Our journey through Belize continued with some friends we
met on our boat tour, who happened to be travelling the same path as we had
planned. For the next 10 days or so, Vanessa, Ryan, Dave and I navigated the Belize
chicken buses, climbed to the top of a waterfall, were conned by the town scam
artist and managed to get across the Belize/Guate border all in one piece.
After we realised we could not afford to stay in Placencia,
despite its charm, we moved on to a little Garifuna (rather similar to
Rastafarian culture) town on the coast called Hopkins. This was our first,
thankfully successful, trip on Chicken buses. For those not familiar, Chicken
Buses are basically really old American School buses that were decommissioned
years ago from the states for being too old/unroadworthy, and now live their
life in Central America. Hopkins was definitely ‘off the beaten track’,
although it did have a couple of hostels and one restaurant catered to
tourists, it really felt like we saw the real Belize here. Despite the poverty,
we were astounded by how friendly absolutely everyone in the town was – to the
point where we didn’t pass a single person who didn’t say hello to us!
Certainly puts us westerners to shame.
First point of call after walking aimlessly down the beach
in sweltering heat was a drum lesson for Dave. These kids who teach at the
drumming school are incredible, they’ve even toured through Canada drumming.
Note the intense concentration face!
Next stop in Belize was to visit Antelope Falls. We managed
to convince another few people from the hostel to join us, and all 6 of us
hiked up the steep incline to be greeted with some spectacular views and
amazing waterhole.
I hope this is deep!
Tarzan up to his tricks
Only downside of Hopkins… the Sand Flies. Dave was well and
truly attacked (that is what happens when he refuses to listen to my advice to
apply the bug spray!)
When it was time to move on from Hopkins, we decided to
visit the Belize Zoo on our way through to our next destination, San Ignacio.
Generally not the biggest fan of Zoo’s, this is by far the coolest Zoo I’ve
ever been too, primarily because the Belizeans seem to trust people’s innate
response to avoid harm, and as such, let you get as close as possible to the
animals. Along with that, the only animals they house are native in Belize and
generally have been rescued from people trying to keep exotic animals as pets.
If you were dumb enough, there is nothing stopping you
putting your hand in the Jaguar cage to try and pet this creature!
Toucan Sam!
Onward and upward to san ignatio, the closest town to the
Belize/Guate border, which is famous for its ‘ATM Cave’ tour. The ATM (Actun Tunichil Mumnal) cave is massive with
a river running through the pitch blackness, and hosts an old Mayan sacrificial
site with some 800+ year old human remains. After a slight hiccup with the town
scam artist, we were on our way. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed, which
is understandable considering they were banned after one tourist managed to
drop his on an 800 year old skull, however slightly disappointing because the
stalagmites and stalactites were incredible. Aside from the fact the cave would
probably be considered too dangerous for Australian standards, in Australia we
would never be allowed so close to ancient history. Throughout the cave there
were heaps of ceramic pots and other artefacts as well as human remains that
haven’t been touched in hundreds of years literally cm’s away from you.
Slightly creepy yet well worth it, definitely the best tour we’ve been on so
far. here are a few photos courtesy of google.
This is the most complete set of remains in ATM, perfectly preserved by a layer of limestone. Note the relaxing pose of the remains, being Mayan was easy.
The mouth of the cave - for the Mayans, exiting the cave after performing sacrifices was akin to a second birth
Lastly we visited some more Mayan ruins before heading
towards the border, saying goodbye to our favourite country so far, along with
our last luxury of an English speaking country for the next few months!
Cheers
Sharon
Sharon
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