After a wonderful time in Guatemala we went on to go to Belize - finally some beach time! :-)
Soon after we departed from our lodge in the jungle in Tikal our bus needed to stop at a construction site. The joke from on of our Trek-Leaders '... they are paving the road as we go ...' was totally accurate as we would find out later.
After standing there for about an hour the queue of vehicles (or rather the driver to be precise) decided to not take this construction that serious after all and continue driving although there was no paved road.
Nevertheless we safely arrived at the border to Belize and did not even lose any luggage that was put on the roof of the bus.
At the border we needed to leave the bus and walk across.
Unfortunately our bus was not allowed to pass since the Belizian authorities figured that they rather have taxis from Belize earn our money as opposed to a bus from Guatemala.
So we got onto Taxis in Belize (I would guess these cars failed any western TUV inspection several decades ago). Interestingly our driver tried to convince us that an air conditioning would be less effective then just opening the windows. As it turned out he was absolutely right. However the fact that his a/c was broken played some part in this.
What I loved about our time in Belize in general: There are hardly any roads. So wherever you go, you take the boat!
So the majority of our time in Belize we spend on the beach, on boats or in the water.
We went snorkeling twice - I loved it! I never really snorkeled before. It was great to swim with a wide variety of fish, with sea turtles and smaller sharks.
I was so distracted by all these animals that my knees experienced how sharp coral reaves really are. Fortunately my blood did not attract any more dangerous animals! ;-)
Almost all of us got really bad sun burn on their backs.
So here is a business opportunity: I used sun screen with factor 80 and reapplied it about every 2 hours. I still got burned.
So if you figure out a way to make factor 800 sun screen: There are certainly some customers for you in Belize!
Besides the sun I also had a hard time getting used to the sheer heat in Belize.
One night a trek leader and I decided t go for a run the next morning. What we did not expect was that running at 9 am meant running at ~40 degrees.
Stubborn as we were we did stick to our 'stupid' idea of going for a run.
We asked one of the locals whether there would be a road we could run on. Latest the following answer explained why we took the boat all the time.
The guy would explain us how the beach would be in better condition, with less holes and more even.
After about a 45 min run, we tried to spend the rest of the day in air conditioned rooms! ;-)
On our second to last day we took the water taxi one final time to Belize City.
From Belize City we would fly back to Detroit the following day.
Since Belize City is a small but very dangerous city we spend the entire evening in the hotel.
I once again tried to prove that I can win money in a casino.
Well, I guess sometimes history repeats itself. I won quite some money early on, but I was not willing to call it a night that early. I guess you can image how it ended.
Fortunately I was disciplined enough to only play with my remaining Belizian Dollars. :-)
Put since pictures say more then a thousand words, I stop writing now!
Some more pictures from Belize:
Well, one think I still need to mention.
A big THANK YOU to our Trek Leaders how put this together during their internships, after the trip to Honduras was cancelled. Thanks for this first highlight of my MBA!
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