BELIZE: what a peculiar country!

Hi,
Just for the record: from now on I will probably write down my adventures in English. In that way people I meet along the way are also able to read my stories. If anyone has a problem with this, you can send a complaint to the following email address: mienospiekinglish@gmail.com

Anyway:
Arriving in Belize… pfff what can I say. It is such a strange country: for one the official language is not Spanish but English, secondly 30 % of the people are black people that originate from slaves brought to this part of Central America and last but not least it is really expensive! So, the atmosphere is totally different from Mexico. I would compare it to Jamaica if I had to choose a certain country. They have the same accent in a way (no man , yes man, ….).

On the bus heading for Belize City I met this Frenchman Matthias who had also been travelling for some months and was heading for the same place. Once we arrived in Belize City, we searched for the Seaside Guest hostel. We didn´t have a clue what Belize City was like and did not take any taxi, because the hostel wasn´t that far from the bus station according to my Footprint. Along the way we were getting “guided” by a really annoying guy. When we reached the hostel, he asked the older lady for some money but didn´t get any. He was shouting and becoming more and more agressive until he bashed on the front porch and left. So you can understand that the first impression we had of Belize wasn´t a good one. Then the nice gypsie lady told us a bit about Belize city and that it is really dangerous to go out after 20u. She even told us not to stay if we didn´t want to, but we did anyway. It won´t hurt to live on the edge once and a while :-). Eventually it became a really nice evening chilling on the balcony (ocean view) with some other tourists (2 Slovakian girls, australian people and american guys) listening to a guy who played the guitar really well. Luckily I stayed…

The next day Matthias and me left for the island Caye Caulker, where I stayed for 3 days. Here it was much safer and a real paradise. It was like we were coming from hell and were arriving in heaven. The first day I snorkelled in Hol-Chan reef and swam with sharks, stingrays and turtles. I have really nice pictures of this but still have to develop them. You´ll just have to wait to see them.
The next days I hung around with 2 American girls (Catalina and Carina),an Australian girl (Ginger) and 3 Frenchmen. This was really fun (Catalina stop calling me Clintie :-) ( I still don´t know why you do this) ).

After having said goodbye to the girls, I left Caye Caulker and the Caribbean sea the 12th of august and headed to San Ignacio (jungle area). There I visited the Aktun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Cave. This was amazing!!! After driven through the dense jungle, we hiked for about an hour to finally reach the cave. I was in a real small group with a very adventurous guide so we had the opportunity to do extreme caving (normally tourists don´t do this part). The cave is very special to the Mayan people (still up until today) because of the human nature of the cave and the many sacrifices that were held in this cave.

Some say the ghosts of the sacrificed mayas still wander the cave at night (didn´t see that though).

The next day (14/08) I left the expensive Belize and went to Flores (Guatemala) where I am now.
Apart from Belize City, Belize is a very interesting country with people from all colours of the rainbow. You just have to forget the impression you get at Belize City.

Later everybody

Carribean Pirate Clint