A lot of movement happened today. We awoke in San Ignacio, Belize. Jill did some yoga on the roof. I took a shower in a mortar and stone bathroom. The shower\u00a0there\u00a0had one knob, a step up from Caye Caulker where the shower had one lever. We ate some Avocado on tortillas for a first breakfast. I drank some of the nescafe in the kitchen. Then we headed out to see the town. Restaurant after restaurant was shuttered. It was Sunday morning and everything was quiet except a couple churches. There were a few folks out to offer us tours because that’s the way it is. We finally found a delightful cafe called the Treatery, open. Jill had some tea and I had a delicious coffee and some pineapple upside down cake. We walked back to the market and bought some 10\u00a2 bananas. Back to the hostel to finish packing up and off to get a taxi to the border. We rode through the countryside with our driver. He knew all about the mayan sites nearby and pointed out their locations to us. There are also a lot of resorts, this is in the mountains in the west of the country. I didn’t know Belize was such a destination other than the islands. I would love to return and experience all the roadside stands and little town hotels and resorts.<\/p>\n
We reached the border in Benque Viejo del Carmen. A couple money changers approached with all right deals. They were wearing sunglasses and carrying toiletry bags full of cash. Come to think of it the conductor on the chicken bus had a toiletry bag full of cash for ticket money.\u00a0I guess the bags are ideal for cash. We walked across the border and avoided a few taxi drivers. They love to chat and give you some pointers. They hope to get a little trust\u00a0and then you’ll take their taxi. We wanted to walk to the bus station and almost passed it but I ask a couple ladies who pointed it out. We were immediately whisked away in a van with no other passengers. I started to stretch out. Then we stopped downtown and a full load squeezed in around us. I folded up my legs for\u00a0a crowded rideThere was also a conductor on this bus but he just had a roll of cash. The bus picked up and dropped off passengers all along the way. It took about 2 hours to arrive. The end of the line was in Santa Elena. We could either walk 2 miles to Flores or take a taxi. We decided to walk and told numerous curious taxi drivers our plan. At least in Flores there are Tuk-Tuk taxis which I haven’t seen before. These tiny three wheelers look like tilt-a-whirl carriages. We walked up to the bridge to La Isla de Flores and saw a Burger King and a Pizza Hut. We stopped at the Burger King for lunch. That’s right. We did it for the bathroom and because hunting for an appropriate meal when we’re hungry gets us cranky at each other. Upon entering the place it appeared that the entire city’s children were there for a Sunday party. Lots of screaming and horsing around was going on. The bathrooms were Burger King standard. I asked and Burger King apparently can\u00a0make any burger with a veggie patty. But\u00a0Jill still ordered a fish sandwich, or a King de Pescado! I ordered a Whopper, no exciting translation. Our food tasted like any Burger King. It really has an international flavor. The Ketchup is called Salsa Ketchup FYI. We continued across the bridge to Flores and commenced a search for appropriate accommodation. We were not about to make the mistake of taking the first place we saw as in Bacalar. We walked to every hostel we knew of on the island and then back to the first one we visited to get a room. It was quite a tour of the tiny island. There is a hill with\u00a0a big church. Flores is surrounded by a Lago Peten Itza and is\u00a0grittily\u00a0picturesque. There were maybe thousands of birds chattering away at the Park. a few photographers shot from the railings and a few others sat whispering on the benches. We decided to stay at Cafe Arquelogico Yaxcha. It’s a hostel as well as a cafe. We booked a trip to Tikal on Tuesday through this place. We went off to eat and found well made Mojitos for $1.32 a piece. I had some Chile Rellenos and Jill ate spaghetti. Jill took all the pictures toady. That’s about it.<\/p>\n
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A lot of movement happened today. We awoke in San Ignacio, Belize. Jill did some yoga on the roof. I took a shower in a mortar and stone bathroom. The shower\u00a0there\u00a0had one knob, a step up from Caye Caulker where the shower had one lever. We ate some Avocado on tortillas for a first breakfast. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[19,20,21,18],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life","category-travel","tag-benque-viejo","tag-flores","tag-guatemala","tag-san-ignacio"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5a0LE-1192014","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}