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Hi all, I (Faye) thought I would add one blog entry seeing as Michelle has done most of them so far.
We left Mexico on an old 70s American school bus to travel over the border to Belize. We had planned a night in Belize City before heading to Caye Caulker for a few days just off the coast of Belize. Belize is hugely different to Mexico due to a strong Caribbean and American influence. We found this far easier as everything (signs, menus etc) were all in English - phew! We arrived into Belize City late that evening and sorry to anyone from Belize City but it was a total hole. It was very dirty, most streets were out of bounds at night and within 3 minutes of leaving our hostel to go and grab a bite to eat we were asked if we wanted a Belizean .... (well you can imagine what the next word was!)
Over chicken stew and rice and beans - a local speciality, we were worrying about heading to the islands the next day. Caye Caulker is only 40 mins away by water taxi so we feared it wouldnt be much different. We couldnt have been more wrong! After a beautiful boat ride early in the morning, we arrived in PARADISE!
Caye Caulker is like nothing either of us has seen. Its a tiny island (half a mile wide, you can actually see one side of the island from the other) No one wears shoes as the entire floor is covered in sand. Everyone drives around in golf carts and bikes and there were no cars alllowed. We stayed in a hostel overlooking the sea and spent 2 days sunning ourselves.
We came across a small shop and met Ron who told us about a flight in a small aircraft from Belize City to Punta Gorda, chopping off around 24 hours of travel time. Due to the great weather we decided to go for it, giving us an extra day on Caye Caulker. To our complete dismay, it rained non stop all day :-( What a waste. So we decided to get drunk instead.
The following morning we left Caye Caulker by water taxi to Belize City to take our flight to Punta Gorda (which left us at the sea border with Guatemala) The plane had 10 seats in it, we could see the driver and the controls from our seats. It was so small that we both had a window seat and were still sitting next to eachother. We made 4 stops all down the coast so it was almost like a little air taxi! The views of Belize and the coast were amazing. Well worth the money. Although the turbulance at times was a little concerning.
We arrived in Punta Gorda and bought our tickets for a boat over to Livingston, Guatemala. We hung around for an hour or so and were led to our boat by a guy who looked as high as a kite. When we saw our boat we couldnt belive it. It was falling to pieces and was half the size of the water taxi in Belize. We were passed life jackets (or they were thrown at us should I say) We listened to an arrogant man talk about the do's and dont's of travelling (YAWN) and watched the high guy froth at the mouth. Luckily we arrived in Guatemala in one piece!
Next stop - Rio Dulce.
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