Central America Summary

San Jose – Tortuguero – Quepos – Manuel Antonio – Monteverde – Arenal – Cano Negro – La Fortuna – San Carlos – El Castillo – Altagracia – Granada – Lago de Apoyo – Managua – Lago de Yajoa – Copan Ruinas – Antigua – Lago de Atitlan – Semuc Champey – Rio Dulce – Livingston – Sittee River – Glover’s Reef – San Ignacio – Tikal – Flores – Palenque – San Cristobel – Mexico City

We’ve now completed our 2 month tour through Central America taking in six countries and as I did for South America, I wanted to look back on all that we’ve seen, done and experienced along the way.

Best Food

Unlike South America, there weren’t any particular stand out food moments, but we did have some nice meals along the way:

·         The chocolate cake at D&D Brewery was so moist and chocolatey we had to have a slice each night we were there.  I even got the recipe off the owner!

·         The massive river prawns we had in El Castillo were memorable as neither of us have seen any that big before and they were juicy and tasty.

·         The expensive Italian dinner we had in Flores was particularly nice – Le Roux had a succulent, non-chewy steak and I had succulent large prawns.

·         I have to say that the chalupas we made at our Mexican cookery lesson in San Cristobel were really tasty and we’ll definitely be making them again!

·         Best local food has to be the Honduran feasts cooked up by the ladies at Finca El Cisne.  We got to try all sorts of different dishes made from fresh home grown ingredients.

 Worst Food

·         Top of the list was the empanada we bought from a cafe in San Carlos in Nicaragua.  It was the greasiest thing ever and hardly had any filling.  It was so bad that we both threw it away after just a couple of bites.

·         Following close behind was our first meal in Guatemala.  The shuttle bus between Copan Ruinas and Antigua stopped at a restaurant on route for breakfast which comprised a very skinny omelette with cold ham and unmelted cheese in the middle, a dodgy hot dog, a lump of funny white cheese and a scoop of salty solid refried beans – horrible!

Favourite Country

Guatemala – we saw such a variety of things across the country from a beautiful colonial city to a serene lake surrounded by volcanoes, colourful markets, pretty limestone pools, extensive caves, a gorgeous river and last but not least, world class ruins in an amazing setting. 

Best City

It is difficult to choose between Antigua in Guatemala and San Cristobel in Mexico.  Both are lovely colonial cities with such character and interesting architecture, but on balance I think Antigua was my favourite.  The main square was really pretty and there were interesting ruins all over the city.  With plenty of good restaurants and bars, and the backdrop of volcanoes surrounding the city, it was a great place to hang out for a few days.

Best Village

3 hours down the San Juan River from Lake Nicaragua was the little village of El Castillo which we fell in love with.  You can only reach it by water and there are no cars, only bicycles and horses.  Lots of the houses are built on stilts over the river and there were many loose animals wandering around the town.  The Spanish fort on the hill overlooking the village provided lovely views.  It was such a relaxing place.

Worst Town

This award goes to San Carlos in Nicaragua.  We stayed in what was supposedly a good hotel, but there was no running water most of the time and the room was horrible – more like a prison cell!  The town had no redeeming features and it suffered regular power cuts during our time there.  We couldn’t wait to escape down the river to El Castillo!

Best Natural Wonder

·         Glover’s Reef in Belize was so beautiful – it truly felt like a little piece of paradise.  The palm tree covered, white sandy island was surrounded by an ocean of several vivid shades of blue which was home to a huge variety of sealife.  We really didn’t want to leave!

·         Semuc Champey in Guatemala – a series of limestone pools set in mountainous forest was also very pretty.

Best Manmade Sight

·         This award goes to Tikal as the ruins were very impressive, with the very high temples, quite a few of which you could climb. Also the jungle setting was beautiful and the array of wildlife that lived there including our favourites, monkeys and toucans, was great.

Favourite Activity

Again, we’ve done some amazing things over the last 2 months including:

·         Snorkelling in the Caribbean amongst the pretty coral and abundant sealife.

·         Horseriding at Finca El Cisne in Honduras was great fun as we actually got to ride the horses rather than just following the one in front, and the farm was really pretty.

