See pictures of colorful Belize houses |
April 16th to May 1st 2011 It was interesting and somewhat amazing to see the many differences between Mexico and Belize when we crossed the border: from tortilla to rice & beans, from tequila to Rum, from Spanish to English, from concrete houses to wooden houses built on stilts, from luxury buses to old school buses without air conditioned. The people, the land, the houses, the music, and the food: everything looked somewhat different. We spent two nights in Corozal (Northern Belize) and I can say it was a quiet, peaceful and beautiful small town. I still can’t believe the color of the water: it was an amazing turquoise color. We rented a vehicle in Belize City, picked up my mom at the airport and left for Cayo district (Western Belize, close to the Guatemala border). The jungle was dry and fields were burning everywhere. Nonetheless, waking up every morning to the sound of parrots and dozen of bird species was very pleasant. |
The iguana center was definitively one of the highlight during our trip. An educational center for locals who used to eat (some still are) iguanas. The iguanas are breaded and released into the wild, when they reach adult size. The butterflies farm (the largest in Belize), was only the size of a small house, but there was hundreds (thousands?) of blue morphos flying all over the place. We visited many butterflies farm over the years (including St.Maarten and Malaysia), but none of these equaled the amount of butterflies flying in there. We visited interesting Mayan Ruins and climbing to the summit of Xunantunich (130 ft) was quite and adventure!
|
We visited Hot mama sauces! Definitively a stop if you like to add some spices to your life (and food!). We came back to Belize City and took the boat to Caye Caulker. It was amazing to see these little fishermen’s houses in the middle of the ocean. No bathrooms, no land: just wooden houses on stilts. We came back to Belize City and spent an overnight there. All I can say is that Belize City is very poor, somewhat violent with little to see or do. I am still happy that we spent an afternoon there eating amazing food at Bird’s Isle Restaurant directly located on the ocean |
||
The next day, we took a bus to Chetumal (Mexico). The Express-non stop bus stopped at least 15 times and took 4.5 hours to complete the 130km journey! This is much better than the buses we took when coming down. At least 50% faster… Chetumal was a very pleasant city with a nice ocean boardwalk. The Mexican pancakes (known as Marquesitas) were fantastic! I was very interesting to see how Mexico is much more developed and organized than Belize… Anyway, it took us 2 more days from there to come back to Torreon as our flight from Mexico City was cancelled. Overall, a great trip with transport to and from Torreon being long, disorganized and somewhat painful. It took almost 70 hours from Caye Caulker (Belize) to come back to Torreon (Northern Mexico). |
|
Xunantunich Mayan Ruins, Santa Elena, Western Belize |
|