Desaree and Alex: Belize trip

Nearly a month later....

We left off the night Alex and I had traveled to the border of Honduras and Guatemala. We did not have the all of the proper paperwork to travel, so we had to turn back around and go home. We planned to set off again in the morning.

We were told that we could catch a bus at 5am. We were also told that we could catch a bus at 6pm. Even though it wasn't fun, we opted to try to catch the earliest bus so we could make it to Belize the same day. Our alarm clock went off at 4:30am and we got dressed in the same clothes as the day before. We were down at the bus station at 4:50am, which we thought would give us enough time to get on the bus. Wrong. We were about five minutes late. This changed our plans a little.

There was a bus that was very unoccupied but we were informed that it would be leaving at 6am. We thought we would just wait until that one left, but a pushy cab driver told us that he would drive us out to the main road where we could catch a bus in no time at all. We were unsure, but because we were pressed for time we decided to take his offer.

We got out to the main road at about 5:20am and waited. I watched the sun rise. I watched chickens wake up in their tree. I learned how chickens get down from trees. It's not rocket science, but I was still intrigued.

Finally, after an hour of standing out in the cold, buses started coming by our bus stop, and at 6:32am we were on our way toward the border. Then at 9am we were in Guatemala. This was by far the longest leg of our trip: 5 hours of traveling on very crowded buses/vans with Mayans, stinky sticky children, and sometimes a chicken.

We wanted to be in Puerto Barrios by 2pm at the latest in order to catch, what I thought was, the last ferry. We rolled into Puerto Barrios at 2:20pm and caught a cab to the dock to see if there was any hope of catching a rogue boat. Luckily, we met Memo and he took us, along with a couple other white folks, to Punta Gorda, Belize and even cut us a deal for buying our return ticket in advance.

It was only on the boat that we felt more comfortable taking our camera out of its bag.

It was a little chilly because the boat was able to go so fast.

That water was calm!

Once we got to the other side, checked in with immigration, etc., we realized that our Honduran SIM card did not work in Belize. We asked Memo if we could use his phone, but he took a really long time and the guys at immigration were worried that we wouldn't make it to our destination. They got a cab for us and we headed to Hickatee Cottages.

We met Ian and Kate at the main building/Charlie's bar and immediately asked for a drink. We were all amazed that we had made it that night what with all the complications we had run across. While we were checking in, a large butterfly decided to say hello. Ian, being the butterfly expert that he is, caught it and showed us its wings.

After that little adventure, they informed us that they upgraded us to the suite for no extra charge in order to celebrate Alex's birthday. We thought this was just amazing because they had already upgraded us once already for no charge. Of course, we did not refuse.

Large bedroom; very comfortable bed!

Sweet living room with a very large collection of movies

Awesomely large bathroom with very plush towels.

Private porch and patio situated in the wilderness.

We didn't have any plans when we arrived, but they told us about the Garifuna Collective, a very well known Belizean musical group, that was supposed to be playing that night and took us into town to get some food and watch the show.

All cleaned up!

Because we had been traveling all day, as soon as we got food in our bellies, we were sleepy. We treated ourselves to some local cuisine, delicious milkshakes, and then got a cab back to the cottages. We would need our rest because we had an adventure the next day.

In the morning, we awoke to hot tea, which we requested over coffee, on our veranda.

Before leaving for the day, we stopped by the restaurant to try out some of Kate's famous homemade bread, butter, and jams. I have to say: they were VERY delicious!