·         Zip-lining in Costa Rica – whizzing along through the rainforest with views of the Arenal volcano and lake, and one of the seven cables was 750m long.

Worst Journey

There are a number of contenders for this category:

·         The minibus shuttle from Semuc Champey to Rio Dulce in Guatemala was one of the worst journeys we had to endure.  Crammed in with us and 9 other tourists were a local guy and his several hundred eggs.  The eggs got two seats to themselves while the local guy hung out of the window for 3 hours, blocking the air flow so the chicken s**t smell built up.  The stink, along with the bumpy, twisty roads made half the bus feel travel sick and the little girl in front of me actually threw up.  The driver exacerbated the issue by going over some bumps too fast and some of the eggs escaped their packaging and smashed on the floor of the bus causing the smell to worsen.  We then had to try and get our rucksacks out of the way in the limited space.  All of this combined with the lack of legroom and uncomfortable seats, meant that we couldn’t wait to get out of the bus in Rio Dulce.

·         Another terrible journey in Guatemala was the return trip from Lago de Atitlan to Antigua.  It was a 5 hour journey that felt a lot longer!  The bus seats were so small that Le Roux and I couldn’t fit properly on a double seat – one of us had to sit forward to accommodate our shoulders and Le Roux could only get one buttock on the seat.  The legroom was totally inadequate and I spent the whole journey with my knees wedged into the back of the seat in front which had wires in it that cut into me.  When we reached Antigua and they said we needed to get on yet another bus, we made our escape and walked the last leg to our hostel.

·         We put ourselves through a hair-raising experience on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua by hiring a motorbike which was definitely not appropriate for the rough terrain.  We were fine on the paved roads, but as soon as we hit the very rough rocky, undulating roads leading to the waterfall, we had issues.  The bike was low to the ground and had road tires and didn’t cope well with the bad surface.  I hung on to the bike and Le Roux for dear life as he struggled with the bike over the bumps.  We had further issues when a pig ran out onto the road in front of us causing us to swerve and break suddenly.  It was the least relaxing day ever!

·         The boat ride between Livingston in Guatemala and Punta Gorda in Belize was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  We were in a small open wooden boat and the sea was choppy. As we raced along we bounced over the waves causing me to feel sea sick and as we slammed down after each wave the base of my spine smashed into the hard seat.  To top it off we got wet too as the waves splashed over the sides.  I was so relieved when we reached dry land!

·         The final contender is the car journey from Arenal to Cano Negro which included 35km of dirt road littered with potholes.  We arrived at our destination completely shaken up and exhausted by all the bumps and swerving.

Funniest Moment

I think the funniest moment was watching the white faced monkeys and raccoons steal food from unsuspecting tourists on the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park.  They were so clever that they could unzip back packs to remove picnic items and the monkeys even managed to open bags that had been tied up in the trees to keep them safe.

Scariest Moment

This award would have gone to the water caves in Semuc Champey, but I was so scared of the idea of water in caves with only a candle for light that I didn’t even do them!  So I have come up with a couple of other scary moments:

·         When we got off the international bus from Nicaragua to Honduras in a little place called La Guama we were pretty unnerved.  The last thing the bus conductor said to us was watch out for the bad boys hanging around and given it was dark and we needed to catch a local bus or find a taxi, this made us feel particularly uneasy.  Things got worse when we discovered there were no buses, no taxis and not even a hotel we could stay in for the night.  Luckily the police were attending a non-serious traffic accident and so we asked for their help.  The local mayor also came over and persuaded the police officers to drive us the 12km to the D&D Brewery by Lago de Yajoa.  We were very relieved to arrive at the hotel safe and sound!

·         A close encounter with a barracuda while snorkelling on my own in Belize was pretty scary as Jared and Katie had returned the previous day with tales of a hair-raising moment when one would not leave them alone.  Luckily for me the barracuda left after eyeing me up briefly.

·         After 5 months without a haircut, I decided I would have to be brave and get it done.  I risked it in La Fortuna in Costa Rica in the hope that because of the number of rich American tourists there, there would be a reasonable salon with an English speaking stylist.  I was recommended a place by the tourist office, but a random guy in there had to translate what I wanted for the stylist.  In the end, the haircut wasn’t perfect but not bad, and it was cheap!

