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!