Blue Hole and Market Day in Belize

Today was our "rest day", meaning that we didn't have an excursion lined up with the lodge. By this point we were feeling pretty beat so it was a welcome change of pace. We weren't just going to lay around though. We had a little adventure of our own cooking.

We talked to the staff the night before about the market in nearby Belmopan. Word on the street was that the bi-weekly farmers market was where the Mennonites sold their produce. We had more than enough food at the resort but we did want to talk to some Mennonites. It wasn't in our guide book either which made it extra fun.

Abel the rather intense excursion organizer let us in on a little tip: a bus comes by the road that the lodge is on once every hour on the hour that would take us to Belmopan. He said we should take it if we want an "authentic experience". It was pretty darn authentic.

We sat by the road and sweated profusely, even in the shade. We had a bit of hike from our room to the road, which wouldn't have been a big deal but the heat and humidity made it much worse. It was was probably quarter after when the bus appeared; We were about ready to give up and call a cab. We didn't see any actual bus "stops" so we just waved from the side of the road. By the time the driver saw us he had to screech to a stop and then back up in the middle of the road to meet us. It was an interesting start to an interesting ride.

The bus was nearly full and we just barely got to sit together. There was no indication anywhere what the bus route was, so we just kept our eyes open and hoped. There aren't a whole lot of roads to choose from in Belize so that certainly simplified things. Upbeat music was playing which I enjoyed. It was quite the homemade sound system: on the luggage rack above a home stereo speaker was laying on its side and tied down with wire. The ride cost $1.

We ran out of seats but the bus just kept on picking up more passengers, who stood in the aisle. That seemed to work until the money collector guy on board hurriedly motioned that everyone take a seat. I joked that there must be police around. Sure enough, we pulled up to a police check point. A straight laced looking officer climbed on board, gave us all a look-over, and then walked off.

We de-bused at a pretty central seeming bus station and got our bearings. There were lots of market stalls, but they seemed awfully permanent and not very interesting. I asked a random normal looking woman for the scoop, and sure enough the farmers market was in a slightly different part of town. It was hot as heck so we grabbed a cab. The cab driver was nice and seemed eager to share information about the city and country. He handed me a print out of the World Cup match schedules. Being without internet in the middle of the jungle I had completely forgotten that it was even happening!

Ultimately the market was fun to poke around but there wasn't a Mennonite to be seen. Apparently they only come on particular days. Those crafty Mennonites had outsmarted us again. Ultimately the journey was much more interesting than the destination, but definitely worth the trip.

I notice advertisements for a free outdoor film series sponsored by the US Embassy. I also noticed a few police cars had "donated by the US government" written on the side. Belize definitely seemed to have a better relationship with the US than say, Nicaragua.

Back in the car with our faithful cab driver Robert Popper, I asked about the US/Belize relationship. He seemed to agree that the US is generous, but that we can be pushy as a result. For example, he said that the US government could come and arrest someone pretty much at will if they wanted to and take them back to the US. What I expected to be a warm fuzzy conversation ended up being a really serious subject for him. I felt embarrassed for bringing it up. We arrived back at the lodge without further event. We liked him enough that we booked him to drive us to Placencia the following day.

The towel animals were cool but by the time I got back to the room every night I was too tired to deal with them crowding my bed space. Vamoose!

We headed to the restaurant area to have our only lunch of our stay. The food was delicious and it was nice and peaceful compared to the high production dinners. We could also play around in the pool without vying for space. After lunch we decided we'd like to have a tasty drink out of a coconut.

The bartender was super nice about our weird request. He did say he's worked there a year and no one has ever brought him coconuts before, which made me proud to be one of the awesomest tourists he's ever met. My words, not his.

I don't remember if it had a name but there was coconut cream and coconut rum involved and it was fantastic.

Even the sodas have to be de-rusted via napkin before drinking. Very strange indeed.

The second mission of our lazy free day was to walk across the street to Blue Hole National Park. God help you if you confuse that with Blue Hole National Monument, as I complained about before arriving.

This place had a fee to enter as well. So many entrance fees, so little time.

It was a very beautiful place, to be fair. The water was unnaturally blue. I believe the story is that an underground cave's ceiling collapsed and was filled with water, creating a really deep but small body of water. The water was pretty darn cold so we didn't stay too long. We both agreed we'd rather be in the pool back at the lodge: warmer water, no bugs, and prepaid food and drink.

The fish didn't seem to mind the water temperature.

Ya'll come back now.

Hello Belize: The Zoo Then The Jungle

The flights were pretty much uneventful. While standing in line at the Belize immigration I noticed there were American flag stickers in each booth that said the immigration equipment had been paid for by the US government.

We already had a car arranged ahead of time so there wasn't any of that unfortunate hiring of sketchy cab driver business to look forward to. Our driver was a rather tall Dutch man named William. William had a very animated, run-on train of thought that reminded me very much of Robin Williams, complete with multiple accents and sound effects. William had a bummer of a story that because he had accepted Belizean citizenship without getting married to a local that the Netherlands revoked his native citizenship. Kinda lame move on their part I would say. He certainly didn't seem too torn up about it though, so that was good.