Favourite Animal

Monkeys and toucans are still top of my list, but in Costa Rica we came across a new animal – the sloth – which I really like.  There are two types and we’ve managed to see both in the wild as well as in the rescue centre.  They are funny looking creatures that live up in the trees all the time apart from a weekly toilet trip down to the ground!

Best Wildlife Encounter

The sighting of the elusive Quetzal in the cloud forest in Monteverde was such a great moment.  I am normally very bad at spotting things, even when they are clearly pointed out to me and so when I managed to clap eyes on the very bird we were desperately trying to see I was really proud of myself.  Our decision not to hire a guide proved to be the right one, and all the twitchers with their guides who hadn’t seen it were very envious of us.  Le Roux even managed to capture it on camera so we have evidence of the sighting!

Most Disappointing

The most disappointing thing for us was the fact that every active volcano wasn’t actually active when we were visiting.  In Costa Rica, the Arenal Volcano has been spewing out hot lava since 1968 but stopped in September 2010, 5 months before we got there.  Also, in Guatemala the volcanoes around Antigua were not active while we were there, so we haven’t had the chance to poke a stick in hot lava.  Our quest for an active volcano continues...

Least Privacy

I forgot to include a worst toilet category for South America, for which there were many contenders, but I have a new category for Central America – least privacy.

·         The room we stayed in at D&D Brewery had the bathroom in the tiny bedroom, with only a shower curtain to pull around yourself while sitting on the loo.  Not quite sure why anyone would actually design and build a brick building like that!

·         The second similar instance was at the guesthouse at Sittee River.  Our little wooden cabin on stilts only had thin curtains to separate the bathroom from the bedroom, and the top half of all the walls was wire mesh, with curtains on only some of the windows.  So it wasn’t only lack of privacy from each other by from people outside too!

Most Obnoxious Person

On the whole we’ve met many nice, friendly people, both locals and fellow travellers.  However, a couple of people have stuck on our minds for all the wrong reasons.

·         The first obnoxious person we met was in the hostel in San Jose.  He was an older Belgian guy who was friends with the owner and his family.  He started talking to me despite it being obvious I was in the middle of doing something and wasn’t up for a conversation, and then he wouldn’t leave me alone.  He became drunker and drunker and made all sorts of racist and sexist remarks and on the whole was a pretty nasty person.  As soon as I’d eaten my dinner I headed back to our room to escape, as that seemed the only way out, as he kept following me around the common areas.

·         The other obnoxious person we came across was a red neck American in a bar in Rio Dulce, Guatemala.  We had been chatting with various people in the bar and I asked if this one guy had a boat as most of the Americans there own yachts which they have moored in Rio Dulce for the winter.  The guy across from him, laughed at this and said he used to.  It turned out to be a crazy story as the guy had just broken up his 4 year relationship with a local lady and she had in turn burnt and sunk his boat, which he’d just had done up.  The term he used to describe his ex girlfriend defied belief – a n***er bitch - I didn’t think people would actually use the “n” word to describe a coloured person especially with people they’ve just met in a bar - incredible.

Worst Night’s Sleep

The worst night’s sleep we got, excluding night buses which are always terrible, was at the Jungle Palace in El Panchan near Palenque.  It had nothing to do with the room or bed, but with the noisy howler monkey who took up residence in the tree above our little hut.  It managed to keep up its spooky loud howling for a large chunk of the night and we got up the next morning pretty sleep deprived.

Biggest Regret

My biggest regret is not taking the time at the beginning of our trip to do a crash course in Spanish.  In hindsight we have missed an opportunity here not only to learn a new skill, but I think we would have had more interesting interactions with locals had we been able to converse with them.

Things I Will Miss

·         Fresh tropical fruit – so ripe, sweet and juicy!

·         Random sightings of tucans and monkeys

·         Friendly locals

·         Warm climate

·         Glover’s Reef scenery and lifestyle

·         Colourful cheap markets

Things I Will Definitely Not Miss

·         Having to put toilet paper in a bin and not down the toilet

·         Cold showers

·         Bad food – there was so little variety and far too many bad meals!

