Lovin Belize!

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The plan was to take a bus to the Belize border like the tickets we had bought explained, but when we lugged our bags down the road to their office, they said that not enough people had paid to go so they werent going at all! Thanks for telling us geez!! So we snaked our way past more people trying to scam us and caught a ride to the bus station in Santa Elena, next to Flores. We ended up pay Q30 each (like 5-6 US dollars) to the Belize border. What we didnt expect was that the bus that we were taking was a local trans so that meant stopping every 20ft to pick someone up which made being crammed inside the bus even more fun!! We finally got to the border and crossing over went very smoothly thank god!

I knew I was gonna love Belize when the taxi station was playing Michael Jackson on the radio!! Our taxi driver lady was super cool, offering to stop on the way to San Ignacio to drink some cold water!! Talk about hospitality! She dropped us off at the bus station and we didnt really know what to do from there. A guy walked up and said he would help us find a cheap hotel, show us around town and help us to reserve some tours... So we hesitantly went with him and he brought us to the Plaza Hotel. private room/bath with a view of the town below for $25. Better than I was expecting!! He showed us some great places to eat and then walked us through town... The town has a very relaxed, easy feeling which is just what we needed!
The next morning our guide Mercedes took us on a 2.5hr canoe paddle up the river next to town. We didnt know that we (meaning Otto) would be doing the paddle!!! Felt bad for him because i know it wasnt easy... but the scenery was beautiful. We saw a bunch of Iguanas, lots of exotic birds and the river was so peaceful and beautiful! We finally made it up to the Medicine Trail, and went on a walk through the jungle and saw all kinds of plants and trees that they use for all kinds of things -- headaches, stomach aches, making rubber, glue, healing rashes and burns etc. Very interesting spot!! The paddle down stream was much easier thank god, got to see lots of bats in little caves too!!
That night we ate at HANNAH'S, which I had heard great things about, which were all true!! Delicious indian food, with just as good of a price! Was about a 1 minute walk from our hotel too! Mmm belikin beer!
The next morning we met our guide Renan outside and he took us to ATM cave! Something that I had been definetly looking forward too! It took about 1 hour to get there, and the first hour or so of the walk was in the jungle walking in and out of the river. Finally getting to the cave, the water was so clean and pretty! We put on our lit helmets and swam on in! It took us about an hour weaving and swimming around rocks and seeing lots of Stalagmites (spelling?) and beautiful rock formations. Our guide was AWESOME! Explained everything so well to us! We eventually started to climb, and that was when Renan told us to take off our shoes and keep our socks on to preserve the artifacts inside the cave. We started seeing hundreds of broken pots and clay formations. Amazing to think that those things are from like 500AD!!! As we continued walking through the cave, we saw skulls and lots of bone pieces scattered around. At the end we saw a full body skeleton -- what they believe to be a 13-14yr old girl sacraficed between 450-500AD. They call her the Crystal Maiden. So amazing@!! I had heard so much about the ATM cave, but words cannot even describe actually being inside of it seeing all those artifacts!!

That night, we had dinner from a street vendor which was delicious! And super cheap so even better!! The country was getting ready for Independace Day so they had a lot of bands playing and a big parade so it was cool to see all that too on our last night there!! Heading back to Guatemala tomorrow!

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