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Belize was one of those countrys that we only wanted to briefly visit. Head down the coast to caye caulker, an island just off the east coast so we could go and see the second largest reef in the world. Well the trip down from Tulum to caye caulker cost a lot more than what we thought it was going to; added with the fact the border control when you leave Mexico try and make you pay your tourism tax again (about £20) which you pay when you fly in as its included in the flight. However they want physical proof like a receipt that we'd payed... Don't know how they expected us to enter the country without paying.. So there was a group of about 30 of us that all had to pay again.. Think border control officer was going to have a big fiesta with all our tax money.!! Such a scam. Ah well.
The hostel on caye caulker was a bit rubbish and run down.. Plus we only had a fan for the room. One fan between three and no air con.! Was a tad hot safe to say.! The whole island and the general feel of Belize was more Rastafarian and reggae. Felt way more Caribbean than Central America. Pretty much everyone had dreadlocks walking round with the red yellow and green rasta hats or trousers. The slogan of caye caulker was 'go slow' and they really did..!
So rather than going for the cheap option of just renting gear out and paddling out in a canoe, we payed £20 for a a local to take us out in his little boat to the reef. And to be fair it was money well spent. He showed us where a lot of the colourful reefs were, told us the name of most of the fish and reefs; and even went down and teased out a green eel and was just holding and feeding him beer the surface. Also because we went out on a boat we managed to see plenty of sharks and stingrays. So the sound of the propeller attracts them as local fishermen used to wash all their lobster, crabs and the rest of their catch and the Sharks and rays used to feed on the left overs that would fall. So when we rocked up with the boat we were pretty amazed we 4/5 sharks were casually just swimming along side the boat. Well by the time got into the water there was about 20 sharks and even more stingrays. Was amazing to just swim around with them, they never even took any notice of us.! Our tour guide even got in, picked a sting ray up, brought it to the surface and let us stroke it. Pretty soft and slimy.! After he took us to a spot where there was a school of tarpons, about a meter long fish long fish that when you hold a fish out over the side of the boat they jump up and snatch it out of your hand. Was a weird feeling. You think as they're all circling bellow you they might come up and just snatch your whole hand. But they were pretty accurate and only grabbed the fish.
In San Ignacio just off the border of Guatemala we made a stop to visit our first Mayan temple. Was worth the walk. Still not really sure what the temple was for. Looked more like the village market area with three main squares for trade and two big temples at either end. Wasn't the biggest temple is been to but was definitely cool that we were able to climb all the way to the top and be up in the Forrest canopy. On the way out we saw that there was several digging spots with tarps over the top for shade. One of the guys digging spoke English, I think he was European. He worked for the Belize archaeological organisation, digging up certain areas to see how old the ruins were and how long the Mayans had been building there. They found that they just built up on old buildings rather than removing them. The oldest wall dated back to 2000 bc and was cool to see all the different layers of sediment in the soil.
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