Got up quite late and headed downtown into New York. Spent most of the day wandering the streets like homeless people, but looking at lots of shops. Li had a makeover done in Macy’s and got a pile of makeup for MAC.

Signed up for the tour bus for 48hours, meaning that we can use it for transport, so did a bit of this in the afternoon as well.

Had dinner in Chinatown then headed out in the evening with some friends that Li knew when she spent some time previously in New York. Li ended the night with a couple too many drinks but had fun.

A day full of hassle and travel. Firstly, had to perform the, now standard, tyre change on our wonderful car. Next a 3 hour drive, 2 hour wait in the airport and then 1.5 flight to Miami. This is where I am now, waiting for a delayed plane to New York, currently only an hour late but I’m sure the Americans will put in some more pointless checks & questions to make it delayed just slightly more. Need beer.

Final took off, some nice views over Key West on the way to NY. Got to the hotel around 1am, tired & still in need of some beer!

Nice early start to the day thanks to the local bloody 2 legged alarm clocks. I think they’d end up in a pie if I lived here; however, we headed off to Cockscombe Basin and was there by 7:45am. Our guide started to show us around; saw lots of birds, some insects and even tracks from a Jaguar, but nothing really as good as we hoped as Cockscombe is famous for, and the only Jaguar park in the world. After four hours we parted company with the guide and £20 for his services, which didn’t seem too bad for that amount of time.

Headed down to a beach side village called Plancencia. At the moment it looks primary like a building site, but you can see that in 5 years it’s going to be a huge resort area and full of fancy homes for rich people. Huge houses on massive plots are being built everywhere basically. Tony did some snorkelling and found a cool looking star fish but not much else. Had a fantastic dinner in an open-air beach side restaurant. Shrimps (prawns!) chicken, snapper fish were all good.

Ended the day by taking a really slow drive back (and up to Cockscombe Basin again) to see what other animals we could spot. Saw some more birds, frogs, a small fox like creature and best was something that we think was a Puma; at least, it looked like that sort of thing & was around 3 times the size of a normal domestic cat (and would probably have like to eat one!) Anyway, it came right next to the car & Li got a really good look at it then it wandered off into the jungle. Overall, Belize is really good, loads of nature things to do & glad we came; however the number of mosquitoes here really is a bad point, you can’t even get from the car to the room without being bitten. Also, the roads are primarily unmade; if you’re coming get a 4×4, a big one. Tomorrow, New York. Tomorrow, New York.

After breakfast, we packed up all our stuff ready to head off but Tony found a flat tyre and the one we took off and pumped up also was flat.

It took a couple hours to finally get the tyres fixed and be on our way. We made a detourt on the way to Gales Point Manatee, the idea being to see some manatee’s in their home environment. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that you had to hire a boat for the day as it’s only during the breeding season that you can see them from the land; the rest of the time it’s an hour away by boat. Still, had a quick look around and some nice rice & beans with the locals before heading off.

Arrived at our cabana in Hopkins; nice quite place although the neighbours could do with a bit of clean up and throwing away all the crap in their bit of the beach. However, it’s on the beach, got hot shower and mosquito nets. A/C wouldn’t have gone a miss, being over 100F and all; but compared with some we saw on the way here its 5 star. Organised early trip to Cockscombe Basin for tomorrow; bed by 10pm, asleep by 3am as it’s so bloody hot, awake at 4am due to the cockerels. Point to note, mosquito nets believe it or not are draft proof so you don’t get the nice sea breeze; however, they are not sound proof so you get the heat & the noise.

Got up early for some horse riding; Li’s horse was called Champion and Tony’s was Belikin (named after the Belizian beer!).

It was a little rough at first getting used to the horses as they knew where they were going and controlling them wasn’t easy. Li’s horse was constantly eating leaves and hence lacking behind so ran quite a bit to catch up with the others causing Li to bounce lots in her saddle. Tony’s horse kept up with the lead horse quite well and Tony got quite good at steering his horse; he even found reverse gear at one stage.

The guide took us through the jungle trail and was extremely knowledgeable about the local trees & fauna and their medicinal use. We also saw a troop of Black Howler Monkeys which apparently is unusual in that part of the jungle. We passed a guy on the trail whose job was to rake the leaves off the trail path (we didn’t envy him). At the end of our horse ride, we booked to go on to a nocturnal night jungle tour for the evening.

