I'm a wee bit tired and not sure I have the energy required to detail all of yesterday, but here are the highlights;
Early rise to catch a bus to Tikal. This is an east thing to do. There must be 400,000 booths selling this tour on Flores and you just pay your money and turn up the following morning ticket in hand. The problem is/was that I didn't want to come back. Tikal is approximately half way to Belize from Flores, and that's where I wanted to go. Needless to say, the booths also ell tickets to go to Belie, but that's only from Flores. So you can do A-B-A, or you can do A-C, but no-one does A-B-C. So I negotiated a ticket price reduction to just do A-B. Fine. That left me with the problem of navigating nearly 100km of B-C on my own. Still with me? Great.
Tikal is absolutely stunning and I really can't do it justice here. It's a vast ancient Mayan city in a vast National Park - and for the purposes of this post one should note it's about 20km from the nearest small village.
So I got dropped off with all my belongings in Tikal and had a nice little sweaty sticky wander. After I'd seen all I wanted to see (and if you get the chance, I really recommend you go, it really is one of those places that lives up to the hype) I started to try and figure out a way to Belize. I began by asking any minibus driver I could find if they were heading on my direction and if they had a spare seat. No joy. On the verge of waving a large wad of dollars in the air at any passer by, I spotted a chicken bus pulling up. On the off chance, I mimed and pointed and it appeared he was going back to a junction 30km away that led to Belize. I hopped on, an hour later hopped off, and started to hitch. I walked for probably 6-7 km in the direction of the border still some 50km away. I ended up in the back of a pick-up truck (the ubiquitous Toyota Hilux) speeding across a dusty track through the jungle and finished up in a town some way short of the frontier. I managed to flag down a minivan known as a 'Collective', basically a cheap locals hopper bus, which got me to the where I wanted to go. Once through the border, it was a 16km taxi ride to San Ignacio and my hostel for the next few nights. ...and relax.
P.S. This is how welcoming Belizeans are; my taxi guy and I got chatting and he asked me if I had a wife. When I said I didn't, he immediately and enthusiastically gave me the full run down of where to go and what to pay for the best prostitutes in town so I wouldn't get ripped off. Now that's hospitality.
P.P.S. US$25, Joseph Andrew Drive ...for anyone wondering.
Tikal. Really really stunning jungly city
They could do with putting a high pressure hose over some of the stonework, but it's a poor country, so well, you know.
Belize is such a lovely place, everyone wants to get in. It took me 90 minutes - and I'm a Commonwealth member for christ's sake!
This is Caesar. Caesar was very drunk, and/or very stoned, and absolutely refused to leave me alone over dinner. In the end, I had to resort to paying him Belize$1 to 'fuck off and buy yourself a beer somewhere else'
After a day of winging it, there really was only one menu item I could order. ..I fucking love Belize
Early rise to catch a bus to Tikal. This is an east thing to do. There must be 400,000 booths selling this tour on Flores and you just pay your money and turn up the following morning ticket in hand. The problem is/was that I didn't want to come back. Tikal is approximately half way to Belize from Flores, and that's where I wanted to go. Needless to say, the booths also ell tickets to go to Belie, but that's only from Flores. So you can do A-B-A, or you can do A-C, but no-one does A-B-C. So I negotiated a ticket price reduction to just do A-B. Fine. That left me with the problem of navigating nearly 100km of B-C on my own. Still with me? Great.
Tikal is absolutely stunning and I really can't do it justice here. It's a vast ancient Mayan city in a vast National Park - and for the purposes of this post one should note it's about 20km from the nearest small village.
So I got dropped off with all my belongings in Tikal and had a nice little sweaty sticky wander. After I'd seen all I wanted to see (and if you get the chance, I really recommend you go, it really is one of those places that lives up to the hype) I started to try and figure out a way to Belize. I began by asking any minibus driver I could find if they were heading on my direction and if they had a spare seat. No joy. On the verge of waving a large wad of dollars in the air at any passer by, I spotted a chicken bus pulling up. On the off chance, I mimed and pointed and it appeared he was going back to a junction 30km away that led to Belize. I hopped on, an hour later hopped off, and started to hitch. I walked for probably 6-7 km in the direction of the border still some 50km away. I ended up in the back of a pick-up truck (the ubiquitous Toyota Hilux) speeding across a dusty track through the jungle and finished up in a town some way short of the frontier. I managed to flag down a minivan known as a 'Collective', basically a cheap locals hopper bus, which got me to the where I wanted to go. Once through the border, it was a 16km taxi ride to San Ignacio and my hostel for the next few nights. ...and relax.
P.S. This is how welcoming Belizeans are; my taxi guy and I got chatting and he asked me if I had a wife. When I said I didn't, he immediately and enthusiastically gave me the full run down of where to go and what to pay for the best prostitutes in town so I wouldn't get ripped off. Now that's hospitality.
P.P.S. US$25, Joseph Andrew Drive ...for anyone wondering.
Tikal. Really really stunning jungly city
They could do with putting a high pressure hose over some of the stonework, but it's a poor country, so well, you know.
Belize is such a lovely place, everyone wants to get in. It took me 90 minutes - and I'm a Commonwealth member for christ's sake!
This is Caesar. Caesar was very drunk, and/or very stoned, and absolutely refused to leave me alone over dinner. In the end, I had to resort to paying him Belize$1 to 'fuck off and buy yourself a beer somewhere else'
After a day of winging it, there really was only one menu item I could order. ..I fucking love Belize
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