HI there,
Last time I had just arrived in Belize. After 1 week on a tiny island there, I headed North into Mexico and spent 3 weeks getting across from the scorching Yucutan Penninsular to choking Mexico City via various interesting mountain towns and colonial cities.
Belize (previously British Honduras)
Spent a week on Caye Caulker, a few km long but only 200m across, a sort of really laid back place with loads of snorkelling opportunities. And they speak English! Paradise in so many ways...
Plus points
- Nurse sharks, up to 2m long, cruise the reef and shallows. They have unusual tails for sharks, long and wavy, plus really small eyes. A few of us went out with an old guy on a boat who claimed he was best friend of the family that lived in that area having rescued one years ago and these were the descendents. I took that with a large pinch of seawater as we snorkelled around the boat watching these timid creatures. Then he got in and they went straight up to him and swum next to him, following him around for the next hour, even though he wasn’t feeding them. I don’t normally touch anything alive underwater as they are wild animals, but these sharks seemed to be loving the attention, being stroked and not caring if they bumped into us or we into them. Sharks are great fish, I wouldn’t describe them as friendly, but then there are always exceptions!
- Manatees (dugongs, sea cows) – odd animals a bit like sea lions only much slower. They are quite rare and didn’t get to see a great deal of them but I can tell you that they are bulky with noses like cows and tails like semi-circular fans. Unexciting? Definitely. But interesting just ‘cos they’re different!
- Sting rays – huge flying saucers over 1m diameter plus another metre for the tail. Beautiful to watch in motion as they flap their wings so gracefully as they swarmed around us in the shallows. They are not dangerous unless you stand on the sting, which is at the base of the tail. However, when they form a carpet around your feet it is difficult not to stand on them, though luckily I didnt stand on the wrong bit!
- Coral, large green moray eels, spotted eagle rays, queen trigger fish (possibly the most beautiful fish I have encountered), dolphins and disco fish (small dark fish inlaid with bright blue luminous jewels). And stacks more – great snorkelling.
- Last, smallest, slowest but definitely the most surprising: sea horses. Just 5-7cm high they cling underwater to small branches with their tail and hang on as they are weak swimmers. They come in brown, yellow and orange and are as an intricately designed as I could imagine (like one of those airfix kits with tiny parts where most of the glue ends up between your fingers), with (relatively) enormous snouts. The males look after the fertilised eggs in a pouch so it is they that are pregnant (don’t go getting any ideas now…)
Minus Stuff
- its expensive – but then it’s worth it. After all it is Paradise! - did I mention that already?
Mexico
Large parts of Mexico are the same as Central America but with (a lot) more VW Beetles. However, some parts are a little different.
Expected bits
Mexico has been populated for about 20,000 years by Asians who crossed the land bridge across the Bearing Strait during the last ice age. About 1,200BC they started forming organised, structured civilisations, the first of these being the Olmecs (at their height 1,200BC to 900BC) followed by numerous others, the most famous being Mayas (peaked 250AD – 900AD) and Aztecs (peaked 1400AD – 1519AD). Despite having a capital city of 200,000 people (built where Mexico City is today) the Aztecs could not resist a small force of Spaniards who arrived in 1519 and within 2 years had dismantled the whole civilisation. Each civilisation left its own cities and buildings celebrating their beliefs, gods and religious practices. The most impressive being:
- Chichen Itza (Maya with Toltec influence) with magnificent pyramid and a huge ballcourt where a rubber ball would have to be put through a hoop by use of elbows and hips only in the lowest scoring game ever. One goal would determine the winner and the losing captain (or sometimes the winning captain) would be sacrificed.
- Palenque (Maya) – Surrounded by jungle, the pyramids here contain tombs (very unusual in this continent).
- Uxmal (Maya) – More Pyramids and complex geometric patterns, plus rain gods with noses like elephants trunks.
- Teotihuacan – Including the 3rd largest pyramid in the world built around 300AD.
Unfortunately the Spanish built over or destroyed most of the Aztec sites although there are a lot of buildings underneath colonial Mexico City.
- There are of course plenty of colonial towns with fantastic buildings, plazas and cathedrals and streets on a grid system – the Spanish were advanced at town planning.
