Blue Marlin Lodge Dangriga

... to nothing until this stage we had to fork out to get to San Ignacia, a sort of unofficial Garifuna capital for the area. Once again we were reminded how different Belize was from Guatemala. Not only was it more expensive but the signs on the street advertised pregancy and aids services in there hundreds. Once in San Iganicia, Jody got descended on the moment he rolled a ciggarette as we waited for the next bus. They all assumed he was smoking weed and ...

... goes wrong we’ll just take them all for ourselves!!!!

Tomorrow we are going to Hopkins (a small town near here) and are going to canoeing in the afternoon and we have planned our cave tubing for Friday and to do ATM cave on Saturday which means going back to San Ignacio and DEFINITLEY having some spicey Ginger Rum Prawns again :D

Again, I had a great day. Learnt some stuff in the hospital (mainly why people here wear jeans ...

... how long such a list would be in Addies. And many of the drugs on the list are several generations old (not to surprising). It is hard to imagine how someone used to practising in such different conditions can effectively instruct the doctors in Dangriga, and I think this is where their frustration lies.

This avo Anwen went to clinic, but since no other doctors were free I hung around in Paediatrics a bit before ...

... big brown eyes nearly breaks my heart. He was in 'isolation’ although a lack of isolation rooms has meant that an adult had to be also placed in his room, and when we found him this morning he was sitting next to his bed on a little wooden box while his older brother slept in it. There are no toys in the Paediatric department (apparently they used to be but they kept getting stolen by the patients when they went home, and now the box lies empty, and so there is ...

... fishing life of their elders. And what about Rasta? I've heard of Rastafaris and they are well known for the use of the sacred herb ganja...my kind if people. And somewhere in the back of my mind was a factoid that Rasta has something to do with Haile Selassie, former King of Ethiopia. Huh? So I decided to do some research...the name Rastafari is actually Haile Selassie's real name ...

... Before we even got on the boat we spotted a crocodile chilling out in the river and we even saw him creep up on and catch a little black bird for his brekkie. We also saw a river snake, bats, Jesus Christ birds (they walk on water, hence the name), a couple of huge iguanas and best of all, two spider monkeys who were as interested in us as we were in them. The site of Lamanai was really interesting: the mayan pyramids were nestled within the jungle and you could climb to ...

... craft we decorated burger king crowns and at music center we taught the song royalty from NSAC'S summer vbs. And the last station made balloon animals, which went great, but all the kids wanted to pop them. Lunch was at Gentle's restaurant and it was amazing. Rice, beans, and stewed chicken with some sort of potato salad...yum...haha and during lunch, sophie, leah, krystal and myself all got our hair ...

... high over the Macal. Very shortly after re-entering Santa Elena, Selmo turned the shuttle right on the road to Cristo Rey and, just past that Crystal Paradise. This road gave us our first taste of the quality of the roads in the Cayo District. Shortly after climbing a hill overlooking San Ignacio and Santa Elena, the road turned to dirt with a sparse coating of gravel that was more embedded into the dirt than protecting it. We bumped and ...

... juice. Good stuff. The next day, I did nothing. I really can't remember anything of note - I think I just spent most of the day reading. The trouble was that during my stay on Caye Caulker, a ferocious wind had been whipped up, and it was only getting stronger. This was really annoying for 3 reasons, in increasing importance - a) it blew sand everywhere, which as well as being annoying in general, was destroying my eyes, b) it made scuba diving, which was pretty much the ...

... i counted them) had us flying over beautiful coastline with shrimp farms and citrus trees. Odd combinations but apparently the main sellers over here.

The drunk americans turned out to be a real giggle and were staying off the coast on an island as part of a marine research programme. They invited both me and Ant to visit sometime this week and gave us a card for future holidays if we didn't make it.

The airstrip at Dangrigia could have been ...