Re: were to go?
My daughter just returned from Belize, and sent me her travelogue. (Note: I never knew Belize even existed before I heard her plans for going there)<br /><br />She gave me permission to forward the text, and for those that are interested, it might be instructive. As a footnote, she is blind, but her companion was not, and she clearly inherited her spelling ability from her mother:<br /><br />Quote On><br /><br />We're back from Belize!!<br /> <br />I wish I could tell you all a heroic stories of how I saved Matthew from being devoured by a jaguar by calling my trained howler monkey to bring me my shot gun, while saving myself from a hog nose viper by first lashing it in the back to break the spine , then chopping off its head. Unfortunately nothing like this happened. What did happen was I was swimming in the Becall river, a leaf or something passed over my back, It felt remarkably like a snake, and I swam as fast as I could away from No danger to the shore frantically. I had no idea I could swim like that. I must have jumped a million ties. It is amazing how everything can feel like a snake. Belize has Coral snakes, every type of viper you can imagine, boa constrictors, and all sorts of other unfriendly snakes. <br /> <br />We actually didn't see much wildlife surprisingly. <br /> <br />Belize is a country where habinaros grow on trees, and there is a bottle of HOT sauce on every table. We were in heaven. However they are not big believers in toilet seats, TP, napkins, or garbage cans.<br /> <br />There were beautiful markets with fresh fruit everyday. The peppers were so beautiful Matthew took a picture.<br /> <br />Belize is known for its rum, we bought a liter bottle of internationally recognized, award winning rum for $8 us. It was wonderful. We brought two bottles back.<br /> <br />We had an amazing time!<br /> <br />We flew into Cancun on the 7th, after having already traveled for 11 hours Matthew and I decided not to go straight to Belize. we stayed one night in a hostel in Cancun. Cancun has amazing beaches, but in comparison to the rest of Mexico it is extremely expensive and the people are overwhelming. I didn't like Cancun very much so we left the next day.<br /> <br />There is a severe lack of information available regarding bus travel in Mexico and Belize. We bought a ticket from Cancun to Chetumal, but couldn't buy a ticket from Chetumal to Belize until we arrived in chetumal. Unfortunately we arrived a half hour late for the last bus and ended up in Chetumal overnight.<br /> <br />We went to the "Hotel Ucum" , a hotel for $20 US. Matthew's first words were "this is exactly the kind of place you DON'T want to be when traveling in Southern Mexico". It did definitely have a shady appearance, but it was clean, had hot water, and near the bus station. BTW hot water is an amenity, not an expected.<br /> <br />In Chetumal we had a great dinner at a hole in the wall Restaurant. After words we moved to the Hotel Ucum's kitty pool. For some reason they close the big pool, but keep the kitty pool open. So there Matthew and i were sitting down half covered in water drinking Rum we bought for $1 with coke. We were having a great time, we definitely got some funny looks, but we took them in stride.<br /> <br />We left the kitty pool because we heard some live music. we put on our dancing clothes ready to go out to a bar and dance until dawn. What we found was an 11 person band practicing in a 8 X 8 room about a block away from our hotel, so we stayed there for a while until we returned to our rum and cokes in the kitty pool.<br /> <br />The next day we visited the bay by Chutumal which was very nice. We went for coffee by the bus station where we were charged $2 for each cup of instant coffee. In Southern Mexico it is customary to rip off Americans. <br /> <br />After that we stayed at the bus station for a few Boring hours. My MP3 player battery had died so we had to resort to our own wit for entertainment. I tried balancing bottles on my hands, and Matthew did what ever he was doing, I can't remember. I had to pay 3 pesos to use the bus station bath room. Easily the nastiest dirtiest bathroom I've ever known. I was very upset about that, even though 3 pesos is about 30 cents. <br /> <br />Finally our bus came. On leaving Mexico we were charged a $10 exit fee each. We both suspected, and later confirmed that there is no exit fee for leaving Mexico. This means the customs agents pocketed the money from about 50 people on the bus. I was happy to leave Mexico.<br /> <br />Three days after landing we made it to Belize!. We were so excited to be there. We immediately noticed a change in the people. At first we were taken aback. We had pushy cab drivers coming up to us asking if we needed rides, we would say no, then they would offer to give us information. At first we were suspicious of their help, we eventually discovered that they were all incredibly honest. We had people pulling over on their bikes, or vehicles to ask if we needed help or directions. They were all fantastic. People in Belize speak three languages. They are almost all trilingual. They speak Creole, English, and Spanish. To hear them switch one off, and another on was incredible. <br /> <br /> The Saint festival was about to begin in City. We decided to skip the festivities and go straight to Caye Caulker. We took a water taxi from Belize city to Caye Caulker. They fit as many people on this thing as humanly possible. It was so fun. On Caye Caulker we discovered the only place to camp was in the yard of a hostel owned by an extremely pushy American woman for $10, when we could get a cabana on the beach for $12. We opted for the Cabana. The woman who ran the Cabanas was a fantastic Creole woman. She explained her fear of cats, how there full of the badness, and something about how the bird won't fly again, don't put lizards on your back. We couldn't understand her at all, but she was very animated and friendly. Our cabana had a few iguanas hanging around, they are everywhere down there.