- With total Spanish control the indigenous people were reduced to the bottom of the society, a place they still firmly occupy. Odd (and sad) that the peoples who built such great civilisations thousands of years ago, now live at an economic and artistic level below that which they had then.
Unexpected bits
- Cenote snorkelling – most of the Yucutan Penninsular (the bit that sticks out to the east) is flat limestone with hardly any surface water. The water has formed numerous caves and caverns underground, the tops of which have collapsed and become accessible through vents. Snorkelling through tiny caves, cramped between floor, roof, stalagmites and stalactites and often squeezing through minute gaps (at water surface level) is a weird experience.
- Off the Pacific coast in deep water on a boat we saw manta rays launching themselves out of the water several metres into the air before crashing back into the water in an uncontrolled dive. We jumped in the water and I came across a huge ‘shoal’ of about 200 manta rays each about 1m across just a couple of metres below me – incredible sight.
- The biggest single biomass in the world (or so they claim). Its just a tree, 42m high, 58m truck circumference and a total volume (presumable including root system) of 817,000m3. And it is over 2,000 years old.
- Sleeping in hammocks for a while (it was cheap, and Yucutan peninsular isn’t, but it is warm at night). Got fed up of it after a while and went back to sleeping in dorms.
- The indigenous Zatopec people commenerate the uprising in 1990’s by selling dolls with guns dressed all in black plus balaclavas – very striking and surely an angle the Barbie doll people have missed!
- We visited a church in an indigenous village. The locals were forced to convert to Catholicism when the Spanish arrived, but this church suggest otherwise. Firstly, from the outside it is a normal church. Inside it is completely empty of furniture other than a small altar and 22 saints in glass cases around the walls (no seating at all). At the focus of the building stands St John the Baptist who is the local patron saint and the centre of any formal worship (Jesus ranks about 5th). The building is choked with incense smoke. Pine needles cover the floor giving a feel of nature whilst people sit on the floor in small groups staring at large groups of candles of differing colours, each colour referring to a part of the body that they are praying for. If you are very ill then a live chicken is used and waved over the candles, then often sacrificed. Each saint has a 3 day festival with much smoke, incense, fireworks and a procession where they take him ‘out for a walk’ around the church square. And most surprising of all the whole ‘congregation’ are in church drinking coca-cola, pepsi and fanta as they have been told by the marketing men that these drinks help you burp which releases the evil spirits from within. Clearly indigenous religion practiced under a thin veil of Catholicism with more than a hint of ‘Well what did the Spanish ever do for us?’ Monty Python couldn’t have done it better.
- Mexico City – A sprawling megopolis of over 22 million people. However it is not as bad as I thought. Most of it is like any other very busy modern city but with a liberal dusting of smog and an even liberaler scattering of VW Beetles.
Other things I learned during this trip:
- It is possible to fit 32 people and all their luggage in and on a 15 seat minibus.
- ‘Carga Larga’ is a long load and not a type of beer.
- ‘No Banarse’ is not an organisation in favour of liberalisation of nudity (it just means No Bathing).
- A ‘Joyeria’ is a jewellers, not a brothel.
And a bit about the food
- If that damp rag aroma of another tortilla catches my nostrils, I will puke. Before this trip I used to like them!
And so fearing the tortillas may rise up and rebel, I caught a flight back to London and home where I will be for a while at least. If you want to meet up for a pint of lager, rice, beans and tortillas, then sod off. If you can stretch to real English beer and cashew nuts then mail me!!
See ya
Luv
Pete
Showing posts with label Belize. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belize. Show all posts
Wednesday, 12 May 2004
Tuesday, 20 April 2004
Where 26 - Caye Caulker, Belize --OR-- How to get Out of El Salvador Without getting In
Have progressed from El Salvador via Guatemala I am now on a tiny island just off the coast of Belize.
Some border crossings are easy others are not - El Salvador was a shining example of both.