·         Ridiculously small and uncomfortable bus seats

·         Potholes and speed bumps

·         Lugging my backpack around on buses

·         Spanish TV – there are TVs everywhere and they are always on loud on the terrible soap operas even if no one is watching

·         Stray, dodgy looking dogs

Mexico

In order to get from Flores to Palenque in Mexico, we again braved a shuttle bus as everything we’d read about using public transport made it sound like a nightmare.  Even by shuttle the journey took 9 hours and involved 2 buses and a boat!  We had a slightly nervous moment at Mexican immigration as Le Roux’s South African passport caused a few issues, but eventually he was let in – phew!

We stayed in El Panchan, a little village in the jungle 5 miles down the road from Palenque, as recommended in the guide book.  We found a great jungle cabin right by a little river for a bargain price.  There was wildlife all around us and we were woken in the small hours by a particularly active and noisy howler monkey who’d taken a liking to the tree above our cabin.  He managed to keep up his howling for several hours and we didn’t get a great night’s sleep.  Groggily crawling out of bed in the morning we stepped onto our deck to see a couple of herons fishing in the little river, so I quickly grabbed my camera.

We spent a few hours wandering around the ruins at Palenque, taking in the various palaces and temples.  The temples are not as tall as Tikal but more restoration work has been carried out on the buildings and they are bigger with many more carvings and inscriptions.  All around the site were souvenir vendors with their wares laid out on blankets.  I really liked the limestone mouldings but buying one would not really help my luggage weight issue so I had to be content with photos instead.  I also developed an obsession with Mayan symbols which are so lovely.  I took so many close up photos and even bought a little carved stone of my Mayan birth sign.

Our next stop was Misol-Ha, a waterfall 45 minutes away, which you could walk behind.  This was only a quick stop though on the way to Agua Azul, which was a beautiful series of limestone pools, a bit like Semuc Champey in Guatemala.  We spent 3 hours here wandering all the way up the hill as far as we could, before taking a swim in some of the pools – very refreshing on a hot day! Le Roux also couldn’t resist the rope swing. 

There were heaps of vendors all the way along the path selling both souvenirs and food.  We succumb to the wafts of empanada and sampled a few from various stalls.  The fruit stalls were selling mango lollies which the ladies made by carving the fruit but still leaving it attached to the stone – pretty impressive as I have yet to cut up a mango in an aesthetically pleasing way despite trying many different ways.

When we were dropped back in El Panchan, we walked back to our cabin a different way and came across a much nicer restaurant with a wood fired pizza oven – it wasn’t hard to decide what we were going to have for dinner that night!  Very nice it was too when it finally arrived as the waiter thought we were sharing one between two and didn’t request mine – he obviously didn’t know me!

From Palenque we were headed for San Cristobel.  Luckily for my back and knees, the buses in Mexico are proper coaches so we had a far more comfortable journey than the ones we’d suffered in Guatemala.  San Cristobel was a lovely colonial city, much like Antigua in Guatemala.  We found a lovely hostel only a few blocks from the main square and we spent much of our time in the city wandering around soaking up the atmosphere and the architecture.  We climbed various hills and steps and were rewarded with some lovely views over the city.  

We also stumbled upon a cookery school so we decided to have a 2hr lesson in cooking Mexican cuisine.  We had a great time with our tutor even though she spoke very little English.  The lesson got off to a great start with a shot of something tequila like which put fire in our bellies! We then made chalupas which looked very simple, but tasted amazing.  They were fried small tortillas topped with refried beans, grated beetroot and carrot, shredded lettuce, Mexican salsa, cream and guacamole – so good and pretty healthy!  We’ll definitely be making them again.  

We also tried various other Mexican dishes while we were in the city including pozole – a meat and corn soup; sope – a soft small tortilla topped with salad and meat; and mole chicken – a rich dark sauce made with chocolate and spices.  We also succumbed to the traditional Mexican sweet treat – a churros – deep fried batter filled with a flavoured sweet sauce – yummy but so naughty! 

San Cristobel had more than its share of jewellery shops and I was somewhat taken by the Mayan symbol jewellery and after dragging Le Roux into the shop about 5 times, he bought me a lovely bracelet for my birthday and I got some earrings too – Dad – they’re from you for my birthday!

