.JPG)
the fishing is great - baracuuuuuuda
without a hook or line....
typical old wooden home - Belize City
sea kayaking the Caribbean
our home at Glovers Reef for a week!
Lori gets a helping hand
floating down the Macal River.JPG)
catching a nurse shark by hand (with dog help)
a couple of wahoo - great eating for sure!First of all “sorry for the delay” in updating our travel site but Lori lost interest and it has taken me this long to find the dang kickstarter to get this computer started!
Belize was one of the few countries that we did not pass through on our way south, but we have been here before during a 2000 backpacking trip. Our remote border crossing was a breeze...just a stamp in the passport for the motos...but insurance is mandatory and expensive at 9 US dollars per day per moto! (a car only costs 6$ per day?) so we sat down with our insurance fellow and worked out the days we were going to ride and picked up 4 days worth...definitely on a schedule now! (Our first question was “How much does it cost if you get caught without insurance?”...the answer of 500 US wasn’t what we wanted to hear, thus the insurance!
Our first stop is the pretty village of San Ignacio where we pitched our tent and explored town. The next day we rented a canoe and paddled 15 kms of the Macal River...beautiful and our friends the giant Iguanas were still hanging around the large jungle trees. We got a little treat while we were gone in the form of a massive tropical rain storm that had our tent and down sleeping bags floating in 4 inches of water...NICE!
Needless to say the next day was spent trying to dry things out and visiting some of the locals...any time of the day is the right time for a Belekin (cerveza)...pretty laid back and super friendly are the words that come to mind!
Its a 6 hr (we move SSLLOOWWW) ride to the Sittee River via the gorgeous Hummingbird and Main South Hwy. One look around the bug infested jungle at Glovers Reef Hostel convinced us that camping was NOT a good idea and we grabbed a fantastic small cabina that sat on 25 foot poles and most importantly had a huge fan to blow those darn noseeums back into Guatemala! First job (only job!) on the agenda is to get the 650 running as it has been smoking, farting and backfiring its way across Belize. It took a while (fingers one foot long and ¼ inch across would help!) to get the carb off and completely dismantled after which we hiked the 5 kms to Hopkins Town where I found a fellow with a 50 year old compressor and cleaned the carb (one buck). Yes...we have success as it runs like new!
This place is super nice...folks are incredibly friendly and the local kids have “adopted us” so we spend the evenings relaxing on the deck with the fan blowing and watching some fantastic sunsets. The local owners tell us that one can still buy a riverfront lot for 10 thousand dollars but the prices are rising quickly..! We did some exploring of the area on our bikes and used the kayak on several streams before we headed out to Glovers Atoll (46 miles off shore) to spend 8 days on a remote 8 acre palm tree covered island. (one can buy island property at 99 thousand per acre)
We spent a fantastic 8 days enjoying our island (I say our island because for about 4 days we were the only tourists on the island) and Becky (the owner) moved us to a beautiful off-shore cabana (built in traditional style) from our tent (rain!) after she heard about our moto trip. Thank you Becky!
So relaxation is the word of the week...absolutely unreal snorkeling in the water surrounding the island (which is a world heritage site where fishing etc. is illegal unless you are an indigenous person)...huge rays, sharks and fish of every color and description floating through huge mountains of corral. We didn’t think it could get any better than this but some folks that had visited the Atoll prior to the hurricanes that hit Belize a few years ago said that the corral forests consisted of stag horn corral over 10 feet in height...none of which was left for us to see!
We also managed to get out fishing...incredible as we caught 20 plus pound King Mackerel, Barracuda etc. Every night the fish are cleaned on the islands dock and sharks (Sand, Black tip and Reef) flock around in 2 foot deep water to eat the fish entrails etc. So we had this idea of catching a shark without a hook...tied a rope onto a fish carcass and sure enough the shark would not let go of the fish until we drug it up on shore and Warren (owners son) and his trusty dog grabbed the 5 foot shark and held it up for photos before tossing it back in the ocean!
