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.

{GMST}17|44.6033|N|88|01.5048|W|Caye Caulker, Belize|Caye Caulker, Belize{GEND}

Further ruination

Flores, Guatemala

Why are we in Flores, you might ask.  Flores is a town built on a small island, connected to the mainland town of Santa Elena via a two-lane causeway.  It is a very touristy place, full of hotels and restaurants, catering mainly to the budget-minded back-packer sort of tourists (of which there are very few this time of year).  While Flores is an interesting destination unto itself, the real reason most people come here is for its proximity to the Mayan ruins at Tikal.

After a relaxing afternoon in Flores, we booked a day-trip to Tikal.  This meant that a small van picked us up at 4:30AM and drove us the 1-1/4 hours to the park, where we met our guide.  This is one park that we really feel needs a guide - it is huge and there is a lot to take in.

Being here early (the park opens at 6AM) and it being extremely off-season, our little group of about 20 people had the place virtually to ourselves.


Tikal is incredible. The old city is located in the middle of a dense jungle, with only about 15% of the area being uncovered to date.  According to NASA, there are some 6000 buildings under that jungle somewhere - what we see are some of the larger acropolises and pyramids and it is apparently a struggle to keep the jungle from reclaiming those.  Exploring the site consists of hiking through the jungle from one place to another, occasionally glimpsing one of the taller edifices poking through the foliage.  Sometimes you can be right next to a huge complex and not even realize it.  When we do find ourselves at one of the huge pyramids, we can't help but climb them of course - the view out over the jungle canopy is quite unique.

And the jungle is full of wild-life.  Lots of parrots, Toucans and other birds, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, jaguars, crocodiles, etc. etc.  Always lots of animal noises around and we got to see our fair share as well.

 

Pictures cannot do justice to any of these structures, but here goes anyway...

Back in Flores, we decided to stay a couple of extra days while Susanne recovers from some sort of intestinal bug or some such - she was feeling pretty wiped out the day after our trip to Tikal, but she seems much better now.  Fortunately our room here is air conditioned and we have lots of TV channels - as good a place as any for her recuperation.  Maybe it was something she ate???

 

Since Tikal was the last place on our list of must-see spots on this trip, we were at a little bit of a loss as to where to go from here.  As it turns out, we can get quite cheap transportation from Flores to Belize city, so tomorrow we plan to leave Guatemala for a few days and rest for a few days on the beach somewhere in Belize.

{GMST}17|13.3327|N|89|37.4155|W|Tikal, Guatemala|Tikal, Guatemala{GEND}

Rio Dulce

Flores, Guatemala

Please excuse the slight delay in posting this entry - the Internet has been spotty of late...

We left Copan in Honduras at noon, via a shuttle van which was heading for Antigua.  They let us off at an intersection on the highway know as Rio Hondo, where we caught a 2nd class bus to Rio Dulce.  We were very fortunate in that the bus was just about to pull out when we arrived in Rio Hondo so we did not have to wait on the highway at all.  As a result, in spite of their best efforts to turn what should have been a 2 hour drive into a 3-1/2 hour odyssey, we still made it to Rio Dulce before dark.  Some nice stranger called our hotel for us and they sent a launch to pick us up and take us about a kilometer up the river to our lovely bungalow at the Tortugal River Lodge and Marina.

We spent 3 nights at the lodge.  This was a great place to reconnect with our cruising roots, being able to talk with some cruisers from the "other" side.  Rio Dulce is a wide, slow-moving river and virtual lake that is arguably the best hurricane hole on the east coast of Central America.  There are several marinas and lots of places where boats can anchor.  Since there is no tide or surge and a very mild current, the marinas here do not have floating docks as we are used to on the Pacific side. Instead they use a sort of Med-moor, running lines from one end of each boat to a fixed dock and the other to a series of poles set into the mud, then using gang-planks to get on and off the vessels.

One day we walked into the nearby town of Rio Dulce (where the high bridge crosses the river).  This is a small, very busy highway town, playing host to a combination of back-packers and cruisers.  There are not a lot of back-packers just now (a bit off season) but there are quite a few boats looking for where they are going to hole up for the upcoming storm season.  All predictions are for a mild year for hurricanes in the East Pacific but a bad year for the Atlantic.  Of course, as I am writing this, a very unusual hurricane has just had formed in the Tehuantepec, causing a lot of rain in the Mexican state of Chiapas (where we almost decided to keep the boat) and as far north as Acapulco - no affect as far south as El Salvador, where Sine Timore currently resides.

On our last day at the lodge, we took a launch for a trip down the river to its mouth, at the seaside town of Livingstone.  This is a smaller, quieter sort of town, with no good road access.  It is sort of divided into a Latin American half and a Caribbean half, with an interesting mix of people.  The 3 hours we spent here were more than enough to see the entire town - no need to linger.

The ride up and down the river was really the highlight of the area and the real reason we are here - it would be a real adventure to take your own boat across the bar here and explore further inland. 

Maybe someday?

Meanwhile, back in our reality, on Sunday morning the hotel gave us a ride in their launch into the town of Rio Dulce once again, where we caught the first passing bus heading north, for the town of Flores, where we are currently staying at a very nice hotel in this island town.

Next up - Tikal!

{GMST}16|55.7274|N|89|53.4318|W|Flores, Guatemala|Flores, Guatemala{GEND}
{GMST}15|38.9823|N|89|00.096|W|Rio Dulce, Guatemala|Rio Dulce, Guatemala{GEND}