Blogs from Belize City, Belize District, Belize, Central America Caribbean - page 6

Day 0 - Leaving in the Morning After planning this trip for a couple months it is finally here. We get picked up in the morning at 4am to go to the airport and will land in Belize City around 3pm tomorrow. The first destination, San Ignacio, is 3+ hours away so we are planning to stay in Belize City tomorrow night and head west in the morning. We've picked out the Belize Bayview Guest House for tomorrow night and will share pictures, stories and our next destinations as soon as we can in the next couple days.... read more

Merry Christmas and Happy New year to you all. Sorry we haven't been in touch as regularly as we should have been - as always it has been a pretty hectic time. We hope you are enjoying a lovely and hot Australian summer back home - it has been absolutely freezing over here the past couple of days, infact it got to -6C the other night. Not sure what the hell is going on with the weather - so much for Global Warming, this is supposed to be Florida!! Anyway, our Christmas and New Year were spent is a unique, if not strange manner. We had some Australian friends, Rich Aplin and his girlfriend Kim, make the long trip over to spend the holidays with us. It was great to see some familiar faces again, especially ... read more

Arriving in Belize City it was just as we remembered it from 3 years earlier. Slightly run down, bit dodgy but chilled. We tried one hotel which proved expensive for a small room. Then we went to Isabels guest house which was above a chemist next to the swing bridge. We paid US$33 for a huge room containing 5 double beds. Above downtown it was quite noisy but still very cool. Merge met us at the hotel. She looked the same. Her Grandson Glen was with her and he looked older. Not sure what to do we decided to go to Altun Ha, a Mayan ruin 50 km away from Belize City. We went down to the taxi stand and negotiated a taxi for US$60 (he had started at US$75). The driver was lovely and we ... read more

This was once the Caribbean capital until Hurricane Hattie came along on a gusty Halloween night in 1961, Hattie huffed and puffed and she blew most of it away, since 1961 they have successfully rebuilt most of it but felt but the soul had been blown away to, it was only wise to move the capital of Belize more inland to a place called Belmopan. The Macal River runs right through the city and there is supposedly a funky north side of the river, full of overpriced tourist shops, internet cafe, art galleries and food markets. Then there is the depressing downtown south side of the river, where every day I noticed the same man whose expression and hairdo looked like he had been shocked with 50000 volts of electricity, he sat on the grassy river ... read more

Well, well, well, I have managed to suvive the ordial that was Newark Airport where in a hot tempered 'que conductor' (actual title) came very close to driving me completely insane with her constant shouting of orders. She very closly resembled some kind of South American terrior. Following very little sleep indeed and very little to eat over the past few days I have found myself in a little cafe entering my very first blog. The weather here is amazing, constant and unforgiving in the most fanastic of ways. The people are kind of a mixed bag, always quick to offer help in any situation, but equally quick to ask for payment for the service! The best moments thus far have include a browse around the city on an early sunday morning with an enlightened Rasta ... read more