The airport was nice and laid back. None of that scary zombie movie, faces smashed against the glass business I've witnessed down south in the past.

We hadn't been driving long when he asked if we’d like to stop and pick up some beers for the road. Um, yes, yes we would. I’d read about the local beer company, Belikin, in the guide book so I had to have that one. I thought it was amusing that the two flavors of Belikin, original and stout, both come in the same bottle with only the bottle cap color to differentiate. We are also back to the returnable bottles, so each one weighs about a pound empty. Speaking of bottle caps, William told us to wipe off the mouth of the bottle after removing the cap because sometimes they rust.

Belizean dollars are pegged to 2x the US dollar which makes the math pretty simple. Everyone seems to take US dollars so I haven’t had to mess with ATMs at all.

Stopping at the Belize Zoo was a big reason that we wanted to hire a car in the first place. We flew into Belize City, but the guide books make it sound pretty rough.  A healthy level of crime mixed with not much to see made it a good place to skip. Typical wisecracking William chimed in that Belize City was really just Detroit with palm trees. Belize Zoo was pretty near the city but outside of it, so we didn't get to see any of the city charm. Going to zoos in other countries is awesome because you will definitely see creatures you hadn't seen previously. I would say the majority of the animals that I saw at this zoo I had not known to even exist.

The Belize Zoo has it easy because it is already in the jungle, so they really just put a few fences up around terrain that was already there. It's funny because the place is so wild that you'll often see awesome animals in places where they aren't even supposed to be.

Lydia got too close and got a camera full of comically large beak.

The gibnut, nicknamed the royal rat after it was served to Queen Elizabeth during a visit.

This Ocelot was making a whole lot of noise.

Jaguar. They apparently spend about 2% of their time murdering and the other 98% in a jungle coma.

Each animal had its own cool hand painted sign.

I gave bonus points for rhyming.

Harpy Eagle

Jabiru Stork

After rattling all of those animals cages and poking them with jungle sticks, we were famished. William suggested a local restaurant by the name of Cheers. I couldn't stop laughing.

Every last beer that we ordered in the country came with a napkin wrapped over the top. It's meant to wipe off any possible rust taste.

The food was fine but not a single person new my name. They didn't even seem super glad that I came.

Further down the road we reached a police checkpoint. Driver William asked us for one of our empties as we approached. Will asked them to hold his beer while he looked for his driver’s license. They all had a good chuckle and then we were on our way.

We stopped at a supermarket briefly, then took a quick cruise around Belmopan, the capital of Belize. (William: the Chinese control the supermarkets. They’re just better at it. Tenacious.”) According to my pre-trip reading, the capital used to be coastal Belize City but it was moved inland in the 1970’s after a particularly brutal hurricane. Belmopan looked pretty rough in its own way. Even the parliament building was pretty sad looking. He drove us by the US embassy which was quite imposing by comparison.

The farther we got from coastal Belize city, the more jungle-like the scenery became.

When we finally arrived at Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Lodge, it was like entering the Garden of Eden. The thatched roof guest quarters are separated by mazes of all types of plants and flowers. One thing that we were concerned about were the bucket-full-of-holes jungle showers, but apparently the rooms have been updated and there are now indoor showers in each room. Suits me just fine. There are no glass windows, only screens throughout our little cabin, so I can occasionally hear large winged insects trying to get in.

We were ushered to the front desk where we got cool towels, some welcome drinks, and got to sign lengthy liability releases.

Each day our bath towels were arranged in an animal shape with flowers all over the place. There was a lesser version of this towel origami happening at our recent cruise.

We had been warned about the deafening cries of the howler monkey but so far the exotic animal calls are a constant, soft background music that you can just ignore if you want to. We brought earplugs thinking it might be hard to sleep with the monkey symphony outside but we've been fine so far.
The food is really good, but its presentation is a bit summer campy. There are four courses, and each one is preceded by the head camp counselor’s explanation presentation. Seating is assigned, but luckily dinner was next to a nice family. If you stay the entire time then dinner will take 2 hours, but mom of the family Cathy pointed out that since we don’t have TVs or really anywhere else to be that dinner conversation is not a terrible form of night-time entertainment. It's also a good way to get information about the place from the other inmates. Lydia said the whole thing reminded her of what our recent cruise’s forced meals were like, only these were completely way better.

Dinner time is when the tour guides go table to table to drum up interest for their respective adventure itineraries. We figured we would get all of our week’s worth of tours lined up immediately, but the situation here is much more relaxed. We don’t really know where we will be going until the day before. Tomorrow we will be starting off with some cave tubing. Sounds tubular.

I probably went to sleep at like 8pm this night. A long day of awesome experiences will really take it out of you.