Tourist Sites

Wed Jan 3
After waking at 5:40am, we took the newly-christened Silver Bullet (our bus) to Belize City. The trip was pretty uneventful, except for the non-stop barrage of reggaeton and 90s Vengaboys.

We arrived into Belize City at 11:30 to find it nowhere near as bad as Coral had made it out to be. Instead of the barrage of touts and cab drivers we found an empty bus terminal. The touts began once we got outside, but we had got our luggage and our bearings by then so all was well.

Belize is clearly a much poorer country than Mexico. I’m sure this has something to do with its lack of proximity to the US. It has many grand old buildings that have since become derelict. There are clearly strong Chinese communities (as noted by the number of shops that have signs in English and Chinese), who appear to have taken over much of the trading. The official language is English, although it’s spoken with a Creole accent, so for the most part it is unrecognisable. The other strong community here are the Christians. There are SO many churches of all denominations everywhere, even in very small communities, which I wasn’t expecting.

Our cabanas are on the island of Caye Caulker. This is truly paradise – a Caribbean island with one main road, almost exclusively for backpackers. No big resorts, no food chains – perfect. Our cabanas are really basic and a bit out of the way from the centre of things, but in this island everything is relative – the whole thing takes about 20mins to walk around.

The other thing that keeps me amazed by this island is the food. For lunch we had Mango fish burgers and banana shakes, and for dinner I had the best grilled fish I’ve ever had. Seriously. With lemon garlic sauce. Ange had Lobster tail too, so I sampled some of it, and it was just as good. I know it’s an island, and so the seafood should be good, but so often it just isn’t, so we were really pleased!

Thurs Jan 4
After having the worst shower EVER (which the whole floor heard about due to the paper-thin walls), involving a screen that creeped inward, and hard, cold water. Argh! My biggest fear of travelling is the showers (possibly too much information, but hey!) So far, I’ve been in all kinds of showers – tall, short, hard, soft, cold, lukewarm, hot, complicated and easy. But this takes the cake!

I had deliberately got up early to fit in a proper breakfast. It turned out that no one else had woken up early, so I went for a walk around the island on my own, which was fantastic. It gave me a chance to clear my head – exactly what the doctor ordered! We all eventually had breakfast at Rasta Pasta – mmm egg muffin and ginger beer!

After that it was off for the main event – a full day snorkelling tour. It was AWESOME! We went to two separate coral reefs, saw turtles and swam with sharks and manta rays. Talk about wicked, eh?

We also stopped at the other (larger) island near Caye Caulker – San Pedro. There we had lunch and the girls bought some really nice jewellery.

We got back to Caye Caulker around 4:30pm and we were all so tired (and some were quite suburnt). Thus the rest of the day was just chilling. We went out as a group for dinner to Habaneros for some excellent (and quite expensive) fajitas. From there, a smaller group of us went to the i-and-i reggae bar to try the local drink: a ‘panti ripper’. Essentially it’s just a double Malibu and coke, although it’s potent!

Tomorrow morning we leave Belize and head to Flores in Guatemala. Hopefully it’s a fairly smooth ride!

Belize photos

We left at 7:30am for Tulum, one of the most complete Mayan architectural sites in Mexico. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was most certainly impressed. The photos speak for themselves, but to give you some idea of what it all means, the site was a religious centre for the Mayan civilisation. It was not, as many other ruins are, a city. Instead it represents the city centre – a place of worship and politics. The quality of buildings and its location reflect this. It is built on a cliff overlooking an amazing beach and crystal clear Caribbean waters.

The buildings themselves are mostly located according to certain lunar-based rules. For example, on the 6th of April, the sun aligns in a certain way and the boy born on that day is declared King. For more information, visit Loco Gringo .

We ate lunch at the hostel nearby (and I tried some Mola, which is chocolate-flavoured sauce over red beans, guacamole and meat – so good!), before boarding another 4hr bus to Chetumal. Chetumal, on the Mexico-Belize border, was our overnight stop before tomorrow’s journey to Belize.