Next we headed for a Butterfly Breeding centre which bred to export one type of butterfly (Blue M…). For lunch we went to a Belizian restaurant called Benny’s Kitchen and it was very good traditional food. Li had rice and beans and Tony had a tortilla wrap dish.

It was ever so hot and we both decided to retreat back to our cabin to cool down and ended up sleeping for an hour or so. For our last dinner for this stay, T-Bone steak again; it’s so good. We also had Conch Cervice to start with, which is a salsa style mix with Conch as the meat.

We started our night time jungle walk around 8pm; just the two of us & the guide (called Lion), so that was quite nice. Tony spotted a grasshopper drying out it’s wings (didn’t know that some species of grasshopper had wings) and then a snake that looked like it was going to eat the grasshopper…it didn’t which was quite disappointing for the camera minded amongst the group. Ended up not seeing a huge amount as it was a very bright night with almost a full moon, but we did get to see a number of different frogs and moths as well. The guide tried for almost an additional hour more than we paid for to find some mammals, but they just weren’t there. Really enjoyed it though; you wouldn’t believe just how dark it is in the jungle in the middle of the night! Next, Bed (well, beer & bed)

Had a bit of mince in the morning after breakfast and went off to Jaguar Paw for some cave tubing. Had some advice to try out the lunch in a local restaurant which did a mean rice and bean dish with stewed chicken. It was very good and only a couple of pound, so not bad really.

We trekked half hour to the start of the cave tubing, as we walked through parts of the jungle we saw insect bats, coconut palms and local fauna.

We were both given a large black inner tube ring to sit in and our guide Luis led us through various caves. Li was scared as usual but soon relaxed as we moved on. The rock formations and crystals formed over the years were impressive and the whole experience was relaxing.

We contemplated zip lining but were told by the guide that there was zip lining near where we were staying and it was cheaper so we didn’t do it. Turns out the only place to do zip lining is in Jaguar Paw; looking back, we think he wanted us to leave after our cave tubing as he hitched a ride with us to his mate’s house en-route back to our cabin.

Headed back to our log cabin and chilled out in the bar, Nolan – our barman was very friendly and was telling us what else we could do in Belize and made a good margarita for Li. Plan for tomorrow is to try horse riding and then head to a butterfly farm and nature trail…more unmade roads, great 😉

For dinner we both had T-Bone steak which was absolutely excellent (According to Tony, the best he ever had). We got the recipe off the cook who is the owner.

We set off from San Ignacio (where we are staying) to Mountain Pine Ridge (National Reserve Park); which is about an hour and half drive, most of it on dirt roads which were extremely bumpy.

We made our way up to the 1000 ft falls (which are actually 1600 ft) and it was ever so hot (over 100F). The car was a state by the time we got to the falls it was far from its original white colour; covered in red dust from the roads (and to think the rental lady wanted to give us a brand new lime green car). Tony spotted a hummingbird feeding on the flowers in a tree and it was a pretty little bird; spent lots of time trying to take photos of it.

We made our way to the next stop which was Big Rock Falls and we found the start of the trail but after 20 minutes of walking in the heat and through undergrowth we couldn’t find so we went back to our car (we were ever so thankful for air conditioning).

Next on our trek was to the Rio Frio Cave, it was very big and impressive. You can enter the cave via some stone steps and can head all the way in to the cave. It gets pretty dark in the cave but your eyes adjust fairly quickly and there is also a cave opening either end (so it’s really a bloody great big tunnel)

As we left the cave, we got a flat tyre and Li was scared (and quite unhelpful) as we were in the midst of the jungle and there was a lot of rustling in the bushes next to the car. After a long hot sweaty session changing the tyre, we both were covered in red dust and looked a state.

Last stop was the Rio pools which were large rock formations with pools of water interlinked. Tony decided to cool off and clean up by swimming in the pools.

We made our way back again on the bumpy dirt terrain; it got more interesting driving in the dark. By the time we got back to our hotel, we were hungry as we missed out on lunch and tired. We decided to have dinner straight away and Tony had a fantastic T-Bone steak.

Got up late and had breakfast, manage to upset the local cook as we were so late for breakfast. We set off to the nearby town to the market as suggested by a guy in the resort. The market was filled with lots of bustling people and there were food stalls full of fresh vegetables, spices and fruits.

We grabbed lunch back at the Log Cab Inns – the local cook was a little grumpy as she was busy but after a very slow service, some chit chat and a little nice tip – she was very nice.

