Blogs from San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize, Central America Caribbean
First day back in Belize
Published: May 24th 2012Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
May 23rd 2012
After 9 months of waiting, I have returned to Belize. I'm so happy to be back here. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I felt overwhelmingly happy. Last year was my first year working for the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project. Even though Belize was foreign to anything I knew, I felt welcomed. Now after getting settled into my house in San Ignaico for the second time, I feel a sense of home. After relaxing for a minute, I walked down to the main street and immediately ran into familiar, smiling faces. Becoming re-acquainted with this town and its populace is exciting. Already I have met a childhood friend of the project's director and had a pleasant conversation over a slice of pizza at my favorite bar, Greedy's (if you ever come to San ... read more
May 11th 2012
This is two days in one since yesterday both Dave and I were sick. It seems we ate a bad apple in Tikal. We postponed our trip to ATM until today. Luckily Pacz let us change dates a 7AM the day of the trip when we called from our hotel. We both went back to sleep until checkout time then packed up to move to our next hotel. We had a three hour wait until we could check into our next hotel, Martha's Hotel so we went around the corner and did our laundry. When we finally got into our room we went right back to bed. We had dinner later at the hotel restaurant, then went back to bed. This morning we made it to the ATM caves. This was really fun. We had to ... read more
San Ignacio
Published: April 25th 2012Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
April 21st 2012
Just spent a great couple of days in San Ignacio on our way through to Guatemala. It's a mountain town with a river running through it, which is shallow enough to wade across but with some deep parts to swing and drop into. We spent a hour or so just chilling out down there watching the world go by and people taking a dip to cool off fully clothed, it's that hot you'd dry off in about 10 mins! There is loads to do here like the ATM Caves, Caracol Mayan Ruins, Jungle Stuff, Zip Lining, Bartons Caves, loads of Waterfalls, Day trips to Guatemala for Flores and Tikal, horse riding, river tubing....... The list goes on...on our budget we had to pick wisely so we opted for a bit ... read more
Western Belize: Actun Tunichil Muknal
Published: March 5th 2012Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
March 5th 2012
I am on the chicken bus traveling from Belize back to Guatemala. It is true, people bring chickens on the chicken bus. They travel to the market where they sell them as food. I have been vegetarian for a very long time so having these chickens sit next to me on a bus, did nothing for my appetite. So this woman just got on the bus with 4 or 5 chickens. She has 4 or 5 birds that she is holding upside down in her left hand. I think they are chickens. One is looking at me like I am about to eat it. I guess we all look the same to chickens. They can’t tell the vegetarians from the meat eaters. Today I was a mile deep underground, in an underground river cave. It was ... read more
Tubing through caves and visiting Tikal
Published: January 18th 2012Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
January 17th 2012
We took our first Belize bus from Belize City to San Ignacio which took 3 hours. The journey was a funny and also painful one, the buses they use in Belize are the old American style ones and most are quite colourful as you would expect in Belize. The whole way we had music pumping in the bus with various reggae beats but after an hour we realised it was probably the same CD but on repeat. It was quite strange that the standard of the bus was pretty bad but they are all kitted out with decent sound systems! Also the seats where old and very upright so with the roads being typical Belizean roads and very bumpy it doesn’t help your back after a few hours...all part of the experience. We arrived at the ... read more
Days 5-6 Welcome to the jungle
Published: February 7th 2012Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
January 14th 2012
After 3 nights I had to leave the beautiful tropical island of Caye Caulker and head inland to the jungle. I was heading to San Ignacio, not far from the border with Guatemala to stay in a jungle lodge – Barton Creek outpost. To get there I had to catch a speed boat, a bus and then a 4x4 taxi to the resort itself.The outpost is in the middle of nowhere in the jungle bordering a national park and it took 45 mins to get there from the paved road across dirt track that was so bad it shook the brakes loose on the 4x4 and we had to stop for 15 mins while the driver repaired it! The outpost itself consists of a main lodge, (thankfully with a bar) and a cabana (cabin) a separate ... read more
Days 6 and 7
Published: December 19th 2011Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
December 19th 2011
Today is Monday, December 19th.............a day of rest. I'm going to back up a couple of days to Saturday when Jim, Donna, Dave and I left for the mainland. We took a short, easy flight from San Pedro to Belize City, where we were met by our guide, Jovan Pascascio from Belize Jungle Trek, (www.belizejungletrek.com). We found Jovan through his website, and highly recommend his tour services to anyone coming to Belize. Our itinerary included horsebacking riding through the jungle for the girls and an ATV ride through the jungle for the guys. We travelled by van from Belize City aproximately and hour and a half to the center of Belize. Jovan kept us informed of our surroundings the entire way, which made the trip seem so fast and easy. Here I must apologize to our ... read more
On to San Ignacio
Published: October 28th 2011Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
October 19th 2011
19th Oct ’11 Caye Caulker to San Ignacio, Belize Left Caye Caulker at lunchtime to get the boat across to Belize ‘city’ – which is more like a collection of ramshackle huts! I volunteered to go with the bags to the bus station and Aaron (young aussie lad with dreadlocks) offered to stay with me and help guard the bags. We took 2 separate taxis and my driver gave one of his lady friends a lift and dropped her off first. He told me he has lots of lady friends!!!! We piled all the bags up by the bus station gates and waited for the rest of the group who were walking over. While we were waiting this rasta man comes up to Aaron and I and offers him a ball of dope for $2, ... read more
San Ignacio, and the ATM Cave
Published: October 9th 2011Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
October 8th 2011
So our time was up in Caye Caulker, and it was time to head off to mainland Belize. San Ignacio was to be our next stop, and it was right across the country, in West Belize, near the border of Guatemala. So, we got up early for the boat to Belize City, and from there, we needed to pick up the bus all the way to San Ignacio. Upon arrival in Belize City, we took a 5-10 minute taxi ride to the bus station. This was pretty scary. The cab itself was falling apart at the seams, and I wasn’t sure we would even make it to the bus station in this poor excuse for a car. This of course would have been a disaster. It seems Belize City is not the sort of place you ... read more
Last Day in San Ignacio
Published: October 8th 2011Central America Caribbean » Belize » Cayo District » San Ignacio
September 22nd 2011
Today we had a very relaxing day. We slept in until about 8 or 8:30a, so we didn't book a tour or anything. Which was okay since my shoulders and arms were pretty sore. We had some breakfast - scrambled eggs, fruit and toast, and pretty much hung out reading and playing cards. We did spend some time trying to figure out where we wanted to go next. Originally we were thinking of heading to Placencia, but upon talking to Theo and some of the guests, we decided that it would be a lot of time on a bus for only 3 nights there, and then we would also have to spend the time to take the bus back up to the cayes. So we decided to head back to Belize City and take a water ... read more
