Is good to be back in the Commonwealth
Trip Start
Feb 23, 2008
1
13
32
Trip End
Aug 23, 2008
Orange Walk,
Belize
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Crossing the border was easy and i immediately liked Belize. The houses, the people and best of all English was their offical language.
We arrived in Orange Walk and headed down to the river to Jane's Hotel. the lonely planet described it as " ram shackled and thin walled but with a certain charm" and that was a perfect description. The rooms were basic but at $8.50 a night would couldnt complain. Jose who worked there cooked us dinner and organised our tour up the river to Lamanai, a Mayan site set in the heart of the jungle
The boat trip took about 90 minutes between riverbanks dense with vegetation
Jane's Hotel
. the guide pointed out crocodiles, turtles and all mannr of birds. Lamanai is older than most Mayan sites being occupied as early as 1500BC. The grandest structure with the not so grand name of Structure N10-43 is a huge late pre-classic building rising more than 34m above the jungle canopy. The whole site is enclosed by the surrounding jungle with howler monkeys screeching in the background. It was my favourite ruin so far.
The next day i was going to head to the coast but decided to stay one more day to just relax, do washing, check email etc. In the afternoon we rented a canoe and went up river to try our hand at fishing, unfortuneately we didnt catch anything but it was very peaceful being on the river in the late afternoon. It would be easy staying he longer but we both had to move on
We headed to Belize City the next day and said our goodbyes. I caught a boat to Caye Caulker, an island 20 miles north of Belize City. I was coming here to meet some friends from Germany i had met in Antigua and to dive The Blue Hole
