Here in Guatemala the tourist visa is good for 3 months. After 3 months you can renew it in the City (Guatemala City) but after 6 months you are required to leave the country for 2 nights. My options were Mexico or Belize (as Honduras and El Salvador don't count. I don't know why). Mexico would have been a shorter bus ride but Belize sounded a little more exotic and fun. Beaches anyone??? My friend Ambre has been teaching down here and since the school year had just finished she was able to go with me. Yay!
We had to be ready for the shuttle at 0345. In the morning. It was early! And I had meant to shower the night before and shave my legs but there was no water (!) so I had to get up even earlier to take care of that business. But really, at that time of the morning another 15 minutes would NOT have made that big a difference.
The shuttle to the bus depot came at 4:10 a.m. and we arrived at 5:15, in time to catch the 5:30 bus to Puerto Barrios. It took almost 6 hours to get there. Ambre was able to sleep most of the trip but my body is betraying me in my old age. :) I used to be able to sleep anywhere, anytime, any position. No longer! They played Fireproof as the movie and I was impressed first of all that it wasn't a scary movie (that was on the way home!) and second that it was a christian movie.
We checked into Migracion (not immigration-don't really understand the difference but we needed to check out of the country!) and got on the 1:00 p.m. boat to Punta Gorda, Belize. It was only an hour boat ride. I love water. I went fully into my happy place on that boat ride. It was sunny, muggy, windy, water smooth as glass, almost cloudless sky and that salty feeling you get on your skin. I don't have the pictures from Ambre yet but I will post some when I do. You can tell I am pretty happy. :) I was also lucky in that Ambre is a great picture taker and she got some good ones of me.
It was our intention to just stay in Punta Gorda for the two nights. We knew there were no beaches there but I had seen enough to know we would probably find something to do. We met a couple of guys who were working in Belize for the Peace Corps and they suggested we go on to Placencia. There were beaches (I was sold) and it was nicer. So we looked around in the stores while waiting for our bus. Not much there that is for sure!
The bus to Independence was a chicken bus like they have here but the experience was totally different!!!! They are just old converted school buses. Anyway, this bus was just chugging along. No need to pass others at a high speed and fling us side to side while going around corners (I have a whole blog planned on just bus ride experiences here!). We noticed a different pace and attitude. Restful, slow, and 2 hours of Bob Marley playing through the bus speakers! Here in Guatemala you have to go to the front of the bus while it is still moving and tell them where to drop you off. In Belize, there were pre-determined stops so the bus would stop there and wait for people to get off. After a few seconds people would get up and get off. It really was weird. I kept thinking "Hurry, he will pull away from your stop if you don't". That bus was about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Then we took a water taxi for 15 minutes to Placencia. We arrived at 6 p.m. after 14 hours of travel. It was a relief to get there!
We found a hotel that was recommended to us. Prices were higher in Belize but I felt the price was reasonable for what we got. Then we went for dinner (the restaurant we ate in most of the time was amazing! The food made me very happy. Especially the french fries). The restaurant was right on the beach looking at the water. Our hotel was one building behind that. Close enough to the beach! It was dark by then and just as we finished eating the power went out. And it was pitch black! They found a couple of lights but it was still pretty dark. We went out onto the beach and it was clear and dark and I have NEVER seen stars like that. It was breath taking! Really. They were so bright and there were a couple of shooting stars. We sat in chairs just enjoying it. The temp. was very comfortable.
The next day was overcast and we went for a walk. Placencia is a town of 900 according to the Lonely Planet. It is not an island but a peninsula so the width was probably less than a kilometer. And we walked from one end of the beach to the other quite easily and leisurely. It started to rain so we didn't finish our walk that day.
We met a lady who was a native Belizean but had lived in the US for over 30 years as a nurse. She has family all over and told me to look out for her son and granddaughters when I am in Vancouver. :) She was sweet and had made cupcakes to sell to the tourists (from what I could tell, we made up at least 10-15% of the tourists that weekend). We sat and talked to her for quite a while. She was pretty funny. And blunt!
I caught up on some English TV watching. Mostly stuck to the movie channels so watched several endings of old movies. I am still ADD with my TV watching, if there was a commercial I HAD to change the channel.
We were there 2 full days and didn't leave until 12:30 on the 3rd day. We walked, ate, sat on the beach, talked, and had a relaxing time.
One funny story! On Sunday morning (we got in Saturday night) I woke up early (not intentional) and went to the grocery store. As I was walking back a couple of guys started chatting with me. As I was leaving one guy said "And if you need a little (puts fingers to lips like a cigarette), just let me know". I said thanks and kept walking. I had to really bite my lip not to laugh out loud! 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I am being offered pot! I should have asked him where the nearest church was. :)
We saw an hardware store and Ambre wanted to check it out. I am so thankful she did! It was like a hardware store, dollar store, and Wal-Mart all in one. I found my greatest treasure there. A Mickey Mouse waffle iron. Yes. That's right. It has 4 different images of Mickey that are made on the waffles. And it has the classic grid pattern on one side for those "adults" that may show up at my breakfast table.
Coming home we split the trip up into two days. Otherwise we would have arrived in Guatemala City at 9 p.m. and that is not really a safe thing to do. So we did everything in reverse but spent the night in Puerto Barrios. Our bus home was DELUXE! We paid 30Q more than on the way there (less than $4. more) and it was crazy nice! It was like sitting in a la-z-boy! Seriously! Just a little narrower. There was a leg thing that pulled down from in front so you could recline a lot and have your legs comfortably stretched out in front of you. The amount of space was phenomenal! It was leather and soft and cushy. I equate it to being hugged the whole way. I loved it. And the obligatory scary movie. My experience here has been a lot of scary movies on the Greyhound type bus lines. I had my iPod to drown it out though.
We arrived yesterday afternoon about 3. I actually still have not cleaned up. But I did do my laundry! It was a great trip and I would love to do it again someday. Maybe next year but a little farther into November. That is when their weather starts to get consistently nicer. Bathing suit weather in other words. Although Ambre did get in the water for a while.
I hope some of you made it to the end of this post! Sorry for my wordiness. One of my teachers in high school used to say my class had verbal diarrhea. When I told my pastor's wife that saying she laughed! She said she would use it. :) I have always paid attention to detail (as my close family and friends know. It is not OCD-it is attention to detail!) so I may as well share those details with the world. Trust me. I could have gone on a lot longer! And maybe I will another day.
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