After a couple of nights we had to move on to Mexico City for our flight to San Francisco.  Our last long bus journey – a 14 hour overnight job which we survived, although we didn’t get much sleep as the bus kept stopping at check points throughout the night so various officials could board the bus and request details from passengers.

Mexico City was a pleasant surprise.  For some reason I had expected a dirty, crowded, unsafe place, but it was pretty clean, spacious and actually quite nice.  We didn’t have much time there though, but we did manage to walk to the main park and visit the Anthropology Museum which was great.  We only saw a few of the exhibitions though as there were so many.  We picked out the Maya one, along with the Introduction to Anthropology, and the Aztecs.  It was all very interesting and they have some amazingly preserved artefacts, including the jade burial mask of one of the rulers of Palenque – Jaguar Serpent II.  

Lunch in the museum cafe was also an entertaining experience as the resident squirrels leapt from the trees onto the umbrellas and peered over the edge, eyeing up our lunch!

Our two months in Central America had come to an end and it was time to move on to our US road trip.  We had mixed feelings about leaving as we ran out of time to do much in Mexico, but we were really looking forward to being in a developed country again after 7 months in 3^rd world countries, and to not having to lug our back packs around on buses.  We need to come back and visit many more places in Mexico to get a proper feel of the place so I can’t tick this country off my list just yet, but what we did squeeze into 5 days was lovely and left us wanting more.

Guatemala - the brief return

We made our way back into Guatemala by taxi as this appeared to be the most sensible option given the buses don’t run all the way to the border on the Belize side.  We then enjoyed a bit of bartering with the Guatemalan taxi drivers in order to get ourselves a better deal for the 2^nd leg from the border to Tikal.  We eventually got down to a price we could live with and we set off on the 2 hour drive to the ruins. 

We arrived in time for a late lunch and were then going to visit some of the ruins that afternoon as the site is so big that you run out of steam attempting it in one go.  However, this plan was thwarted as although we’d been told you could go in after 3pm and still use the ticket the next day, the official at the ticket office was having none of it.  Given how expensive it was, we decided to go for a walk in the jungle outside the site instead.  We spotted wild turkeys and two little foxes, as well as hearing howler monkeys.  We tried to follow the sound of the monkeys to track them down but this proved difficult and it was starting to get dark, so we headed back to the lodge where we’d set up our tent.  On arriving back, we discovered monkeys in the trees above our tent – typical!

We had an early night after a simple dinner of tuna pasta – there was no shop and that’s all we had with us, so not up to our usual gourmet standards!  The next morning we were up early in order to enter the ruins at 6am when they opened.  We tried to have a quick breakfast of pancakes and syrup but our new frying pan is terrible and the pancakes turned into very bad looking mush - Tikal was not proving to be a food highlight!

I’m so glad we got up early as the ruins were very quiet – no tour buses anywhere in sight! – the light was fabulous and the wildlife was active.  We saw lots of toucans flying around and sitting in trees, and there were both howler and spider monkeys swinging through the trees.  

The ruins themselves are very impressive – Tikal is characterised by lots of very high temples, some of which you can climb, giving amazing views across the jungle.  We wandered around viewing as much as possible, with both of us taking heaps of photos.  After nearly 5 hours we were “templed out” and decided to head back to our lodge for a well earned snack and coffee.  We didn’t quite see it all, but we managed to get round most of the temples and groups of ruins.  Overall, a very impressive place.  

My favourite part was sitting at the top of one of the highest temples looking out at the other tall ruins poking through the jungle canopy, listening to the spooky howler monkeys making an incredible racket.

From Tikal we took a quick shuttle bus (only 1 hour!) to Flores, which is a small town set on an island in the middle of a lake.  There isn’t much to do here, but it is a nice place in a beautiful setting.  We were hot and bothered after the ruins and the bus journey so we were very happy to see a nice wooden jetty in front of our hostel from which we could swim in the lake – very refreshing!  We then decided we’d earned a drink or two and found a nice bar restaurant with a great view of the lake and the setting sun, and importantly a happy hour.  We ended up staying for dinner and although a little pricey, the Italian place we were in cooked up one of the best meals we had in Central America – Le Roux had a succulent, non-chewy steak and I had big juicy prawns – delicious!

