Belize

Note: Jen took lots of photos but unfortunately they got seriously damaged. So we've used the eyes of others through the Google Images and SmugMug services to give you photos of this beautiful country.

In March Jennifer and I went to Belize.

OK, OK. The very first question that springs to mind, (unless you have a perverse interest in bizarre geography), is where is this place? Belize, formerly British Honduras, is a tiny country the size of Wales, nestled in central America between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea.

But first we had to get there. From (Old!) Jersey this is no fewer than 4 flights. We started 0700 Saturday and got in about 1500 Sunday (all local times), with an overnight stop in Houston. The little we saw of Texas was big, flat and spacious.

Going to Belize evoked strong emotions in us. I had first been convinced to go when a travel magazine Conde Nast Traveller, had a glowing report on it. It asked where else could one swim with the dolphins in the morning and explore Mayan ruins in the Jungle in the afternoon. And of course there was that movie starring Harrison Ford called The Mosquito Coast. It is a little off the beaten track. The prospect of visiting Belize intrigued.

First a totally biased summary of Belizean history. First, there were the Mayans. These guys had a pretty amazing civilization. The Spanish came along and pretty well wrecked it, although in Belize things were not as bad, because the British were there. Why were the British there? Primarily for logging.

Belize is a bizarre place. As Conde Naste put it, Belize has a history like a James Michener novel. The first British governor decided to swap professions and become a pirate, protected by the coral reef. All sorts of people were there, turned up or “got mixed up”: mestizos (Spanish / Mayan), Creole (European / African), Garifuna (African / Carib), British, the Mayans, Indians, Lebanese and Chinese. Even German Mennonites turned up in the 1950’s. Perhaps a defining part of Belize has been that the tough environment, and the threat for a long time from the Spanish, has brought these peoples together. Belize is very multicultural and relaxed. The Belizeans finally saw off the Spanish threat during a battle in the late 18^th century around one of the cayes (pronounced keys – islands). Rather strongly outnumbered, the Belizeans prevailed with the help of the geography. What followed in the subsequent decades was a battle to get recognised as a full colony of the British Empire, finally acceded to under Queen Victoria’s reign. Things since then have been pretty quiet really, with independence being gained in 1981. And things are still pretty uncrowded, with perhaps 250,000 people. These days however you would be often hard pushed to think this had ever been a British colony: the Americans are there in a BIG way.

As we flew over Belize towards the airport, we got our first sense of the landscape. Lush vegetation, snaking rivers, island strings off the coast.

Our base for the first week was San Ignacio, the capital of the western district of Cayo.

Perhaps this is a good time to say: don’t go to Belize if you want a comfortable holiday. During our 2 week stay :

• We got extensive mosquito, fly and other insect bites
• Andrew electrocuted himself in his sleep (finger stuck in conveniently handy, dodgy and live power point)
  
• Bugs dropped onto me in bed
• We got mild food poisoning and spent a couple of days with gastro discomfort. Andrew in particular became a regular friend of the toilet
• Sunburn is pretty inevitable
• We crossed into Guatemala the same day 2 guys were killed in the border town : in a drugs motivated gang shoot out.
• With the temperature around 35C+, particularly away from the coast, you get hot and dusty very quickly doing an excursion.
• We had hotel water smelling of sulphur dioxide
• The power went down
• The public transport system broke down
• We sampled some pretty awful roads

After those caveats, it might seem strange to say it but Belize is an amazing country and well worth the inconveniences.

Our time at San Ignacio was full of great memories. We canoed into Barton Creek cave with Mayan artefacts. We saw a waterfall at a distance which was about 500m tall (apparently SAS guys ran out of rope when they first tried to abseil down it in the 1960s - so they had to find some more). And there was lots of wildlife to look at, perhaps the most memorable was catching sight of a hummingbird from our hotel veranda!

But the highlight was Tikal in Guatemala. This huge Mayan site that was abandoned many hundreds of years ago. Climbing the Mayan pyramids in the hot Guatemalan jungle was amazing. Getting down was worse.

