Belmopan, Belize

Again we decided to splash out on the bus to Belmopan in Belize and booked the deluxe cross border bus. We were surprised to find only 3 other passengers with us so had plenty of room to spread out, with air-con and fully reclining chairs the good life was back. It did costs us £10 each though when we could of got the chicken bus for $4 each but these cross border buses make things so easy it’s hard to resist. The border formalities were quick and straight forward and no fees were charged so happy days there. The bus picked us up after immigration and we were in Belmopan by 11.30, a quick 3.5hr journey.

Such a warm welcome to a country we had never heard of until a couple of months before today.

The first thing we noticed when leaving the bus is that the locals had changed from Latino looking to Rastafarian types. Second thing we noticed that was our biggest boost for ages was everybody spoke English. What a relief we could take a rest from our bad Spanish for a few days. Being that all the shops were in English, we quickly found a bank to withdraw currency called the Belizian Dollar, which displays proudly our Queens head on it. Not sure why it’s called a dollar though. Then we went to the solo phone providers headquarters as this was the only place you could buy a SIM for the phone, take a ticket and wait your turn in the queue to buy it. Formalities done and the phone up and running we went to the market and had some traditional Belizian fayre which included rice and beans, sweet potato mash and fried plantain with a side salad. It was delicious and only £2 each for a big plateful. Then we grabbed a taxi which can only be described as something they built on Scrapheap challenge, the driver having to open the boot door by shorting out one of the rear tail lights which was missing anyway to load our luggage.

Our neighbours were friendly enough, especially if you wanted to buy ganja but very poor and messy. 

 He dropped us off at our accommodation which was Tiny Houses. We went for something a bit different this time. We booked a small house in the jungle which had 2 bedrooms , a kitchen and bathroom which was self contained on a plot of 5 separate houses. They were really cute and being in the jungle had a great outlook.

We even had a deluxe swimming pool at our accommodation but no inflatables. Boo!

 The only problem though was we were a little stranded so got the owner to meet us and we persuaded him to take us down to the supermarket…..wait for us…..and then take us back again. Top bloke! They did supply some cycles for us but when I tried one out, the saddle slipped around and made a mess of my crown jewels so that was the end of ever starting a family. We did find another couple staying there that informed us that if we waited at a certain point a Busito which is a minivan would come along to take us into town. So that's what we did, waiting on the side of a dusty, barren jungle road in the blistering heat waiting for Busito to come which we had no idea what it looked like or if and when it would show up at all.

Waiting expectantly for an unexpected bus. 

 But after 10 minutes a van pulled up which looked like it was the loser in Scrapheap Challenge 2 and beeped for us to get in so we did. Inside it looked like some drug addicts had stripped any thing of value out of it and just left the chassis and some unpadded seats. The windscreen had more cracks and splits in it than an ancient oak table leaving me wondering how the driver could actually see any of the road ahead.

The local shop lacked much stock but if you wanted pineapple than you were in luck.

 After paying our 50p fare each to a very relaxed dude type ganja induced driver we explored the centre of town trying to buy a padlock to replace one we lost in transit. An easy mission you would think? After frequenting 10 shops we still drew a blank. One thing we need to point out here. Belmopan is the capital city of Belize, I use that term loosely as it is no city. In fact I have seen bigger town centres in the Welsh hills where I grew up. It was like a vacuum. There was nothing. The shops harked back to the 60’s and 70’s in England, with basic stock, lack of choice and limited imported goods. The town centre you could walk around in 5 minutes and see it all. It was tiny. It was also set out in a very bizarre fashion, being set out around a car park, which doubled up as a market 2 days a week. In the car park was the bus station. There are no schedules, no ticket offices and no information. People just sit around chilled out hoping a bus will show up at some point. The whole vibe of this town was RELAX….there is no rush, no emergency, no stress just good times.

The smell from this would give you instant retching.

 After exploring every nook and cranny of the town centre we headed to a tour agent as we wanted to go tubing in a cave complex nearby but it was impossible to get a bus to go there. We walked about where it should have been, even asked a neighbouring hotel who said it was on the street but we never found it but bumped into a shop selling beers and rum so stocked up on that and waited on the side of the road for the return Busito…..and waited…..and waited, but nothing showed up so we had to walk the long hot road back to base carrying all our heavy booty. That nearly killed us so the rest of the day was spent chilling out as the heat of the day can be really oppressive. That night we had a few visitors in the house as you do in the jungle, the usual critters, gecko’s, bugs, mosquitoes, bitey beetle things, flying stingy things which we dispatched mostly with a big squashy book thingy but the most disturbing one was when a huge scorpion showed up in the kitchen! That was a showstopper I can tell you as we danced around it in bare feet trying to get it out the door.

The Cheech and Chong 'special' express ready to depart to cloud 9.

Next day after the best nights sleep we had in ages being so quiet here in the jungle, we again caught the Busito into town, then another one to Guanacaste National park. A patch of pristine jungle by the confluence of 2 rivers. Here we met a top bloke called Devon who was the ranger who introduced us to all what the habitat contained. On our walk around we sighted an Agouti, a huge Moniter lizard which caused me heart palpitations when it darted out the jungle across my path, a snake which we think was a Fer De Lance which can easily kill a human with their venom. Also we saw huming birds up close, native wood-creepers (like woodpeckers) lots of small lizards and huge morpho butterflies. It was a hot and sweaty walk though so after that we found the most beautiful clear blue jungle river so stripped off and dived into the surprisingly chilled water. Here we were joined by some of the locals from a neighbouring jungle village, but they did did not bother us, just done their own thing, washing their horses and doing death defying jumps off the banks into the river. It was a beautiful day out and so noncommercial. We only saw 2 other tourists all day.

Jungle river swimming hole.

 Back at the house we found where the scorpion got in so plugged the hole up so we didn’t get a repeat performance again. We spent the evening planning our next destination for the morning as there is nothing to do in town here , and we are not too sure how safe it is to walk around here at night. The people here are unbelievably friendly but they are also extremely poor so there is always going to be an element of danger walking the streets that have no street lights, everybody seems to carry a machete, and you never see any police about. Common sense prevails. Our next destination is Caye Caulker.