The little town had more than its share of souvenir shops and so we took advantage of them and our free day to indulge in a spot of shopping as this was likely to be one of the last places we would come across all the hand woven goods.  Having no room for any more things in our back packs, we packaged up our purchases and sent them home – hopefully they’ll arrive safely!

After just 3 additional nights in Guatemala it was time to head into Mexico, our 12^th country.

Belize

I was glad to reach terra firma in Punta Gorda after the choppy wet boat ride from Livingston in Guatemala.  Having not had any breakfast before we left, I was quite hungry so I got out some bananas and oranges to eat.  However, this turned out to be an issue as a power tripping customs official told me “nothing was mine until he said so” and I wasn’t to eat the rest of my orange (I’d already eaten the banana luckily).  So I threw away the rest of the orange.  Then we realised we had an avocado in the bag too, so we ditched that too, not wanting an argument about it.  However, having had our passports stamped, he demanded that we get the avocado out of the bin.  Le Roux did so and was then asked to step into his office, where he was lectured on the regulations and how he could be fined or put in jail as you weren’t allowed to bring in fruit and vegetables.  NB. There weren’t even any signs telling you this.  It was a totally ridiculous way of handling the issue - welcome to Belize, not!  After escaping from this little Hitler, we set off into Punta Gorda town somewhat downhearted by this first impression of Belize.

Luckily, things improved.  The fact that the country is English speaking was great as our Spanish is still pretty bad and it would make things so much easier.  We managed to get some Belize dollars, two hot breakfasts to go and two bus tickets without too much hassle and soon we were on our way to Sittee River up the coast.  Le Roux needed (I would argue wanted!) to buy lots of fishing tackle for our week on Glover’s Reef, so he stayed on the bus to Dangriga, leaving me in the middle of nowhere with all our luggage in the hope of being able to get a taxi to the guesthouse.  It was a good job that some ladies were chatting outside their house, as they called a taxi for me.  There was no way I could have moved anywhere on my own with all the bags as I can barely lift Le Roux’s big rucksack! 

I arrived at the guesthouse just as the fruit and veg truck did, which meant I could stock up on lots of nice fresh produce for the week ahead as we were going to be self catering - Le Roux had booked us into Glover’s Atoll Resort for a week, which was an island on Glovers Reef about 30 miles off the coast of Belize.  

My next priority was to get my bikini on and get in the river for a cooling swim. It was lovely in the fresh water, jumping off the catamaran and swimming around for a while, before I had to get back to planning for the week ahead.  I headed down to the local shop where I met the nicest old Garfuna couple, who bickered in a friendly way with each other as they served me.  The shop was very small though so I didn’t get anywhere near crossing everything off my list.  A trip to Hopkins, the next town was required, but I’d have to wait for Le Roux to return from his mission to help me carry stuff.  In the end we left it to the next day, cycling the 30 minutes down the dirt road on free bikes from the guesthouse.  However, we hadn’t appreciated how expensive Belize was and we soon realised we didn’t have enough cash, as well as Hopkins having a pretty limited choice of food, so we needed a Plan B.  We decided to hire a motorbike in Hopkins and drive the 45 minutes up the highway to Dangriga in the hope of a bigger and better supermarket, as well as a cash machine.  We were in luck and we returned to the guesthouse severely weighed down by supplies – at least we wouldn’t go hungry on the island!  

We stayed in a cute wooden cabin on stilts in the garden of the guesthouse, but like the D&D Brewery, there was only a shower curtain as a divide between the bedroom and bathroom!  It’s a good job we know each other well!

Finally the time had come to head out to the island and along with the 10 other guests for that week, we boarded the catamaran for the 3 hour journey.  The catamaran was absolutely packed as not only was there the 10 guests and luggage but also two members of staff, Becky the owner, her 9 year old daughter Maddy and her dog, supplies for the island restaurant, and a whole lot of building materials (massive wooden planks)!  

The journey out to the island was beautiful as the ocean was so many vivid shades of blue from dark inky through to turquoise, and we passed some gorgeous tropical islands covered in palm trees.  