In our second week we went to Placencia on the central south coast. The flight down was magnificent, with Andrew sitting in the seat to the right of the pilot, complete with spare controls, although Andrew didn't look as good as the person in the picture. As we landed on a runway which literally came out of a mangrove swamp. This was much more to Jen’s liking. Palm trees. Hammocks. See breeze. A view of False Caye from our bedroom. Lots of ways to relax. And the people running the place were more friendly.

We boated out to Laughing Bird Caye, named after one of the bird species there. The Caye was great. A real coral reef island. Great scenery. Amazing diving. So many species of life: barracuda, sea cucumbers, octopus and crayfish. Jen even saw the little fish that go inside the mouths of bigger fish to clean them, as well as cleaning their gills. The big fish just sit their patiently while they have their “oral” and “facial(?)”. And to top it all off there were all these pelicans that dive bomb into the water on a regular basis to feast on the small fish. We loved this place so much we went back later in the week.

Also down south we spent time in a place called Monkey River. Now we aren’t really that big into nature watching. But what they have in Belize is truly staggering, crocodiles, 540 odd species of birds etc blah, blah, blah. And we did truly appreciate encountering wild howler monkeys. But this involved leaving Monkey River and entering the Jungle. Big mistake. Remember the comment about The Mosquito Coast? Who hadn’t brought long pants (Andrew)? Who found the industrial (?) strength repellant didn’t seem to repel (Andrew)? How easy is it for mosquitoes to bite through thin clothing (very)?

In the jungle the mosquitoes attacked. In swarms. Forget all the horrible diseases you can die of carried by these critters that you have all those horrible needles for. These guys were simply out for blood – lots of it! At any one average time, there were perhaps 20-30 “incomings!”. Jen fared a marginally better. Without enough clothing Andrew thought there was only one solution to stop the biting: keep on moving, even when the group has stopped. What he didn't realise was that the mosquitoes are attracted to movement. And it is pretty hard and embarrassing to keep up a one man aerobics show in the hot and humid jungle. Every time the Guide stopped to show us something Andrew got really depressed – more aerobics! The guide found us some howler monkeys – who cares! Anyone want to see my King Kong impersonation, complete with ‘mosquito planes’? Even as we got back into the boat and sped away we were fighting a rearguard action against the determined mosquitoes who had holed themselves up in the boat. Despite all our best efforts we still got a lot of bites. Worse still, those little guys managed to fly into some pretty amazing (ahem) places…

We went to another Jungle area later in the week which was a much more pleasant experience. This time we were ready with the clothing, and a grand total of ONE mosquito came out to play. Go figure. This was a Jaguar reserve, and (fairly) thankfully we didn’t see any of the big cats.

However the leafcutter ants there provided an amazing spectacle. It was like being in a David Attenborough nature documentary. The ants, with their neat road, were busily stripping some poor tree and busily carrying back little cut pieces of leaf to their nest. It looked amazing. They chew these leaves up and then feed on the mold that results. The sun had got too warm on one patch of the path so a group of ants had dropped their pieces of leaf. Apparently, they come back to collect dropped pieces later. Our guide stamped on the nest and drew out some soldier ants – scary ants! Their jaws are very large. They occasionally patrol the paths the workers ants use as well. Apparently the Mayans used to get the soldier ants to bite and hold together broken skin. They would pull off the body and just leave the heads clamping the skin: creating a natural suture.

We exited this jungle by “tubing” down a river. This was like Dodgem cars in slow motion, with everyone sporting a wet bottom (the linked photo may be of a different river but the visuals are very reminiscent of our experience). I was way out in front until I grounded on a shallow patch in the river, my derriere to low to slide over the stones. As I desperately tried to escape predicament, Jen floated past to the finishing point.

We didn’t really want to leave Belize. In particular our second week was RELAXING. It has taken us a week to really get back into work on Jersey. This was on balance a great holiday, so much better than that week on a bus in Italy...