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Published: January 26th 2013
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After our goodbye to our Soviet-Bloc friends, we caught an early morning bus to Belize City, then to San Ignacio, our stepping stone into the next country, Guatemala. The busses are very crowded and we ended up standing, which is not a big deal, but different than I'm used to. Also different is that there are both a driver and a ticket-taker on the bus, who collects cash and checks tickets on passengers. It seems like it would be a very easy system to steal from, in my opinion, since no real record exists of who got on the bus, who paid, how much they paid, where they got off, etc. But that's the devious criminal mastermind talking, let's get back to the adventurer.
We learned that Belize has a zoo, which Eya found very exciting! I was also interested, since aminals is mah favrit. It's just that she lights up like a Christmas tree when we hears an opportunity to see lots of adorable things in close proximity to one another. I like the predators, myself, and we got to see plenty of both. I'm pretty sure one of the gators was actually a dinosaur.
I'll let the
pictures speak for the zoo. It was very entertaining and even educational. There is a particular line of perfume that jaguars enjoy immensely, and which can be used to lure them into posing for pictures, but only if it's the original, expesnive version. I'm guessing one of the ingredients is a musk. Sadly, I can't recall what the name of it was...Also, harpy eagles are pickin' sweet. The one in the pictures leapt off his perch, bounced off the netting right in front of us, then hopped back to his perch. It was pretty awesome. The parrots also knew some dirty words in spanish, and laughed in a really creepy way.
Then we got ourselves and our gear back out to the highway and hopped on another bus, all the way to the border town of San Ignacio. We were greeted upon exiting our bus by several taxi drivers vying for our business and told one of them we were interested in his hotel at the rate of about 17 dollars US per night, including WiFi but no AC. That's fine, it ain't that hot here. We then go to a nearby food vendor and get lunch, while being
Red Deer
They were only about 6 feet from the fence, very unafraid of people. eyeballed by a smallish man I'm sure was a pickpocket. He hung around the entrance to the restaurant after we went in to the open-air shack, waited there for a good 8 minutes while we ordered and recieved our food, then left when he saw we were sitting down to eat and weren't about to walk by him with our hands full of food.
The room ends up being very nice and serves us very well for some sink-laundering and sleeping. The city is gorgeous in the morning and our view ended up being pretty fantastic as well. Pictures included!
There is a freshwater river that runs through San Ignacio, so Eya and I head down for a swim. It's very shallow and a bit cold, so not too much swimming to be done, but I play with the fishes and soak my bug bites in the cold, deliciously soothing water for a little under an our. Children play on a rope swing nearby and fish use my body as a shelter from the current. One little boy has a fishing line and hook, he captures small fishes with a ziplock back, hooks them, then tosses them into
the river as bait. People build campfires on the other side of the river, thought it's still light out, I assume they're cooking.
We run into some friends from Caye Calker at the hotel and decide to make a night of it! The hawker who sold us the hotel room is playing at a nearby club with his band, so the five of us go get dinner downtown then head up the hill with some other backpackers to watch the show. Eya orders an Obama, which is a shot of white rum, a shot of dark rum, and a leeeeetle bit of citrus fruit juice. There is a drunk man trying to dance with all the girls in the group. At least twice I am called upon as a dance-partner-for-protective-reasons before we head from the outdoor bar to the concert area.
Turns our Rudy (the hawker/musician) is the entire band, and he is playing on an electric keyboard. It is entertainingly bad. One of our new friends later tells me Rudy is a Belizian Napoleon Dynamite, and this name is forever cemented in my mind along with a picture of Rudy wearing his black ballcap with "Secret Service"
written in white lettering, and the schadenfruede of listening to his concert.
Eya, myself, and our Caye Caulker friends decide to leave, telling the rest of the group we'll see them at the hotel. We talk, getting pretty deep into conversation and actually having a really good moment with our companions, talking about family, life, and other heavy subjects. We then procede to get hilariously lost. We wander through a strange neighborhood, going at least 4 blocks through residences blaring soccer and MMA matches in Spanish and English, watching stray dogs dodge around our group. When we get directions from the locals, I don't believe they're telling me the truth, as I've heard of people deliberately misleading tourists just to be jerks before. Turns out I was overly suspicious and horribly wrong. We follow the directions of someone heading the same direction and manage to rediscover our hotel.
Day two in San Igacio was a trip into history. The town is situated in annnn archaeological gold mine. There are cave tours where you can see the remnants of ancient religious ceremonies (which we skipped, they're called the ATM caves for some reason) and there are some honest to
God ancient ruins smack in the center of town. There is a historical museum that serves as a foyer into a town of some ancient sun-and-jaguar worshippers, complete with ballcourts (where the winner of a mixed soccer/basketbal game was executed and beheaded in honor of his victory) a ziggaraut or two, and plenty of slighty creepy and difficult-to-navigate rooms and staircases. Pictures are below, enjoy the views!
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