When we arrived at Glover’s Atoll Resort, our home for the week, we were all taken aback by how lovely it looked, with the many coconut palms growing out of the white sand and the little wooden cabins built over the water.  We were definitely in for a good week!  Before we could explore though we had to form a human chain and unload the boat which took a little while given the amount of stuff, but at last we were able to head off round the island with Becky for a tour.  

The island is 6 acres of paradise with rustic but adequate facilities.  We had opted to camp for the week being the cheapest option and we set up our tent not far from the water in the shade of some palms.  We had use of the outdoor kitchen under the dorm room and the bathrooms consisted of two compost toilets, a basin with a conch shell as the tap spout and two cold outdoor showers.  I think some short locals built the showers as the doors were not high enough to cover my modesty so I had to hang my towel over the walls in order to shower in private!  We had to collect water from the well for washing up and there was purified rain water to drink.  

The other 8 people on the island with us were:  Torrie and Lisa (young Canadian couple); Jerrod and Katie (young American couple); John & Audrey (Canadian couple); Mike (American); Craig (Canadian); Arthur (young German); and Nicole (young Canadian) – a great bunch as it turned out!

Having settled in we were itching to get in the water so we headed out for the first of many snorkels.  The first thing I saw was a shoal of a few hundred bone fish in the shallow bay by the dock – amazing!  This was soon followed by many other wonderful fish and sea creatures, including a massive bright orange star fish.  This set the tone for the week as we explored various different reefs around the island and every time we saw more and more new species of fish.  Among the fish we saw were barracudas, sting rays, giant turtles, nurse sharks, parrot fish, angel fish, and so many more colourful fish of all different sizes that I can’t name!  The coral was also really pretty.  I was gutted that the one thing on the list we hadn’t been able to get was a waterproof camera so I have no pictures of the fish or coral we saw.  One morning we all headed out on the dive boat to a reef further out which was great as there was a huge wall that dropped off into the deep.  However, being out further meant we had to contend with some bigger waves and poor Lisa became sea sick in the water.  Luckily I wasn’t affected for once, although I did end up with water down my snorkel a few times.

When we weren’t snorkelling, I was quite happy lazing around in a hammock strung between 2 palm trees or sunbathing on a lounger by the sea.  The funniest sight was Nicole reading her book on her sun lounger in the shallows as she got too hot otherwise!  

As you would expect, Le Roux spent a fair bit of time out fishing.  His first outing in the kayak beyond the mile marker (you couldn’t keep anything you caught nearer than that as it was a marine reserve) resulted in no fish, but he did manage to dive down and collect two conches for us.  One of the local guys showed us how to open them and we extracted the weirdest looking creature, which Le Roux cleaned up and I then cooked for dinner.  The flesh is like thick squid, so you have to flatten it with a mallet to tenderise it.  I then coated it in flour and egg and deep fried it, having consulted the chef on what the best recipe was.  I even made sauté potatoes and green beans to go with it, all in an outdoor kitchen on a slightly dodgy gas ring!  The conch was nice, but not wow – slightly chewy, but it was a free dinner so we weren’t complaining.  

Le Roux’s next fishing expedition was more successful (the conch guts proved to be very good bait!) and he came back with 8 fish, including a barracuda.  That night we were having a pot-luck supper with all the other guests and staff on the island – this is apparently a very popular thing in North America where everyone brings a dish, so you end up with quite an eclectic mix of food.  We cooked up fried barracuda steaks, Thai parcels of file fish and 2 barbequed random fish, which were all pretty tasty if I do say so myself!  We had a great evening getting to know everyone better over dinner and Becky’s contribution of coconuts topped up with rum went down very well.  With the surplus of coconuts on the island most of us had used coconut in some form or another in our dishes, including Torrie and Lisa’s coconut rice and Mike’s rum soaked fruit salad with coconut shavings – all delicious! We had such fun doing the pot-luck thing that we decided to do it again amongst ourselves later in the week – we had all brought far too much food with us so we had yet another massive feast!  It was at this second meal that I was introduced to Marie Sharp’s Jabanero Jelly which is sooooo tasty and it goes perfectly with peanut butter smeared on crackers – I blame Nicole for getting me into this naughty snack!  As there was only one generator on the island for the restaurant we had to use oil lamps in our kitchen and we had a camp fire each night, which was really nice.

