Belize

The country was formerly British Honduras until it gained independence in 1981 and it is still part of the Commonwealth. There's still evidence of the old British empire such as decent bacon (aka butt bacon), breakfast sausages (frozen, but I've found a butcher here in San Ignacio that made us some sausage patties as he can't get the skins imported to make proper sausages), corned beef, Digestive biscuits, Hobnobs and Heinz Salad cream to name just a few. They also do cordial/fruit squash that's not in a powdered form which is a bonus. To top it all off we found some brie, in a can, that was quite palatable. Everything here is so expensive when compared with Mexico and I often wonder how the locals live. The Belizean dollar is directly linked to the US$ at 2 to 1. The US$ is also used in conjunction with their own currency so you can pay/get change in either form or a combination of both which was rather strange at the beginning.

We spent the first two days in the small seaside town of Corozal before heading down to Belize City, 140km south. We used Belize City as a base to explore the surrounding area including out on the reef. We decided not to go out to the Blue Hole as it was going to cost US$175 each to go snorkelling or US$225 for Mark to go diving. A bit rich for our meagre wallets so we got the local ferry/water taxi to Caye Caulker and spent a relaxing day out there.

Next, we visited the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Altun Ha. An incredible number of jade artefacts were found in various tombs including a 4.5kg jade head, the single largest piece of carved jade in Mesoamerica and the Western hemisphere, valued at US$5m - $10m 

  

 Below is the Temple of the Sun God, also seen on the national beer, Belikin, which we had to try.

From Belize City we headed south to Maya Beach, Placencia, on a peninsula. We used this as a base to investigate the south of the country, including the ancient Mayan city of Nim Li Punit.  Approximately 5% of the site has been being excavated and work is still underway, but so far discoveries of pottery show connections with the distant Teotihuacan (Pyramid of the Sun site) in central Mexico.

Next, a visit to Rio Blanco National Park and a swim in the pool by the waterfalls

We also paid a visit to Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in the hope of seeing the elusive jaguar, but it wasn't to be. Instead we hiked to the waterfall, through a very hot and humid jungle

Time to move on, this time to San Ignacio, 180km to the west. We stopped at the Blue Hole National Park and St Herman's cave en-route. Mark decided to go for a swim and said it was nice and cool.

Another hike through the jungle brought us to the cave 

The lady who runs the studio apartment we stayed in feeds the local iguanas everyday with spoiled fruit and veg from the local market. There were some really big ones about, definitely handbag size.

A visit to local ruins of Cahal Pech was really interesting and the best museum we had visited.

A trip to Caracol, a large ancient Mayan site, was in order and a five hour drive (round trip) on pot-holed dirt roads made it worthwhile. Caracol covered approximately 200 square kilometres and was one of the most important regional political centres of the Maya Lowlands during its time. There was a wedding ceremony taking place when we arrived and they were being serenaded by the local choir - a troop of howler monkeys :-) (they really do make some scary sounds and can be heard up to 4 miles away)

Our last lot of ruins in Belize was a trip to Xunantunich Archaeological Reserve, just 1km east of the Guatemala border. This area was a Mayan civic ceremonial centre in the Valley region and at its peak, nearly 200,000 people lived in Belize

To top it all off, we've just seen our first toucan, the national bird of this country. Unfortunately it flew away before I was able to get a photo of it.

That's hopefully it for Belize. Tomorrow we head across the border to Guatemala