To get in from Honduras I crossed at a remote border point in the north east of the country. Usual thing, 5am bus and within a couple of hours got to the Honduran border point, got passport stamped and into El Salvador for a look at the guerrilla headquarters (the civil war is over now though, honest) and asked where we could get stamped into El Salvador. ´Not here!´ was the reply. Apparently the area around the border where I crossed is disputed so El Sal will not recognise anyone who crosses there. I was told I would have to go to the border with Hondras in the East of El Sal to get a stamp. Luckily it is a small country. It took several buses and several hours to get there, and, after queuing, I got stamped in without problem. But as soon as the border official stamped it she decided that the exit stamp from Honduras wasn´t an exit stamp at all but just a control stamp. After arguing the case unsuccessfully, I had to walk across the bridge back into Honduras, join another long scrum and try and get an exit stamp. The border officials there were confused as I didnt have the Tourist card I should have had as it had been taken from me at the original Honduran exit point. So after explaining it all and filling in more forms he was then happy. Except that he then noticed I had already been stamped into El Sal and so didnt require a Honduran exit stamp. Try explaining to a border official that you have been stamped into a country by mistake and you will get the feel of what followed - but he eventually stamped me out and, after walking back across the bridge (all the time carrying all my stuff), and joining yet another mob of people trying to form a line, the El Sal people let me in (again!). Only most of the day wasted. What a farce.
Exiting El Sal to Guatemala was slightly different. On both sides of the (inevitable) bridge are border officials from Both countries. There was no queue. I had to fill in a form, was stamped out in seconds and walked 5 metres to a Guatemalan official, who took even less time over stamping me in (even though I wasn´t ´in´ Guatemala yet). And that was it. The moral of this must run something like -If you ever go to El Salvador, only exit, never enter it!
Apart from that El Sal should be noted for:
- The island of Cashew nuts. Just in case you didnt know (and I didnt) they grow on trees with the fruit the same size and colour as a red sweet pepper except that it is upside down. Where the stem should be (underneath) is a cresent shaped pod which contains one single cashew nut. The fruit can be eaten straight away and is very juicy, although with the volume of even cottage industry production (which it is) there are far too many fruits for the few islanders to eat. The pod is very tough and has to be dried in the sun for 3 days before it is cracked open between a rock and a hard place, dug out (hopefully still whole), cleaned a bit and then baked. All that for one single cashew nut - now you know why they are so expensive.
- A new volcano which was flat land until 1770, but is now over 1000m high. Next to it there is a slightly taller volcano where a hotel was built in the 1950s so people could watch the volcano erupting from above! Unfortunately, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano which had continuously erupted for nearly 200 years, stopped and has stayed stopped! A marvellous black cone is the result, and of course, a great view of it from the (closed) hotel.
- In El Sal (and only here) they have bottles of ´Salsa Ingles´ (English Sauce) which has in tiny writing on the bottle ´Worcestershire Sauce´. Marvellous!
- Coffee - large portions of South and Central America are famous for their coffee and I have tried it in various places, but ... the locals always serve it black, weak and with loads of sugar. Thats how they like it (and normally the sugar is already added).
- Worst though is the litter - it is everywhere including beauty spots - every few cms is a piece of litter, some foil sweet wrapper, a piece of blue plastic. It is really difficult to express just how bad it is. I could walk from one end of the country to the other without ever touching the ground! At first it is dissapointing in what is otherwise a beautiful country; after a few days it became depressing. And no-one here could care one bit - I guess it is too far gone for that - and they really do have other priorities.
- Best is the people - really friendly.
Enough of little El Sal - Guatemala is much more interesting ....
- Transport is so cheap here - US$1 for several hours of travel usually. It is really uncomfortable (old US school buses - just like on the Simpsons), they are crammed worse than any I have been on ever, you have to get up in the dark to catch them and the roads aren´t always the best, but some of the scenery is pretty impressive (if you can see out of the window).
- I think I mentioned last time that the smaller and more insignificant the town you are in, the earlier the only bus of the day leaves. One evening I arrived in a remote mountain village, with one very basic hotel, and realising that I would have to stay the night, checked out the bus times the next day. There was only one bus east I was told and that left at 3am - but was advised to be there at least half an hour beforehand as it got really full !!! This must be the earliest a bus can leave - as if it were any earlier it would be a really late bus! Luckily, by good planning and ... er ... luck, I was heading west and had a choice of two buses. I chose the 5.30am bus. The other one was at 4am.
