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Tonight I am stuck in Belize City. I was planning to travel to Caye Caulker today, but I unfortunately arrived too late to catch the boat to the island. The last couple of days have been pretty interesting, though.
I arrived in Tulum from Cancun at around 8 PM and checked into Hostel Tulum, which quite a nice establishment with very friendly staff and clean bathrooms with hot water. I met quite a few people there, including a Canadian guy named Juan that has similar plans to mine. I am currently travelling with him. That night was fairly uneventful, Juan, a guy from France, and I went to a taqueria and had some pretty good tacos, then we went to a restaurant to have a few beers. We sat around and BSed for a few hours then went back to the hostel and went to bed.
The next morning, I woke up and took the free shuttle bus to the beach and ruins in Tulum. There were quite a few travellers from my hostel and the other hostel in town with me, including Juan. The beach is absolutely incredible, although I was disappointed that it was cloudy, as it had been for almost my entire stay so far. We climbed around on the rocks near the beach for awhile, because rumor has it that if you climb far enough over on the rocks, you can get into the ruins for free, although I didn't go far enough to find out. We entered the ruins through the official entrance and saw them, although they were not that spectacular compared to Chichen Itza. However, the location of the ruins on a cliff overlooking the beach easily makes up for it. I have some beautiful pictures of this vista. I swam a little bit in the ocean, which was nice.
In the afternoon, Juan and I decided to do some snorkelling in Gran Cenote. A cenote is basically a sinkhole that is filled with water. This particular cenote has some underwater caves, along with many fish. The snorkelling was fun; I'd never done it before, so it was cool to have that new experience, especially since I will likely be snorkelling in Caye Caulker to see the excellent reef that they have. After the snorkelling, Juan and I got a bite to eat at another taqueria, which was even better (and cheaper) than the first.
In the evening, we went to a bar/hotel on the beach that had an African band playing. This band was absolutely incredible. They had several different drummers, along with two people playing xylophone-type instruments. The pace and rhythm of their music was absolutely amazing. The bar itself was pretty nice, too. It's located directly on the beach and had a pool right in the middle of it. The drink prices were reasonable also, with beer being 20 pesos and there was no cover. Later in the night, a DJ playing hits and dance music came on, who was pretty good. At some point, some sort of dancers on stilts with flags came out and started doing some incredible dance moves and just generally making a show of it. It was really a spectacle.
Today has been spent in transit via bus to Belize. We crossed the Belize-Mexico border and had to be dropped off in a little town called Orange Walk because the bus we were riding did not have enough passengers continuing to Belize City. We had to wait for the next bus to Belize City for around an hour, although the stop did allow us to eat and take in this interesting little town. We finally arrived in Belize City and we are staying in the North Front Guest House. We are going to take the first available ferry to Caye Caulker tomorrow. Sorry about the no pictures on this entry, I didn't want to take my camera with me to this hotel where I am using the internet because the neighborhood is kind of sketchy; we are taking a taxi back to our accomodations.
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NathanBelize
non-member comment
hey man!
hey, belize is a wicked country man, enjoy it. i lived in a small village called "Indian Church" outside the ruins of Lamanai for a couple months. beautiful place, right on the new river. while out on Caye caulker, look for popeye the painter, wicked guy, does neat little painitngs he sells on the beach. also check out Wish Willies and tell him Nathan from north carolina said hi! all the best, enjoy caulker, beautiful island. !