Blogs from San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize, Central America Caribbean

Sunday morning, 7 am, and we can hear African drumming drifting along the beach, Garifuna drumming to be precise. We are in Hopkins, a village set up by slaves who had escaped from the sugar plantations. Hopkins is now a centre for Garifuna drumming, a tradition that the slaves brought with them from Africa. Our little guest house is on the beach and in the heat of the day we are able to stay cool beneath the coconut palms. Small boats set out from the beach every day to fish on the reef, 20 miles out to sea. The fishermen stay away for two or three nights, camping on the reef's sandbar islands. The beach bars all sell fresh fish dishes – red snapper is the only fish we actually recognise! Also fishing here are brown ... read more

Mon 12-Tues 13 November - Day 17 to 18 - San Ignacio After a light breakfast at the hotel we left the hotel at 10.00am to catch a fast ferry back to the mainland. This only took 35 minutes. Taxis then took us to the bus station to catch the local bus – no air conditioning but plenty of breeze. The locals hopped on and off the bus as we stayed on for 3 hours. We continue on to San Ignacio referred to as "Cayo" by the locals, this agricultural centre is also known to be the 'adventure' and 'nature' capital of Belize. The surrounding jungle, wildlife, waterfalls, rivers and caves, have created the ideal location for the numerous optional excursions that are available, from canoeing downriver and tubing through caves, to visiting the famous caves ... read more

San Ignacio: Our First Belizean Destination On the 7th of January of 2018 we (Cheryl, Chuck, and Leila) flew from Minneapolis to Belize City with a stop in Chicago and plane change in Houston. We flew with Southwest for $500 per person. This as well as the last time we flew to Belize the flights departed Minneapolis at 6 in the morning, which means you need to be to the airport at a lovely 4 am, making for a long day of travel. Remember to focus on the warm weather to come! We arrive to Belize City at 4:40 pm, go through immigration, get checked baggage, go through customs, and head to the car rental company. Happily, this all went quite quickly. Get the rental and go like a bat out of hell to get to ... read more

My first journey outside of Trump's America has gone very well so far. The day has been another long one, and it's not ever very late at the moment. I'm in my bed, writing this blog post for you fine people, and the large dogs are barking outside my windows. Welcome to Belize! First off, I would not recommend flying into Belize Airport on Saturday. At all. There are planes arriving every 30-45 minutes, which means that they never get through getting one group through immigration control before another group is already here. We found this out the hard way. From the time we deplaned - on the tarmac, mind you - to the time I picked up my bag after immigration control and then went through customs was about 75 minutes. And they had 8 ... read more

After the four of us catch an early taxi to the Roatan airport, we head through security for a brief wait, before walking outside and boarding our 12-person puddle jumper to Belize City. We've never been on such a small plane, but sitting directly behind the pilot and looking at all the instrumentation and watching the co-pilot nod off for an hour was a bit unnerving. Luckily the skies were blue and the ride was smooth, it was almost like being on a tour as the plane flies quite low, although you certainly feel every bit of turbulence in every cloud as you fly through. We land in Belize City, meet up with the 2nd half of our crew, Steve, Anya, and Mel's brother Trevor. Make it through customs, pick up our minivan rental car, and ... read more