Belize forever

Belize City, Belize

This was supposed to be a quick trip into Belize, just to check things out and renew our Guatemala/El Salvador visas.  Six days later and we are still here...

The trip from Flores was quick, inexpensive and comfortable, aboard a small bus, although it did leave at the ridiculous hour of 5AM.  The only glitch was an unexpected delay at the border with some sort of mechanical issue with the bus.  Fortunately, once we were again on our way, our driver virtually flew through Belize and we made the 10:30AM water-taxi in Belize city with 5 minutes to spare.


The water taxi gave us a 45-minute thrill-ride to Caye Caulker, one of the very Caribbean-like islands just offshore, all within the huge reef system that runs down the entire coast of Central America.  Laid-back is the only way to describe this dusty island.  There are no cars, only bikes and golf carts, none of which are really necessary since you can literally walk around the entire town in about 15 minutes.  Lots of small hotels, restaurants and dive shops everywhere.  One of the hardest things for us to get used to is the fact that the main language here is English.  Oh yeah, it is also really hot and humid - without the sea breeze you basically stew in your own juices here - the national pastime seems to be sitting in the shade with a cold drink.  Just the sort of place to completely relax.

We really like Caye Caulker.  After a couple of days of R and R, we started investigating the local attractions.  First up was a snorkeling trip out to the reef.  This was probably some of the best snorkeling we have done to-date - lots of fish and live coral and an interesting encounter with some sharks and rays.  Our backs are a bit sun-burned but it was worth it.

 

 

Next, we took an excursion to a river on the mainland, where you can ride on inflated tubes through a natural limestone cave system.  What a great way to do some spelunking.  The water in the river was wonderfully cool in the otherwise hot, steamy jungle - very refreshing!

We had not planned on it, but we somehow ended up also paying a short visit to some local Mayan ruins. Nothing as spectacular as Copan or Tikal, but they had their own unique charm, somewhat ruined (if you will pardon the pun) by the intense attacks of the biting insects - probably why the Mayans left this city?

Our planned 3-day stay on the Caye got extended to 5 days - it is all too easy to get sucked into this lifestyle.  But we finally made the decision to start making our way back to El Salvador.  We have a open-dated pre-paid return ticket on the bus to Flores from Belize city, so our first step was to take the morning water-taxi from Caye Caulker to Belize city, where were to meet the bus at around 10AM.  That was this morning and the bus did not show.  We checked with the local office and they said "Yeah, they called to say they weren't coming today - don't know why.  Probably be here tomorrow.  You could get a credit for the ticket and take the competition's bus this afternoon, except it isn't running today either."  Very helpful.

So here we are, at a very nice little guest house, about a block from the bus station, taking the opportunity to explore Belize city a little.  After about an hour, we have seen about as much as we want to see of this place, so I am using my time productively updating this blog.

Tomorrow, with any luck, we will finally be on our way back across Central America.

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