Hot & Humid Belize/Guatemala

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Hi Everybody!
When we arrived in Belize City, the shuttle was not there to meet us. Since it was a Sunday, there were few options. We finally hired a taxi to take us to San Ignacio. He drove very fast but seemed to be careful. We had reservations there at a small guest house, the Casa Blanca, We had read that this guest house was awarded the best small hotel in Belize. We were very glad that we had paid extra for AC. The town was small with narrow streets and wooden buildings. It looked like an Old West town. The streets were very dusty. As we entered the town, we rode on a bridge over the Makal River. Many people were in the river cooling off--some in swim suits and some in their clothes. This morning, we walked around the town and I took pictures. I took a couple of a church and walked to the Hawksworth Bridge, the only suspension bridge in Belize, to take pictures of it. Walt had sat down in the median by the church. When I turned around from taking pictures of the bridge, a native was in my face yelling at me. At first, I couldn't understand what his anger was about. He kept demanding something. I finally figured out that he wanted me to delete the photos of the church because he was standing way to the right of the church and thought that I was taking his photo. He wasn't in any of my pictures. I deleted one to shut him up. I really thought that he was going to steal my camera. He was very aggressive. I didn't know whether to yell for Walt or what. I walked around him and he continued to yak at me. I called Walt's name as soon as I could see him. He got up and the guy walked back to the church. It left me with the feeling that I didn't want to stay any longer in San Ignacio.
We hired a taxi to take us to the border. The hotel told us how much to pay. They tried to charge us 5 times that amount. We finally found an honest driver. He drove us to the border. On the way, he stopped and picked up another couple. That shook me up but it was ok. At the border, we paid close to $40 to get out of Belize. We went through departure and immigration. We did not know that they didn't stamp our passport in Guatemala. I am sure that we will have to pay a fine or something when we get ready to leave. We hired another driver for $70 to take us to the Tikal National Park. At the park, there are 3 hotels. We ended up staying in the most expensive one - just $75. It has no AC, no tv, no electricity except from 6-10 PM and 6-8 AM. It does have a nice restaurant and pool. We went to the most important ruins in Central America inside the park today. The park covers 222 square miles. The ruins are surrounded by jungle like forests. Monkeys and colorful birds are in the trees. We actually saw a pizote in the park. It is a mammal with a striped tail like a raccoon, but it looked like a weasel. The tail was long and looked like a monkey's tail. The ruins were very impressive but didn't compare with Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We had to climb hundreds of steps through the jungle to get to the ruins. Belize and Guatemala are extremely dusty. We went over the worst roads that I have ever seen today. They were full of huge potholes - some went across the entire road. The dust was so bad that it covered all of the trees and crops. As we were traveling, we often would meet a cow, donkey, or sheep in the road heading for us. There don't seem to be a lot of tourists. Less than half seem to be Americans. I met a couple today from New Zealand and two guys from Germany. In the morning, we are catching the only bus to Santa Elena. We will go on from there to Antigua. The countryside reminds me of Mexico. Many houses don't have glass windows. They have openings with wooden doors that close over them. It is very hot here and humid. I just took a cold shower.

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Photos

Tikal National Park
Temple

Tikal Nat'l Park
This was an unusual tree that looked like a snowflake on top. It was very tall.

Comments

[Samdu]

Everette, you're the MOST adventurous person I know. Always look forward to your next blog.