http://www.gocayecaulker.com/ <br /> <br />We stayed there on the Caribbean sea for three days. We slept in hammocks, drank rum and cokes on the doc, scuba dove, swam, ate good food, and otherwise relaxed. It was wonderful. Matthew invented accessible scuba diving. He would find neet shells, conk shells and such bring them to the surface for me to feel. I would swim really close to him waiting for these treasures. I on the other hand was a complete pain in the ***. Everything I felt with my feet was a conks shell. I would get really excited, ask him to go look at what I found, he would come back up and report I had found a rock, or a stick, or something else unimpressive. Never the less I got really excited. Matthew saw damsel fish, sergeant majors, sting rays, nurse sharks, a giant puffer fish, bariquotas, tarpons, and many other crazy things.<br /> <br />After a few days we left our coastal position to move toward the jungle inland. We took the water taxi back, caught the next bus to San Ignacio. The next bus was a packed school bus with no air conditioning. In Belize they sell you the ticket, but its your job to fit on the bus. They had about 60 people on this school bus. If anyone whistles the bus stops to let them off. So your stopping about every 10 minutes. If you can imagine we were only traveling about 15-20 miles per hour. It took quite a while to make the 60 mile trip. There are only five main roads in Belize and they are all poorly maintained. so travel moves really slowly. <br /> <br />There we stayed in the yard of a hostel. They had toilets and were near town. We spent $8 per night. The people were fantastic. The place was owned by a gorgeous fabulous Belizean woman named Maria. Maria likes to gossip, and always came up with the most scandalous conclusion, what was likely a close friendship became a torrid threesome when Maria told the story. There were two people about our age who worked there Harry, and Abraham. There was another person our age who used to work there, and now for no reason we could determine lived there his name was also Abraham. One night we were there we had a Kuroki night after a large BBQ. It was too funny. Both Abrahams going crazy. Tall Abrahams singing into headphones as a mike that sound terrible, rocking back and forth steeve wonder still, the shorter Abrahams just singing and dancing right along. Everyone drank pinacoladas, and laughed. We had to much fun. They got really into their Spanish love ballads as we were <br />San Ignacio:<br />
http://www.belizex.com/san_ignacio.htm <br /> <br />While there we hiked to see two Maya sites.<br />
http://www.belizex.com/xunantunich.htm <br />
http://www.belizex.com/cahalpech.htm <br /> <br />After a few nights in our tent in their yard we left to go more in-depth in the jungle. We found two interesting farms in Mathew's guide book<br /> <br />Chechumha was the first we found. To get there we had to call Gonzo at the Restaurant during the time he was at work. We found Gonzo caught up with him after his shift changed, and he gave us a ride to his family farm about 10 miles into the jungle. They don't actually farm anything commercially, they practice subsistence farming. They have no electricity. Gonzo explained that they had considered getting an electric generator, but had opted for a gas lawn mower instead. They routinely cooked over a fire hearth, had no hot water, and used all manual tools. The site we chose to camp was at the top of a 214 foot water fall. It was amazing. There were springs and swimming holes everywhere. We hiked, and swam, and did all sorts of things.<br /> <br />The owner was a very animated man. He was in amazing shape for his age, easily 65 years old. After we arrived we decided to start a fire. Antonio was on the job. He helped us look for work for the first 15 minutes or so, then we didn't see him again. We assumed he had head to his house. He came about 45 minutes later with arm falls of wood. He told us about how he had claimed the property in 1961 after having been stranded there by a hurricane. He had been working for gum companies gathering gum from the tops of trees. He had some really funny animated qualities.