Le Roux’s other obsession, fishing being the first of course, was the hermit crabs on the island.  There were literally thousands of them in varying sizes and they wandered all over the place, so you had to watch where you stepped, especially at night when more of them emerged.  We also had to hide our food away as they had the ability to climb up onto the kitchen tables.  They were pretty useful though as they cleaned up the food crumbs from the sandy floor in the kitchen.  Le Roux kept picking them up and playing with them and Torrie and Lisa had a debate about whether they could swim or not. Torrie decided to find out by putting one in a bucket of water.  Although Lisa thought they could swim she didn’t want it to drown just in case she was wrong so she fished the crab out, much to Torrie’s amusement and the rest of us!

On the island the only things we really had to worry about were falling coconuts, sand flies and the scary barracudas as Katie and Jerrod had been stared down by one in the water one afternoon and they have pretty sharp teeth.  All of us enjoyed eating and drinking the coconuts and I have to say coconut water and Belize gold rum is a pretty good combo!  Le Roux had even bought a machete so that he could chop coconuts to his heart’s content.  However, this cheap machete, along with the kayaking so far against the wind, were to be his undoing, as he ended up with tendonitis in his wrist which meant he couldn’t go out in the kayak again and even fishing was painful.  John and Audrey were pharmacists luckily so they diagnosed the problem and provided some ibuprofen to help ease the pain.  Le Roux, however, found it very hard to follow their advice to take it easy with so much amazing fishing to be had!

Each morning we woke up to see the sun rising over the ocean and each evening we watched the sun go down in a blaze of colour.  The island truly was paradise and we really didn’t want to leave.  We even contemplated rejigging our plan to fit in another week, but with a flight booked from Mexico City in 11 days time, we didn’t have quite enough time left to do so – Le Roux was gutted!  I’m sure we’ll be back there someday though.

The journey back to the mainland was a bit stormy and I felt a bit queasy, but not as bad as the dog who actually threw up, poor thing. However, I was glad when we were back on dry land in Sittee River.  All of us apart from John and Audrey were heading up to the highway to catch buses so Becky packed all 10 of us into her SUV, along with the luggage, for the 5 mile journey – I really don’t know how we fitted everything in, but we did!  Torrie and Lisa, along with Arthur were also heading to San Ignacio on the western border of Belize, so we continued our journey with them.  We had to get a couple of chicken buses, via Belopan, which meant a long day of travelling, but at least we did it in one day.

We hadn’t originally planned to go to San Ignacio and were instead going to head north to Lamanai and then over the northern border into Mexico, but after our relaxing week on the island we couldn’t face the crazy rush that it would be to fit in Tulum and Chitzen Itza as well as Tikal and Palenque before heading to Mexico City.  We decided instead to head straight to Tikal with a quick stop over in San Ignacio.

Other than hang out with Torrie & Lisa and Arthur, we didn’t do much in San Ignacio.  We did manage to drag ourselves out on a walk one afternoon though to visit Cahal Pech, some Maya ruins up a steep hill just outside of town.  Our timing was bad though as we arrived at the same time as a large boisterous school group and the ruins were far from peaceful and taking photos without crazy kids running into them was tricky.  

We soon made our escape and headed off to a place called Sweet Things that Torrie & Lisa had recommended.  It was an amazing cake shop with the most delicious offerings.  We both opted for a large slice of chocolate cake, washed down with a nice fresh coffee – yummy.  Le Roux had a hard job getting me out of the shop!  As well as the cakes, we tried various street food offerings in San Ignacio - we sampled some lovely tacos, sopes and curried chicken - as Belize is so expensive to eat out in and our budget was feeling a little stretched. 

Having bid the others farewell, we continued our journey by heading back into Guatemala to Tikal.  Although our time in Belize was short and we didn’t explore that much of the country, we had a great time there.  The island was magical and we won’t forget our week there in a hurry.  I would highly recommend it, as long as you don’t expect luxury!