Hey everyone,
Yesterday we made the crossing into Belize from Mexico. The journey wasn’t too bad except getting ripped off at the Mexican exit boarder, we were charged $30 USD (£23) per person in ‘taxes’. I’d already heard this was a scam they try and did as advised – printed off our plane tickets summary, where it showed we had payed for the taxes already in our ticket. We advised the groups in front of us to argue the point and show their tickets too. After a heated argument the first group to do this were allowed to leave without paying, the next group were let in only paying half but by the time it got to us they pretended they couldn’t read English and we were told pay or don’t cross, so we ended up paying. Some groups behind us hid their money and said they didn’t have enough and they just took whatever petty cash they had and let them through. The whole thing was very frustrating and left a bad after-taste of Mexico in our mouth which is a shame as so far we have had nothing but amazing memories in Mexico.
I had expected Belize to be very similar to Mexico, but as soon as we crossed the boarder it was completely different, the houses, the nature, the people. There is much more of a Carribbean feel here, the people all speak English as a first language which made it a lot easier to get directions to an ATM and find our hostel.
After a short stop at Belize city, we caught a speed boat ferry to the island of Caye Caulker and got a golf cart (the main method of transport on the island) to our hostel. It was a bit more basic than we’ve had so far, built with off cuts of wood and metal with a very DIY feel to it, and no air-con, which is probably something we’re going to have to get used to.
After we checked in we went for food in a little shack next door which was delicious! We watched the women make everything from scratch, even the tortillas and asked them 101 questions as they spoke English. They were telling us about the difference between certain dishes and how what we think of as Mexican food in the west is more like Belizian food, as in the west we have rice and beans with our burritos, which is a Carribbean influence, in Mexico it tends to just be meat and sauces.
This afternoon Grace went diving and me and Alyssa went for a walk around the island, the island was split in two by a hurricane a few years back so we could only walk around one half which took us a few hours, including a sit and relax on a jetty we found. We saw a few cool things like how the adverts here are all hand painted and that for scaffolding they just use propped up bits of wood, we also had a chat with a guy selling tamales (or as he put it “hooott taaammmaaales”) and bought some Banana bread which was delicious.
Everything is much more expensive here, we got rolls, cheese, crisps and two drinks for the journey to Guatemala tomorrow and it cost us $50 BZ (£20) so we’re glad we’re not stopping for a long time! So tomorrow we will be getting a coach from Belize City to Flores in Guatemala and we will be in Guatemala for a while. Keep you updated.
Lots of love,
Alice x
Update: Last night there was a tropical storm here which was slightly terrifying in our little hut with holes cut out for windows! It was shaking the whole hut and lighting up every time there was lightning. But we made it through and are currently sat waiting for a bus to Flores Guatemala eating some street cake and chatting to the woman who sold it about university grants in London for her son.