We went to some Maya ruins called Xunantunich (pronounced as Shoo-nahn-too-neech) after lunch and crossed the Mopan river in a hand-cranked car ferry platform which, was controlled by a man winding a wheel to move the raft platform across the river. Saw some large iguanas (about 3ft long) which were impressive.

The Maya ruins were impressive as you could climb on the main Castello (castle) building and 360 degrees around you and in to Guatemala. Lots of armed police around which was a bit odd as there were only about 5 tourists, turns out that on a regular basis, the friendly locals in Guatemala pop across border into Belize (about 900 meters to the Maya Ruins) rob all the tourists and then head back. Understandably, the tourist friendly Belizian’s aren’t keen on this happening so stick a pile of police with automatic weapons there to assist….it’s worked we were told.

Went back to the cabin resort and chilled out by the pool. There was a large group of nutrition students from University of Florida staying for a nutrition survey course. It was Karaoke night and the students decided to sing while we were having dinner, as you can imagine it was not exactly your quiet meal we had hoped.

Alarm went off at 4.30am for our travels; Tony had a lot of problems checking out of the hotel due to exchange rate (the Mexicans try to rip us off…again, works out they tried to convert the currency 6 times….costing slightly more each time!….gits!). We got on our bus at 6am to Chetumal (6 hour journey) but the trip wasn’t as bad as we thought. The coach was quite roomy, lots of leg room & air conditioned; stopped every 90 mins on average for a break.

We got to Chetumal and was expected to picked up by a shuttle company we booked. After 10 minutes of hunting, they located us; it turns out they can’t pick us up at the bus station as the taxi drivers there had started to give private companies hassle….serious hassle from the sound of it, the guys were obviously slightly scared. So, we had to walk to the nearest hotel and have them pick us up from there….only 5 mins walk, but its just the fact that we can’t be picked up that annoyed us…..the taxi’s wouldn’t take us into Belize anyhow!

As we got on our way, the shuttle bus driver was ever so helpful giving us tips on Belize and assisted us when we crossed the border and passport control. We’d read that we may get charged for a return entry and not to pay for it, sure enough, they tried it on at the Mexican border. Tony told them politely he didn’t want to pay for the double entry, so then the bloke said we still had to pay as we didn’t pay at the airport. Tony took a leap of faith and told them “no thanks” to this charge as well….a bit of banter happened and the border guy let us through. Mexicans….don’t trust them, especially the official looking ones!

En-route to Belize Airport we saw lots of sugar cane grown; Belize is one of the world’s largest provider of sugar, although they only have one processing plant. What we found strange was they burn the crop before harvesting the canes (we assume to dry the sugar out in the sap).

We arrived at Belize airport to pick up our rental car. We hired a jeep and found we got some poxy Daihatsu version of a 4×4 car. Tony was not impressed and complained; it turns out they have 5 cars all the same except for different age, so basically they advertise lots of different vehicles, then, based on the cost give you a new crap car or a slightly older crap car. So no jeep, instead we got a white tacky Daihatsu 4×4 which only has a km dial (everything is in miles here). However, we did get a decent refund for our trouble.

We set off to our accommodation in the Cayo Districts and by the time we got there it was 5pm (local time, 1 hour behind Mexico) and we crashed out. Had a lovely meal and a few drinks before retreating to bed.

Found out they had turned off the water for some maintenance work (and not told us) when we got up Tony complained to reception; in fact he complained about a lot of other things such as lack of Wi-Fi connection, building work next door and other things which we overlooked. The manager decided to give us a lobster dinner as compensation (not ideal but it’s the only thing they offered, so we took it).

We spent the rest of the morning sunbathing by the activity pool watching belly flop competitions and water dancing competitions.

After lunch, we went out on the Hobbie agin and Tony sailed around, he then went out by himself so he could go faster (Li wasn’t too keen on the choppy water).

Late afternoon was spent with Li packing and Tony sorting out US dollars and our bus tickets to Chetumal tomorrow.

Had our lobster dinner with champagne in the Village Wok (the best restaurant in the resort) and to finish off, our waiter made us both a Mayan coffee (which consists of Brandy, Kaluha and a Mayan liqueur similar to Pernod). It was made by heating all the liqueurs together and it tasted ever so good, we ordered another one each.

After dinner we watched the evening lingerie party show. We had a few drinks in the bar and finished packing which finished about 1.30am.