If you do ever get to catch the bus there are some great places to see though -
- Tikal - a Mayan site now resting in the jungle. It contains several pyramids (tallest 44m high) and many other buildings built between 200 BC and 700 AD. The civilisation collapsed around 900 AD although it is not known why.
- Semuc Champey - In the middle of nowhere a series of fantastic limestone pools containing turquoise water with a raging torrent swirling through a tunnel directly beneath. Great for swimming in (the pools that is). Nearby we went cave exploring with a guide and candles (which tend to go out when you get them wet - there is a design flaw there) and ended up climbing underground waterfalls (with the help of a rope), squeezing through gaps and jumping into (hopefully) deep pools -not quite what I had expected but great fun...
- Mountain towns where everyone wears traditional dress, almost like a uniform. The women always manage intricately woven and embroidered jackets with long wrap around skirts. In Todos Santos, the men also wear an unusual outfit - all the men were in vertically striped red and white trousers which made them look like either prisoners, or as if they had just got out of bed. In places like this you have little option but to eat where the locals do, so had weak hot chocolate and sweet sponge cake for breakfast - odd!
-Watching/feeling thousands of bats scream out of a cave just after sunset. I just stood there and trusted them to fly around me. They did.
- Lake Atilan -beautiful. Lake, volcanoes etc. Very nice but be careful on sunny afternoons ... and be prepared to run. Fast! (see Easter Extra post)
- Antigua - Fantastic colonial town full of ruined churches (ruined in 1773 earthquake and never restored), cobbled streets and colonial houses. And they go mad over Easter (Holy week to be precise) when there are almost endless religious parades walking round the streets, day and night. Even the tablecloths in the restaurant are purple for the duration. The locals prepare carpets made of coloured sawdust, flowers, fruits, vegetation etc depicting scenes from bible and animals. The procession contains thousands of participants all dressed similarly, copious amounts of smoke and usually a very large plinth with a religious image on it (Jesus or his mum are the favorites) carried by up to 80 people staggering under the weight. They all walk straight through the carpets, so destroying them. And then the locals start making another one for the next procession. The amount of effort put in is incredible!
However, they do NOT have chocolate easter eggs. So save me some!
Guatemala is the most interesting place in Cental America by some distance - not without problems though.
Unfortunately I have managed to get ill again! (3rd time this trip) which is a real pain, but have managed to scrape myself over the border to Belize and onto a small island about 200m wide, surrounded by part of the worlds second largest barrier reef. More about that next time ...
Only 3 weeks left of this trip now, so will be trying to cram in a bit of Mexico before flying out of Mexico City and getting home on 10 May.
Luv Pete
Some border crossings are easy others are not - El Salvador was a shining example of both.
To get in from Honduras I crossed at a remote border point in the north east of the country. Usual thing, 5am bus and within a couple of hours got to the Honduran border point, got passport stamped and into El Salvador for a look at the guerrilla headquarters (the civil war is over now though, honest) and asked where we could get stamped into El Salvador. ´Not here!´ was the reply. Apparently the area around the border where I crossed is disputed so El Sal will not recognise anyone who crosses there. I was told I would have to go to the border with Hondras in the East of El Sal to get a stamp. Luckily it is a small country. It took several buses and several hours to get there, and, after queuing, I got stamped in without problem. But as soon as the border official stamped it she decided that the exit stamp from Honduras wasn´t an exit stamp at all but just a control stamp. After arguing the case unsuccessfully, I had to walk across the bridge back into Honduras, join another long scrum and try and get an exit stamp. The border officials there were confused as I didnt have the Tourist card I should have had as it had been taken from me at the original Honduran exit point. So after explaining it all and filling in more forms he was then happy. Except that he then noticed I had already been stamped into El Sal and so didnt require a Honduran exit stamp. Try explaining to a border official that you have been stamped into a country by mistake and you will get the feel of what followed - but he eventually stamped me out and, after walking back across the bridge (all the time carrying all my stuff), and joining yet another mob of people trying to form a line, the El Sal people let me in (again!). Only most of the day wasted. What a farce.
