Blogs from San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize, Central America Caribbean - page 3

Advertisement


My first full day in Belize and I must admit I really do like it. The vibe of the country is quite strange; it has a Latin American feel to it, but with a British/Caribbean mix. I was a little disappointed that I could no longer practise trying to speak some Spanish as Belize's official language is English, the only country in Central America. The people of Belize do speak Spanish though, but obviously with me being English it was easier to communicate with my native language. I learnt that Belize was originally part of the British Empire and from 1862 to 1973, its name was British Honduras. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1981, retaining the British Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. It was weird having Belize currency too with a younger ... read more
Cave Tubing
Sleeping Accommodaton
SAM_2928


We were out of wifi range for a few days. It was kind of nice though. We are back in Caye Caulker now, but I will talk about our trip to San Ignacio or as the locals like to call it, Cayo. While we were there we visited the largest ruin in Belize called Caracol. The word Caracol means snail in Mayan. This is a fairly newly discovered ruin and only a small percentage has been uncovered. The city of Caracol defeated the city of Tikal to eventually become the most powerful Mayan empire of its time. On the way there, we stopped at a beautiful huge cave called Rio Frio. It's a dry cave and we had a few minutes to walk around and take photos. On the way back from the ruins we stopped ... read more
Cave Canoeing at Barton Creek
Keel Billed Toucan At the Belize Zoo
Jaguar at the Belize Zoo


Om te beginnen een heel goed 2013 toegewenst! De wereld is niet vergaan ondanks het aflopen van de Mayakalender, iets waar men zich in Belize redelijk bewust van was. Na de vorige update 3 weken de jungle in geweest. Voor een dagje terug in de stad, dus een korte update deze keer. De rest van de tijd gaat op aan boodschappen doen en voorbereiding. Na Advanced Navigation 15 dagen projecten gedaan in Elijio Panti National Park. De locaties die we de vorige keer hebben bezocht waren aan een opknapbeurt toe, en dat is goed gelukt.Met de groep en een aantal locals hebben we een aantal palappas gebouwd, tuinschuurtjes belizian style zeg maar. Met al het aanwezige talent in de groep aan een stuk doorgewerkt. Op eerste kerst na dat is. Voor de britten is kerst HET ... read more


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! ... read more
Moar Tapir!
Red Deer
Flock of Turtles


Denk jungle, denk Belize, denk tropisch. De eerste gewaarwording als je uit de auto komt is een muur van warmte en een constante plaag van muskieten... Dat was in ieder geval mijn verwachting. De werkelijkheid is dat Belize op het noordelijk halfrond ligt en het december is. En dus winter. Overdag is alles lekker zolang je niet in de zon loopt. Iets wat niet heel moeilijk is in de jungle met alle bladeren. 'sAvonds is het zo nu en dan te koud om te slapen, voor de volgende jungletrip neem ik mijn wollen trui mee. De muskieten komen alleen rond de avond tevoorschijn. En zijn eigenlijk amper lastig, zolang de huid bedekt blijft. En dat is in verband met de temperatuur geen probleem ;) De eerste stop in de jungle is Elijio Panti visitorcentre, vlakbij San ... read more
Alle tassen van 25 kg inladen
En dit is een kleintje..
Onder een zelf gemaakt afdakje, eerste solonight


Hi all (we are back in Engilish speaking country) Just a quick post to let you all know that we are alive and well. Internet in Guatamala was dodgy at best. We have had a really great time though when able we will get some photos up. After terry winging and whining for a couple of days (after mearly losing about 90% of his bodily fluids into the local sewage system) we made it through to Antigua, A beautiful city that it would be very easy to fall in love with, far more art, culture, etc. Stumbled up the volcano which was strangely reminimcent of the ones at home although larger. The multiple museum complex is a must for any vistor. We made the long drive through to flores, a bit strange driving past the army ... read more


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 ... read more


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


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
Field near ATM
Penthouse
Sunset from penthouse


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
Top of Caracol
Caracol- deep in the jungle
Maya Faces




Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 6; qc: 102; dbt: 0.0714s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.3mb