Belize - San Ignacio, Dangriga and Hopkins

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David here...

We got up early and left the wonderful Sun Breeze hotel at 08:00 and walked down to the little town of El Cruce, where the road from Flores splits, with the left hand going to El Remate and Tikal and the right fork going to Melchor de Mencos. We arrived at the fork and a bus came past pretty much straight away and took us to the border.

We jumped off and spoke to one of the Coyotes there (money changer) who told us that you do not need Queztales to leave but will need Belizian dollars to get into Belize. We believed him and changed our remaining Quetzales for dollars and walked the remaining way to the border control, where we got our departure stamps and had to pay Q20 each to leave. We had to pay in Belize dollars as we had changed or spent all our remaining Guatemalan money. We then proceeded over to the Belize border where we got through very fast, even though we declared a bottle of rum, which had the guard stumped for a bit before he waved us through. We didn't have to pay anything despite what we were told, though we believe it is expensive to leave.

We got into a taxi from the border point to the bus station at Benque Viejo Del Carmen where we waited for 30 minutes for a bus to take us to San Ignacio. The first one to turn up broke down a few yards down the street, so we had to jump on the next one, which got us into San Ignacio after about 30 minutes. The driver didn't realise that we were trying to get off of the back of the bus as it was so packed, so pulled away before I could get off. With the help of most of the passengers he stopped for me to get off, but then pulled away again before Suzanne could get off. Again all the other passengers got him to stop and Suzanne eventually managed to get off and allow the bus to pull away. So far, our first impressions of Belizian people were favourable as everyone had been so friendly and this was backed up by the first hotel we went into, the Mallorca. The lovely lady showed us a nice clean room, but at BZ$60 (US$30) it was out of our price range so she gave us some advice on where else to try. Both Suzanne and I looked at a couple of other hotels, but none of them were any good, so we went back to the Mallorca and managed to get the price lowered enough for us to feel happy about the price so we took it.

We got settled in and headed out into town, spending about an hour walking round and then another hour on t'internet catching up with blog stuff and doing some research. We then headed back to the hotel to relax for a little while. San Ignacio is a little touristy but not full on and is quite small and manageable. It has a good number of bars and restaurants for it's size and we liked it from the off. That night we decided to go to Martha's for something to eat as the place looked very romantic with candles on the tables and local artworks on the walls. The service was brilliant and the ambiance perfect, however the food just didn't match up to everything else. Not that it was bad, quite tasty really, but not out of this world. We had Burritos and Nachos. We then went back to the hotel to read and get an early night, which was tricky as there was a bar behind the hotel that was playing loud music until fairly late, but not so late that it was a problem.

The next day we had cereal for breakfast (the hotel has a fridge and kitchen for guests use) and headed out to take a look at Cahal Pech, the Mayan ruins about 30 minutes walk out of town. As we stepped out of the hotel, guess who we bumped into? Yep, Ariele was also in town. I'm sure she is stalking us. We caught up with events with her and then walked out to the ruins together. The walk was easy and the ruins and museum were worth a look. Suzanne and I stayed there to read for the afternoon as it was cool in the shade there. We met up with Ariele later on for dinner and went to Mr Greedy's Pizza, which was always busy. The pizza was really good, as were the onion rings. It was also our first taste of Belikin beer after our 7 day dry period. We had the normal beer and stout, and to be perfectly honest, it wasn't up to much and comes in small bottles and is expensive. We spent the rest of the evening on the hotel balcony, listening to music and drinking beer with Ariele.

The next morning we set off for Hopkins, a small town on the coast. A bus turned up straight away to take us to Belmopan and then another bus was waiting that took us to Dangriga. We arrived at 11:15 and found that the next bus to Hopkins wasn't until 17:15 so decided to stay the night in town. After a quick walk round we decided to stay at Vals Backpacker hostel, mainly as it had a good book exchange though for 2 beds it was almost as much as a normal double room in most hotels. The dorm was O.K. as there was only 1 other guest, though the lockers, and thus the room, smelt a bit funny. There was nothing much to do in Dangriga and we found that there were too many people wanting to stop us and ask for money, or try to get us to go on a tour, or the inevitable selling of drugs. To be honest, it got a bit much for us, so we ended up at the hostel for the bulk of the afternoon and evening, reading on the balcony and drinking beer.

After a surprisingly good nights sleep on the air mattress at Val's we headed off for the morning bus to Hopkins at 10:30. We arrived after 45 minutes and found the place to be about a mile long, but quite manageable. We stayed at the Yugadah Inn as it was cheap. The room was basically a double bed with a fan in it with a shared bathroom, but it was fine for us. We didn't do much during our 2 nights stay here really. Wandered round the town, stopped off at Thongs cafe for sandwiches and drinks, sat on the beach reading and drinking beer. Overall it was very relaxing and it was good to stop and relax for a little bit after all of the running around we had done recently.

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