After a long boat ride through to Dandriga and back to Sittee River (rough and wet but we did manage to get a look at a rare sea manatee) we hit the road North. Another fantastic ride and we are chasing a huge black storm cloud across the rugged Maya mountains. Belize City is well known for its dangers and wouldn’t you know it...just as we pass the sign “Welcome to Belize City” (70,000 pop.) just before dark (4:30) in the rain...another flat!. At least we were only 5 m away from a army check and my tire changing skills (?) had the army fellows smiling if not outright laughing! There goes my last spare tube so we are not going anywhere until I get some extra tubes (and it's Sat. Night).
Picked up a room just at dark and spent a wonderful Sunday riding around Belize City. This really is a neat city...we love it! No downtown core at all so virtually all the buildings are one or two stories tall, made of wood and feature a very distinctive Belizean style (lots on stilts) that feature lots of open veranda and the brightest colors one can imagine! The streets are really narrow (no RV’s need apply!), rough and completely devoid of traffic. We can see why you may not want to wander about these parts after dark but today the folks are nothing but super friendly...relaxing everywhere...makes this city seem like a small town...wonderful!
One thing that is interesting is that Belize is totally shut-down on Sundays, which is very different from most of the countries we have visited!
For our final day in Belize we headed north through parkland to the Mexican border near Santa Ellena (after picking up tubes (only took us about 3 hrs to figure out where to buy tubes!) and surviving horrendous overnight rain storm(s)) We were surprised to see how much garbage was thrown about in the Parks...every side-road was literally a garbage dump...getting close to Mexico are we?
So what did we think of Belize? First of all the people are absolutely fantastic (what is funny is that during our 2000 visit we had a tough time dealing with the locals)...in this country black, colored and white people all live together and to at least our eyes, live more in peace here than any place we have ever visited. Maybe we can all learn something from these beautiful people!
Belize is expensive...and if it is expensive for us, it is sad to think of how tough it is on the locals, which for the most part are relatively poor. Many people we talked to said that they were going to have to leave Belize (most head to Guatemala) because they simply could not afford Belize.
Lastly...do not visit Belize during the rainy season!
Belize was one of the few countries that we did not pass through on our way south, but we have been here before during a 2000 backpacking trip. Our remote border crossing was a breeze...just a stamp in the passport for the motos...but insurance is mandatory and expensive at 9 US dollars per day per moto! (a car only costs 6$ per day?) so we sat down with our insurance fellow and worked out the days we were going to ride and picked up 4 days worth...definitely on a schedule now! (Our first question was “How much does it cost if you get caught without insurance?”...the answer of 500 US wasn’t what we wanted to hear, thus the insurance!
Our first stop is the pretty village of San Ignacio where we pitched our tent and explored town. The next day we rented a canoe and paddled 15 kms of the Macal River...beautiful and our friends the giant Iguanas were still hanging around the large jungle trees. We got a little treat while we were gone in the form of a massive tropical rain storm that had our tent and down sleeping bags floating in 4 inches of water...NICE!
Needless to say the next day was spent trying to dry things out and visiting some of the locals...any time of the day is the right time for a Belekin (cerveza)...pretty laid back and super friendly are the words that come to mind!
Its a 6 hr (we move SSLLOOWWW) ride to the Sittee River via the gorgeous Hummingbird and Main South Hwy. One look around the bug infested jungle at Glovers Reef Hostel convinced us that camping was NOT a good idea and we grabbed a fantastic small cabina that sat on 25 foot poles and most importantly had a huge fan to blow those darn noseeums back into Guatemala! First job (only job!) on the agenda is to get the 650 running as it has been smoking, farting and backfiring its way across Belize. It took a while (fingers one foot long and ¼ inch across would help!) to get the carb off and completely dismantled after which we hiked the 5 kms to Hopkins Town where I found a fellow with a 50 year old compressor and cleaned the carb (one buck). Yes...we have success as it runs like new!
