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Published: March 20th 2020
We got up early again today for another beautiful sunrise. We had breakfast at our hotel before heading northwest to the ruins of Xunantunich near San Ignacio. It is right near the border with Guatamala. It was about a 3 hour drive with lots of road construction on the Western Highway. Once there we had to ride the hand cranked ferry across the river. Pete stayed in the truck to drive it on and off the ferry, but passengers were required to be out of the vehicle. Once on the other side it was a 1 mile drive to the Xunantunich Archaeological Reserve. We paid our entry fee and then headed in to look at the information center and then to the ruins. This one was larger than the ones yesterday with more intact structures. We were able to climb to the top of the largest structure. Along the back side of the largest structure there was an area of jungle and we spotted some howler monkeys. We made our way through the entire site and then headed back to the truck for our short drive back to cross the river. The guy cranking the ferry said it is very slow
and few tourists right now. Usually there are several hundred visitors and today there were just a handful of small groups. He also said that the schools would be closing tomorrow for several weeks as Belize is trying to make sure that the Corona is not spreading. We have not heard about it really at all here, but we did hear that the resorts have started to feel the impact of all of the cancelations and they are sending staff home. After the ferry crossed the river we drove across the street into the small town of San Jose' Succotz to eat at Benny's Kitchen. It was a very nice place on one of the back streets in town. The guidebook we have been using made the recommendation that this is the place to go in town. We never would have looked for it or found it if we had not already known the name of it. The food was excellent. Pete and Sarah had the shrimp and thought it was some of the best that they had ever had. After lunch we headed back down the Western Highway to the Hummingbird Highway. We stopped at St. Herman's Blue Hole
National Park for a dip in the inland Blue Hole. We were the only ones at the park. The water was crystal clear with some small fish. Pedro was the first one into the pool. He said that the fish started nibbling on his legs and so the kids did not want to go in right away. Kasie went in and then after much convincing Sriracha finally went into the pool too. We swam for about 20-30 minutes and then we headed back down the Hummingbird Highway a very short drive to a small dairy that was making ice cream and other dairy products. We had some black cherry ice cream and cheese cake ice cream. The dairy had about 20 cows according to the guy working there. There was a guy there that was buying several jugs of milk and some other dairy products. He bought out their supply of milk that they had available. He says that when he comes by he always stocks up as he lives more than an hour away and this is the only place to get any fresh milk.
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Jodi Olmen
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Travel Issues
US now has Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory in effect. Canadian border is closed and traffic to/from Mexico will be restricted. Hoping you get home soon!