Summer continued...

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Right. So. Harry Potter! It was everything I'd hoped it would be and more, as they say! Absolutely amazing. I had dragged Christopher and Eilish along with me (neither who know anything about HP...Eilish had the audacity to ask me who Hagrid was!!!!! These children cannot surely be related to me...) and they were suitably impressed too with Hogwarts and Hogsmeade! The ride in Hogwarts is wicked, well scary flying on a broomstick with Dementors and such (I may have had to close my eyes briefly). And Hogsmeade is exactly like it should be...although featuring shops from Diagon Alley as well which is just plain confusing! We had lunch in the 3 Broomsticks, complete with Butterbeer - delicious. We went into Ollivanders for a "demonstration" and of course Christopher and I were picked to have our wands choose us. Secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, I was delighted but couldn't help but feel bad for small children all standing there wanting a wand of their own... you win some, you lose some. So we spent most of our time there in that part of the park...I was unaware that it was part of the Islands of Adventure themepark, instead imagining a Disney World sized Harry Potter World! Hah! Anyway. Go. That is all.

So apart from that, the rest of the holiday in Florida was spent chilling at the pool, hanging out with the fam, eating a lot and shopping. A lot. delighted with my new purchases of electronic equipment - most especially the Kindle which is a saving grace for ye travelling types! I was supposed to be in Florida for 2 weeks only but it was so lovely to spend time with the family without interruption that I decided to stay an extra week and have one week less in Central America. Wise plan I think, wise.

All good things come to an end and with a MUCH heavier rucksack, off I went to Tampa airport for my flight back to Cancun. Honestly, I don't think I'll stop being amazed and grateful at just how easy life is outside of the Zuela. The airports are lovely and spacious and really quite pleasant. And you only have to be there 2 hours in advance! Whoop! So a relatively uneventful journey to Mexico, a bus ride into Cancun centre and a 6 hour wait for my night bus to Belize. I had briefly flirted with the idea of going straight to Guatemala and just cutting out Belize but decided to give it a go. Hmm. Bus journey entirely uneventful, not nearly as comfortable as the buses in Thailand for the overnight trips but it's a much shorter journey. At around 4am, off we all hopped off to stamp out of Mexico and into Belize. Relatively painless (apart from my poor breaking back with heavy rucksack!) experience...and off we wnet to Belize City. Now, all the guide books, people, stories on internet etc say that the city is a dump and to bypass it...my book said for those who spent more than a few hours there, it could be worthwhile. My book lied. I got in at around 6am, thought about hopping straight on another bus to San Ignacio but decided I would spend one night and it wouldn't be so bad. [e-mail]/wrong. An actual dump! I hated it. It was Sunday as well so NOTHING was open. Literally nothing. Strangely, I felt quite vulnerable there myself as well. Given that I live in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, you'd think I'd be grand...but it was sooooo quiet and that made it worse. My trusty, or perhaps not so trusty, book told me to expect to be shouted at a bit by locals and I'd have been disappointed had I not been. However, it being so, so quiet and hardly any people around, I wasn't really enjoying that so much! Anyway, in the morning I went to get a taxi to teh bus station and was wished good luck by the man organising the taxis whilst getting into a rather dubious looking car with enormous cracks all over the windshield. Pah! I'm used to stuff like that. Off I went on the chicken bus to San Ignacio. Quite a fun experience with everyone all crammed together and everything but the kitchen sink stacked at the back of the bus! A short 3 hour trip that zoomed by (reading Shantaram! It's awesome!) and I arrived in the small, dusty town of San Ignacio. Again, not much to look at from the outside but promises of exciting treks and a horse riding tour I wanted to do made it seem worthwhile. That night I met a lovely bunch of Canadian teachers who were in Belize to train up local teachers in new classroom practice. The first thing one said was "Andy Murray won the tennis!" which I knew, followed by "and what do you think about this earthquake, eh?!" Ummmmm....what earthquake?!?!! So, of course I knew about the tennis due to Facebook, but no one had bloody posted about enormous earthquake about to hit Belize, had they?! So all the lovely, exciting tours and treks had been cancelled for the duration. Except my riding tour...suspicious... After a fun dinner, I joined the teachers (with small 1 year old baby!) in their lovely hotel right at the top of the hotel for a drink. However, as I was about to leave, well...I got sick. Let's just leave it at that. Not a peaceful night, most of it spent with my head down the toilet, an earthquake on it's way...clearly Belize and I were not going to be friends. I decided to just high tail it out of there and get myself to Guate as quickly as my sick body would allow! Hah! Another relatively painless and short trip to the border, through I went and onto a shuttle bus to the lovely Flores. And back to Spanish speaking land...eek....tbc....

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Comments

[Sus]

im loving your blog weesis xxx