the banana it was so cute. So I broke off a bigger piece to make into smaller pieces so could get a photo of it on my leg and next thing it climbed up my leg and grabbed the big bit of banana out of my hand and dropped back to the ground and gave me a look as if to say you didn't really think I was going to take the small bit did you? Silly tourist! Only thing was they were covered in ants so ended up having ants crawling on us. I had one of them hanging in the tree licking the banana off my fingers while it held onto my hand was pretty cool.

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Comments

[Katrina]

rach? what's immirgation? and mabye? are they Reindeer?.....oh my god and panick?? The other two I can kinda forgive as typos but panick? That's a good one!