The bus itself was fine – air-con, TV, bathroom – but came with this ABSOLUTELY annoying kid who continuously ran between his seat at the front of the bus to the bathroom, opened the door, and ran back to his seat. This meant that the ‘aroma’ from the bathroom filled the air. Eugh! If I see that kid again I’ll kill him! We even plotted to feed him sleeping pills hidden in M&Ms! On the plus side, I watched Princess Bride 2 and Suddenly 30 in Spanish. It helped that Mila knew the plots inside-out, so I had a running commentary. Plus, let’s be honest, they are hardly deep films! The bus passed such Spanglish classics as “Chilly Willy’s International” and “Wonderfull Sex”.

Had dinner at our hotel – Mayan Chicken (cooked in oranges!). Really quite tasty, although not exactly what I expected!

Photos of Mexico

Today was our last day in Cancun, and so with the new Geckos crew we visited Playa once more. It was a late start, given it was New Years Day, so we didn’t get there till about 11:30am. That wasn’t really a problem, as we hardly had any plans – it was Playa after all!

We ate an awesome brunch off Fifth Ave (Playa’s main street) at a place called Hot (on Casa 14). Then we spent the rest of the day on the beach, as we’d already done the whole shopping thing. There we bumped into Justin, Lorali and Rachael and just before sundown headed back to Cancun.

Unfortunately, we had dinner on our own again. Luckily we ate at our favourite restaurant on Av Coma near the supermarket. There Ange and I aired our opinions on group travel and the group dynamics that we expected to develop. I guess it was just my uneasiness talking, but it seemed a shame that 24hrs into our trip we’d all gone our separate ways! Hopefully tomorrow is much better!

Oh, it’s New Years’ Eve! Yay! This year has been SO long, but so incredibly awesome that it will be sad to see it go. Luckily I am spending the last day with Ange in Mexico, so that makes it far easier!

Today we had a bit of admin stuff to do – pick up laundry, checking out of one hotel and into another and the like. Luckily all of that was fairly easy – I think we’re getting to know downtown Cancun quite well now!

We had decided that today we’d try and visit the Hotel Zone, as it was close by and relatively easy to get home from for the 5pm Geckos meeting. Ange had told me about a Museum located there that sounded awesome – it was all about the Mayans and their history, and was meant to be near the start of the Hotel Zone. We took the public bus out there (MX$7 each way), however without much luck. I’m sure it’s still there somewhere, but we couldn’t find it. It was also blisteringly hot, so we opted for the easy option and plonked ourselves on a beach by one of the hotels there.

Unfortunately, the Hotel Zone is not Playa. The beaches are definitely not public, and it wasn’t long before we were discovered as non-guests and moved along. Bugger! So we moved next door to the more public beach, which was nowhere near as nice. Soon afterwards we headed back to downtown and checked into our new hotel. This one, Maria de Lourdes, was just down the road from our old one (both on Ave Yaxchilian), and looked nicer from the outside.

Indoors, however it was slightly different. We didn’t have a balcony anymore – actually now we didn’t have a window! The pool was nicer, but just as cold. Ah well, at least we were only here two nights.

At 5pm we met with the other Geckos people and decided on our plans for that evening. It turns out that Coral, our leader, had nothing particular planned for New Years (which sucked), and that we were all going to have dinner together at our old hotel at 5:30pm! Being NYE, all the places had set meals from 7pm that cost upwards of MX$500. I admit that’s hugely expensive, but c’mon, it’s NYE and I would have expected Geckos to have organised something!

On the plus side, we did meet loads of people – Dan, Juliana, Frankie, Lorali, Rachael, Lisa, Mila, Justin etc… which was great. I think we’ll all get along really well, although it is clear that tours encourage a certain type of traveller – namely young solo females. We also all paid towards a drinks kitty and subsequently had loads of alcohol and snacks. At midnight a group of us went in the pool and had sparklers, which was really nice.

All in all a really nice NYE, but not one as spectacularly memorable as I would have expected from an organised tour!