Dreamroll

 I think our plane arrived just after about five others.  The line up for immigration was out of the terminal building onto the tarmac and it was hot.  It took maybe an hour to clear immigration.  Our prearranged driver was there and took us to the zoo on the way to San Ignacio.  It;s a great little zoo with many kinds of wild cat; puma, jaguar and smaller ones, plus coatis, crocodiles, monkeys and more.  We had our first meal of rice and beans with chicken; the Kriol staple dish.



Our hotel was pleasant.  It was about 15 minutes walk from the town centre (San Ignacio is the district capital and the second largest town in Belize).  It was clean, had AC, the plumbing worked and there was wi-fi.  And dogs.  And a cat.  We checked out the town centre and bought tacos from a street stall.  Street food is cheap in Belize.  It's about the only cheap way to eat.  The town itself is neat and tidy for the most part with a bunch of Chinese owned stores and plenty of restaurants and bars.  There's a sort of mini "Khao San Road" with hostels and tour oprators and bars and stuff but it's pretty low key.  Bought some of the local (Belikin) beers.  The stout is much better than the the "beer" and the lager is best not mentioned.

The next day was Saturday, market day, so we headed in to town for breakfast.  The market has a bit of everything; clothing, electrical goods, produce, prepared food etc.  We had a pleasant breakfast of tamales and pupusas.  I learned a few things at this point.  Everything tortilla based is made straight from dough spread on the comale.  No tortilla presses here and anyway the dough is much too sticky.  One is expected to pimp up the food with pickled cabbage and hot sauce.  Things like tacos and burritos are kind of skinny by TexMex standards so this really is necessary.  The food stands are all run by women from the countryside (probably Mayan) who don't speak any English.  Their kids do though and each stand has a bright eyed kid who deals with the gringos and tots up the bill.

We spent most of the morning at the local Mayan site of Cahal Pech.  This isn't one of the great city sites.  Likely it was the centre of power for a minor local ruler/landowner so sort of the equivalent of a castle in medieval England.  It's not a fortified site though.  There are a couple of step pyramid temples, living quarters and a ball court.  It's a good way to get a sense of the componentry of Mayan architecture.  Obligatory Cancon; part of the excavation was done by Trent University.

Lunch was back at the market.  The lemur had a quesadilla while I tried the caldo; a veggie filled broth with some beef in it.  I chickened out of the calf's foot version.  Pimped up with hot sauce and orange juice it was pretty good.  We pretty much slothed the rest of the day!

 Just back from ten days in Belize.  I'll write up the details of the trip in a series of posts but first overall impressions.  Belize is an odd country in many ways.  It's very small.  One can drive across it in a few hours and the population is only just over 300,000.  For such a small place it's incredibly diverse.  There are seven languages spoken; English, Spanish, Kriol, Garifuna and three different Mayan dialects.  Maybe one should add Plattdeutsch as there are a non trivial number of Mennonites and at least one Chinese dialect as the retail sector is entirely Chinese dominated.  It now has a pretty decent universal education system so all the kids and young people speak English but that's by no means true of their parents.  Everybody seems to get on though and racism didn't appear to be a problem.  At least that's how it looks to an outsider.

It wears its history as a former British colony lightly.  It's the only former British colony in the region where they don't play cricket!  The police wear fatigues and carry automatic weapons.  In some ways it feels very central American but at least there have been no massacres of native people in modern times unlike neighbouring Guatemala and Mexico.  That said, there are no specific rights enshrined in law for indigenous land rights or languages.

It's an interesting place to vacation.  The country is definitely set up for tourism.  They have made smart decisions to prioritise environmental and cultural protection over exploitative industries which means that there are lots of well preserved archaeological sites, jungle preserves etc.  They pay for this by making tourists pay for it.  Fair enough but it makes it an expensive vacation destination.  It's possible to cut corners but, in general, one is spending a closer to first world rates than one would in, say, Mexico or Thailand.

There are Mayan remains everywhere.  It's estimated that the population of what is now Belize was three to six times what it is today at the peak of the Mayan era.  The jungle reclaimed everything and only a minute fraction has been excavated or even mapped.