<br /> <br />After two or three days there we hiked to the Marts farm where we were met by three beautiful happy blue healers. At the marts farm the have tree houses over a natural spring that we were considering renting. The tree house had a hammock, and a ladder down to the water so we chose to stay there for two nights. Again the marts farm had no electricity. There was a gas stove, and a fire stove. When we got there Bruce the brother in law watching the place because his family was on vacation showed us around. Bruce is not a sales men, but his approach was pretty funny. They pressures wash the houses before they rent them out. Its a good thing too, because nothing keeps their animals out of the house. He showed us one house and pointed out where the cat was in the mosquito net, and there was chicken **** on the steps. <br />We took a different house, not for that reason. <br /> <br />They had a heard of horses that would run right up to you, the dogs i mentioned, and chickens everywhere. we took the opportunity to relax and enjoy the tree house.<br /> <br />Finally we had to leave to start our long journey back. We started in the back of a pickup truck headed toward Benkey. From Benkey we caught a bus to Belize city. The bus to Belize city was an express first class. it was so nice. nice big plush seats, and room to stretch out. Unfortunately I complained about not being able to get comfortable. On the next bus my complaints came back to bite me. We got on a packed school bus, standing up, going 15 miles per hour and BLARING BAD Spanish love ballads set to bad keyboard music. The driver played the same tape for the entire trip, Side A, then side B, the Side A again this went on and on. Matthew and i couldn't stand it. It was so loud we couldn't talk to each other. I was ready to jump out the window and walk the rest of the way. Hours after getting off the bus my ears were still ringing.<br /> <br />You can't buy a ticket directly across the boarder. There is all this craziness you have to go through. First of all when we got to Corizal, a boarder town, people were telling us we had to go outside stand by this tree and a border bus would come any minute. We thought that was a little scetchy so we asked a cab driver. In the typical Belizean honesty he told us that he could take us for $30, or he could show us were to stand to get the but for $1.50 a piece. So we stood by our unmarked tree, sure enough in a matter of minutes a bus to the boarder showed up.<br /> <br />From the boarder we walked across and caught a similar small bus from the border back to chutumal. We stayed in an even shadeyer hotel in chutumal that evening $15. It was clean with hot water, at that point we hadn't showered with hot water in 8 days or more. We got a good dinner, 2 dinners with 7 beers for $20, and a good night sleep.<br /> <br />We left Chetumal for Telum. Telum is supposed to have incredible ruins. unfortunately we had set our clock backwards and hour when crossing the boarder when we were supposed to set it forward an hour. So we were two hours behind. We showed up at the ruin to late to be admitted in. Sense there was not much else in Telum we proceeded to Cancun. We had our big splurge of the trip a $50 swanky hotel with hot water. We went out for a nice dinner were some Mexican musicians played Across the Universe for me and made my night. It was a very nice end to the trip.<br /> <br />Then we flew home. After three days of traveling we were going crazy. We bought a Time magazine, and a national geographic. Matthew was kind enough to read to me most of the trip back. Outside the duty free store there were tequila shots, and hot sauce testing. Matthew and I were in heaven.<br /> <br />While on our trip I had contracted a kidney infection. So by this point I was really uncomfortable. It had nothing to do with the water or food or anything, just and unfortunate coincidence. After we got home I got antibiotics and have been resting sense. I tried not to let it ruin the trip, but truthfully it did put a damper on my adventurous plans. It is largely why we didn't do more hiking and such. Anyway, I'm feeling better now, I just started classes, and soon I'll be frantically busy again.<br /> <br />I hope all of you are well. I'll e-mail when I have pictures of our trip posted. We have film film, I will need to get the developed onto CD before I can post them.<br /> <br />As you all know I'm natorious for forgetting people on mails like this, feel free to forward.<br /> <br />Talk soon,
Anyhow, check out amtrak.com I'm pretty sure you can travel by train between the cities. It sounds like fun. Train travel is a neat way to travel, fast but slow enough to see the countryside. I know Chicago sites, but not NY yet.
