Belize Trip

For the week after Easter Megan and I took a week off work and traveled to Belize. We've posted photos, but due to circumstances (i.e. not having a Mac) we couldn't put them up in our Hawk's Eye photo gallery. We used Google's Picasa and their Picasa Web Gallery service. Also, you can see our photos in Google Earth by downloading this file.

The trip was very interesting and Belize is unlike any country I've ever been to. Owing to its status as a former British colony and the subsequent influx of different cultures, this is one of the most diverse places I have ever been. There are Africans, Mayans mestizos, Chinese, East Indians and a fairly large Mennonite population. Most Belizans speak 2-3 languages (English, Creole, and Spanish being the most common) and some speak 5 or more (possibly a Mayan dialect or Garínagu). All this in a country with only about 250,000 people.

We flew into Chetumal in southern Mexico on the Saturday before Easter and found the town completely full with holiday travelers. We couldn't find a hotel, but we heard that there were hotel-casinos over the Mexico-Belize border, so we caught a bus over the border hoping they would have a room available. We figured that if they didn't, at least the casino was open 24 hrs. a day, so we could just stay awake in the casino. Unfortunately, there was no room at the hotel, so we just decided to stay up all night in the casino.

Early the next morning (Easter Sunday) we caught a bus headed for San Ignacio in the Cayo district of western Belize. San Ignacio is very close to the Guatemala border and is located in a lush jungle setting. On Monday we went on a tour of the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. We saw an amazing cave and swam in some really refreshing river pools. On Tuesday morning, we woke up very early to catch a bus further west to the small village of San Jose Succotz. We crossed a hand-cranked ferry and walked up to the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich. These ruins are very nice, but not huge. We were the first people up to the ruins and got to roam the entire grounds by ourselves. After walking back to San Jose Succotz we caught a bus to the southern coastal town of Dangriga.

We didn't stay long in Dangriga and caught the first boat to Tobacco Caye on the edge of 2nd largest barrier reef in the world. The entire island is only 5km square and has only a couple small lodges, we stayed at the Paradise Inn. The Paradise Inn consists of 4 small cabins with porches out over the water. The island is beautiful. Our pictures don't really do it justice. For the next four days (through Friday) our daily activities pretty much consisted of snorkeling, eating, reading in a hammock, snorkeling, eating, reading in a hammock and more snorkeling. It was an incredibly relaxing place and just what we needed.

On Friday we caught the morning ferry back to Dangriga and then caught a bus to Orange Walk in northern Belize. Orange Walk wasn't my favorite city, but we found a good hotel and booked a tour of the Mayan Lamanai ruins for the next day. On Saturday we woke up and caught a taxi to the river docks were the tours to Lamanai leave. The boat ride up the New River to Lamanai was a great way to see the bird life of Belize. We saw all 5 species of herons that reside in Belize as well as a many other birds. We even caught a glimpse of a crocidile. The Lamanai ruins are much larger than Xunantunich. We enjoyed a very thorough tour of the site and I climbed the highest temple on the site. It is 150 meters tall and at over 300 meters above sea level it is the highest spot in northern Belize.

After our tour of Lamanai and the New River we caught a bus up to Chetumal, Mexico. We stayed there Saturday night and then caught a flight back on Sunday morning.

Posted by Noah Brimhall at April 23, 2007 09:20 AM