We don't charge for information!
Trip Start
Dec 31, 2007
1
8
12
Trip End
Jan 15, 2008
San Ignacio,
Belize
Monday, January 7, 2008
Rene, our guide from the day before, whom we'd dragged out in thoroughly awful weather to take us snorkeling, was sitting around the lobby at Costa Maya chatting when I stopped by, as not one single person had signed up for any of the tours that day. Go figure. He was pretty zen about the situation, though. He had a proper island attitude. I went back down to the Caribbean Colors art gallery and picked up a coffee and brownie to munch on while Sarah was getting ready, then we went out for proper breakfast (surprisingly not fryjacks) at Herbal Tribe before splitting up for the day. The service is very laid-back in Belize, taking at least three times as long to get food or a check, and we'd already learned not to expect anyone to check on us during the meal, but Herbal Tribe was the only place that was so "laid-back" that we didn't even bother to tip. We were the ONLY people in the entire place and it still took thirty minutes to get the check after we'd asked, with the waiter running out in town to do some errands first. I guess with the name, we should've guessed.
After breakfast, we both grabbed our cameras, and Sarah went to go swimming by the Split between the two halves of Caye Caulker while I went to get most of my souvenir shopping out of the way while more of the vendors were out. Some of the better places I stopped were Chocolate's - for the beautiful fabric, sarongs, and embroidered items; Celi's (I think) outdoor stand where he has an outdoor layout of many of the tiny shell animal charms he's made out of conch; and the Toucan gift store, for a large array of the general magnet, postcard, and t-shirt items. The tiny gift store on the northwest corner of the intersection by the water taxi dock also had better prices on most of their merchandise, but they didn't have as large of a selection.
Once I had my souvenirs decided upon, I started to go adventuring. I ducked down some of the side roads to go to the back side of the island, which is more residential than the front side of the island, which has the shops and hotels. I also starting asking around to get the history of the deserted resort by our hotel. From what I could gather, it was in the process of being built when it got smashed up in one of the hurricanes, and the builders ran out of money to finish it. However, every single person I asked about it immediately tried to sell it to me. I personally don't think anything about me says that I have enough money to buy a resort, ruined or not, nor do I think that all of those people had the authority to sell the resort, but, just in case I was missing a once in a lifetime opportunity, I went back down to the Split and scrutinized it. In the two minutes I decided that that thing would be an enormous mold-ridden money pit and that it was going to be destined to remain a haven for stray cats and bums escaping the rain, one of the bums tried to sell it to me.
I met Sarah at the Split and we went to pick up our bags, then stopped by the Happy Lobster for lunch before we caught the ferry back to Belize City. I had a barracuda steak, which reminded me of a slightly fishier swordfish. The pineapple sauce was saturated with bell peppers, though, so I just ate it plain with a spray of lime. Bell peppers are in pretty much everything in Belize.
We picked up a few more souvenirs, chatted with the proprietor of Chocolate's about the manatee reserve by Swallow Caye, then caught the ferry to the mainland. Learning our lesson from last time, we immediately caught a taxi over to the bus station, where we were put promptly on a bus up to San Ignacio, which, surprisingly, was not a chicken bus. In fact, it was pretty plush, with individual padded seats, AC, and a proper luggage rack. This was evidently one of the mythical "express" buses. The ride up to San Ignacio through Belmopan was done largely in the dark, since we'd waited so long to leave Caye Caulker.
As soon as we arrived in San Ignacio, I ran into a problem pretty much unique to San Ignacio, which was that about half of the locations the map in the book mentioned still existed, but they existed in different places in the town. So the bus station was not where it was mentioned in the book, and as a result, we started heading the wrong way down the highway. On the way, we refused to tell any of the men in the taxi/information stand badgering us where we were going, in fact, we insisted we knew where we were, reached the edge of town, then had to turn around and walk resolutely right back past the same taxi stand. One man plaintively called out, "We don't charge for information!" The vast majority of these folks trying to help us are probably so sincere that they can't fathom why we wouldn't want to get directions, but Sarah and I remain in complete agreement that we never give the name of our hotel to any person that is just standing by the side of the road. Call us crazy.
Finding the hotel, Martha's Guesthouse, was actually pretty easy once we were oriented properly. San Ignacio is, like most of Belize's towns, tiny and nicely centralized. We ate in Martha's restaurant, getting mildly undercooked pizza in a little nook underneath the stairs (the only place left to sit) and fed a very pregnant cat that was begging for scraps. After dinner, we had time to run to the internet place across the street (though the book was insistent it was somewhere else) before we headed up to our room. Martha's was chosen because of its good reviews and laundry service, but it came with the added amenity of a very conscientious second floor doorman, who initially showed us from the stair landing to our room (six steps), but then opened the outside door for us whenever we went out from the second floor entrance. As far as we could tell, he sat there all night with that as his sole duty. The building itself reminded me of an old convent we stayed in once in Sant'Agnello, Italy, with whitewashed walls and high ceilings supported by dark beams. There was also an enormous crucifix when one reached the top of the stairs, which probably aided the resemblance.
