Jason Harley's Corner of the Web

Up until 1981 Belize was British, and although now independent, we have left our mark. The bank-notes carry images of a rather youthful looking Elizabeth II (they only update her image every 30 years so she´s looking similar to the time of her coronation) and Belize is the only Central American country whose first language isn´t Spanish - yep, it´s English!

Placencia 16th - 17th August 2004

For me Belize has been a country of adventure but for Zoe a country of memories. She used to live here 8 years ago and many of the places we have planned to visit have been visited before by her.

We started with Placencia, in the south of the country, it was once the beach resort for the rich and famous Belizeans, however things have changed. The 1998 Hurricane Mitch destroyed most of this coast and the trees and buildings are only just getting back to normality. Therefore the town is a ghost of it´s former self and has a tired and weather beaten feeling about it.

We arrived on the tail end of Hurricane Earl, which had dissolved out at sea, but was still trying its best to muster up some heavy thunder storms. In the night a few lightening strikes hit near the hostel we were in and Zoe decided, that with an evacuation imminent, to get dressed and get ready to leave (MAD!!!). Everything passed over with no further drama although the weather remained as temperamental as Zoe's nerves.

We decided to move on to Dangriga with the intention of visiting a deserted Caye of the coast but with rain storms and dark clouds spoiling any potential beach life we headed inland to visit San Ignacio, where Zoe had spent 4 months of her youth working in the local health clinics.

San Ignacio (Cayo) 18th - 24th August 2004

Almost immediately Zoe was recognizing people and places from her past and headed off to visit Margaret Juan who had employed her all those years ago. San Ignacio is a small town with lots of ex-army english people who own restaurants and pubs around the centre. It´s not a great place but a good base to do local tours and also close to the Guatemalan border, making the Tikal Ruins accessible.

The tours are expensive as gas is pricey but to combat this we decided to come up with a few imaginative tours of our own. The first was to hire a canoe, get dropped off 15km up the Macal River and row slowly down stream back to San Ignacio. The wildlife and scenery are amazing and we spent the whole day slowly drifting back to town. The river is the life blood of this region and as well as the playground for kids and the washing machine of the women, so we made plenty of friends on the way.

As transport is expensive, hitching is a real option so a visit to Green Hills Butterfly farm was made possible by asking locals ´Are you going our way??Everyone seems to own a pick-up truck so as long as you don´t mind sharing with anyone else a couple of Belizean Dollars gets you as far as you want. The Butterfly Farm was small but the tour showed how they are bred and exported around the world. Our lift back was courtesy of the local Ice Cream Van (tunes and all) as long as we didn´t mind if he did his last few calls on the way. I´m sure the local kids didn´t expect a couple of westerners to be serving their choc-ices.

Actun Tunichil Muknal

By far one of the most interesting things we´ve done on the trip. Actun is a series of Mayan Caves only really discovered in 1990. Only 3% of the findings have so far been removed making it a living museum. However, to reach it required a 45 minute walk through real jungle and our first and hopefully only encounter with a wild snake.

As we walked along the path, one of the girls in front of us stepped on the tail of a snake. It sprung up in surprise, only a few cms from my legs but being well camouflaged it looked like a tree branch, when it started heading for cover I yelled for the guide (there are 60 species of snakes in Belize - 9 are deadly). Machete in hand he was about to ´get rid?but it turned out to be a 3ft Green Vine Snake - ugly but harmless so we watched as it made it´s retreat, possibly more scared than us.

The caves themselves are only reached by swimming along a jungle river and then climbing, twisting, turning and swimming along the 5miles of caves. The main stuff is about 1mile in and the underground river runs against you meaning that you´re wet all day. At some points the guide insists you take off your shoes as without any ropes or protection of the artifacts it is the only way to ensure tourists watch where they put their feet. There has already been damage (a dropped camera on a skull) so whether the Belizean government decide to protect it from the public or the damage from careless tourists becomes too much it is unlikely this amazing site will be kept this accessible for long. Well worth the trip if you are in the Belize area.

Back to Guatemala (Tikal Ruins) 24th - 26th August 2004

A few ours by bus and we ended up in Flores, a touristy island town on a lake, providing accommodation and food for those on their way to or from Tikal.

The Mayan ruins at Tikal are the most impressive in Central America. We had visited Xunantunich the day before but Tikal is by far the best. Set over 30 sq km the six towers rise above the jungle canopy to heights in excess of 60m but only make up a small proportion of over 4000 other structures in the large national park. Monkeys, parrots and toucans avoid the tourists below them to make this jungle fortress a real taste of Mayan life. Dating back to 700 BC, a lot of the ruins are fenced off to protect them but wooden stairs allows you to access the highest towers and smaller temples and buildings. It took the whole day to even cover the basics of the site and they continue to unearth new parts of the ruins.

Caye Caulker 27th August - 1st September 2004

The motto here is ?No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem ?and the whole of the place moves to a slow reggae beat and the pace of life is slow. Turquoise waters, beautiful coral, rum and ginger, seafood for every meal. Zoe had been here 8 years ago and it lived up to all the hype she had been telling me about. We met up with a few friends from Spanish School, Malcolm and Alex and made a few new ones in the shape of also Lisa and Alcuin, from Leeds. Experienced travelers themselves they knew the value of a good book and a magazine which they passed onto Zoe ?keeps her out of my hair!!! Diving in Belize is advertised as world class (although I think it was better in Honduras) we set off on a boat to do 3 dives at the local Turneffe Atoll Reef. Seeing a massive Moray eel and plenty of new species of fish and crabs, to keep our Padi log book upto date.

Swimming with Sharks

The snorkeling here is also world famous so we booked for a day of snorkeling with the chance to swim with sharks and Moray eels. There was no disappointment and as soon as we hit the water a nurse shark, with that heart stopping shadowy shape, came looking at what we may have brought it. On the second snorkel the sharks and manta rays are so used to divers that they allow you to stroke them in exchange for a small piece of fish. We bought a throw away water proof camera so we will have to see if we get any great pictures. On the third dive disaster struck, I perforated my eardrum in 3 meters of water!!! So I have to stay out of the water for a few weeks which will make me smell nice. Hopefully if it heals quickly I will get it checked out in San Francisco so I can dive in Fiji ?which is the best diving in the world. One great advantage is that I can pretend to be deaf, so I have an excuse to ignore Zoe!!!

With not a lot to keep us on a beach near the ocean anymore, we decided to move on to Mexico a few days early so at least I can enjoy the Sol beer and Mexican food.

For more information on Caye Caulker try www.gocayecaulker.com or here www.cayecaulker.org .

If you want to track the local Hurricanes click here The Belizean National Hurricane Centre. Try the "Current Wx" page for a satelite picture of Hurricanes in the area