This place is super nice...folks are incredibly friendly and the local kids have “adopted us” so we spend the evenings relaxing on the deck with the fan blowing and watching some fantastic sunsets. The local owners tell us that one can still buy a riverfront lot for 10 thousand dollars but the prices are rising quickly..! We did some exploring of the area on our bikes and used the kayak on several streams before we headed out to Glovers Atoll (46 miles off shore) to spend 8 days on a remote 8 acre palm tree covered island. (one can buy island property at 99 thousand per acre)
We spent a fantastic 8 days enjoying our island (I say our island because for about 4 days we were the only tourists on the island) and Becky (the owner) moved us to a beautiful off-shore cabana (built in traditional style) from our tent (rain!) after she heard about our moto trip. Thank you Becky!
So relaxation is the word of the week...absolutely unreal snorkeling in the water surrounding the island (which is a world heritage site where fishing etc. is illegal unless you are an indigenous person)...huge rays, sharks and fish of every color and description floating through huge mountains of corral. We didn’t think it could get any better than this but some folks that had visited the Atoll prior to the hurricanes that hit Belize a few years ago said that the corral forests consisted of stag horn corral over 10 feet in height...none of which was left for us to see!
We also managed to get out fishing...incredible as we caught 20 plus pound King Mackerel, Barracuda etc. Every night the fish are cleaned on the islands dock and sharks (Sand, Black tip and Reef) flock around in 2 foot deep water to eat the fish entrails etc. So we had this idea of catching a shark without a hook...tied a rope onto a fish carcass and sure enough the shark would not let go of the fish until we drug it up on shore and Warren (owners son) and his trusty dog grabbed the 5 foot shark and held it up for photos before tossing it back in the ocean!
After a long boat ride through to Dandriga and back to Sittee River (rough and wet but we did manage to get a look at a rare sea manatee) we hit the road North. Another fantastic ride and we are chasing a huge black storm cloud across the rugged Maya mountains. Belize City is well known for its dangers and wouldn’t you know it...just as we pass the sign “Welcome to Belize City” (70,000 pop.) just before dark (4:30) in the rain...another flat!. At least we were only 5 m away from a army check and my tire changing skills (?) had the army fellows smiling if not outright laughing! There goes my last spare tube so we are not going anywhere until I get some extra tubes (and it's Sat. Night).
Picked up a room just at dark and spent a wonderful Sunday riding around Belize City. This really is a neat city...we love it! No downtown core at all so virtually all the buildings are one or two stories tall, made of wood and feature a very distinctive Belizean style (lots on stilts) that feature lots of open veranda and the brightest colors one can imagine! The streets are really narrow (no RV’s need apply!), rough and completely devoid of traffic. We can see why you may not want to wander about these parts after dark but today the folks are nothing but super friendly...relaxing everywhere...makes this city seem like a small town...wonderful!
One thing that is interesting is that Belize is totally shut-down on Sundays, which is very different from most of the countries we have visited!
For our final day in Belize we headed north through parkland to the Mexican border near Santa Ellena (after picking up tubes (only took us about 3 hrs to figure out where to buy tubes!) and surviving horrendous overnight rain storm(s)) We were surprised to see how much garbage was thrown about in the Parks...every side-road was literally a garbage dump...getting close to Mexico are we?
So what did we think of Belize? First of all the people are absolutely fantastic (what is funny is that during our 2000 visit we had a tough time dealing with the locals)...in this country black, colored and white people all live together and to at least our eyes, live more in peace here than any place we have ever visited. Maybe we can all learn something from these beautiful people!
Belize is expensive...and if it is expensive for us, it is sad to think of how tough it is on the locals, which for the most part are relatively poor. Many people we talked to said that they were going to have to leave Belize (most head to Guatemala) because they simply could not afford Belize.
Lastly...do not visit Belize during the rainy season!