Exiting El Sal to Guatemala was slightly different. On both sides of the (inevitable) bridge are border officials from Both countries. There was no queue. I had to fill in a form, was stamped out in seconds and walked 5 metres to a Guatemalan official, who took even less time over stamping me in (even though I wasn´t ´in´ Guatemala yet). And that was it. The moral of this must run something like -If you ever go to El Salvador, only exit, never enter it!
Apart from that El Sal should be noted for:
- The island of Cashew nuts. Just in case you didnt know (and I didnt) they grow on trees with the fruit the same size and colour as a red sweet pepper except that it is upside down. Where the stem should be (underneath) is a cresent shaped pod which contains one single cashew nut. The fruit can be eaten straight away and is very juicy, although with the volume of even cottage industry production (which it is) there are far too many fruits for the few islanders to eat. The pod is very tough and has to be dried in the sun for 3 days before it is cracked open between a rock and a hard place, dug out (hopefully still whole), cleaned a bit and then baked. All that for one single cashew nut - now you know why they are so expensive.
- A new volcano which was flat land until 1770, but is now over 1000m high. Next to it there is a slightly taller volcano where a hotel was built in the 1950s so people could watch the volcano erupting from above! Unfortunately, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano which had continuously erupted for nearly 200 years, stopped and has stayed stopped! A marvellous black cone is the result, and of course, a great view of it from the (closed) hotel.
- In El Sal (and only here) they have bottles of ´Salsa Ingles´ (English Sauce) which has in tiny writing on the bottle ´Worcestershire Sauce´. Marvellous!
- Coffee - large portions of South and Central America are famous for their coffee and I have tried it in various places, but ... the locals always serve it black, weak and with loads of sugar. Thats how they like it (and normally the sugar is already added).
- Worst though is the litter - it is everywhere including beauty spots - every few cms is a piece of litter, some foil sweet wrapper, a piece of blue plastic. It is really difficult to express just how bad it is. I could walk from one end of the country to the other without ever touching the ground! At first it is dissapointing in what is otherwise a beautiful country; after a few days it became depressing. And no-one here could care one bit - I guess it is too far gone for that - and they really do have other priorities.
- Best is the people - really friendly.
Enough of little El Sal - Guatemala is much more interesting ....
- Transport is so cheap here - US$1 for several hours of travel usually. It is really uncomfortable (old US school buses - just like on the Simpsons), they are crammed worse than any I have been on ever, you have to get up in the dark to catch them and the roads aren´t always the best, but some of the scenery is pretty impressive (if you can see out of the window).
- I think I mentioned last time that the smaller and more insignificant the town you are in, the earlier the only bus of the day leaves. One evening I arrived in a remote mountain village, with one very basic hotel, and realising that I would have to stay the night, checked out the bus times the next day. There was only one bus east I was told and that left at 3am - but was advised to be there at least half an hour beforehand as it got really full !!! This must be the earliest a bus can leave - as if it were any earlier it would be a really late bus! Luckily, by good planning and ... er ... luck, I was heading west and had a choice of two buses. I chose the 5.30am bus. The other one was at 4am.
If you do ever get to catch the bus there are some great places to see though -
- Tikal - a Mayan site now resting in the jungle. It contains several pyramids (tallest 44m high) and many other buildings built between 200 BC and 700 AD. The civilisation collapsed around 900 AD although it is not known why.
- Semuc Champey - In the middle of nowhere a series of fantastic limestone pools containing turquoise water with a raging torrent swirling through a tunnel directly beneath. Great for swimming in (the pools that is). Nearby we went cave exploring with a guide and candles (which tend to go out when you get them wet - there is a design flaw there) and ended up climbing underground waterfalls (with the help of a rope), squeezing through gaps and jumping into (hopefully) deep pools -not quite what I had expected but great fun...
- Mountain towns where everyone wears traditional dress, almost like a uniform. The women always manage intricately woven and embroidered jackets with long wrap around skirts. In Todos Santos, the men also wear an unusual outfit - all the men were in vertically striped red and white trousers which made them look like either prisoners, or as if they had just got out of bed. In places like this you have little option but to eat where the locals do, so had weak hot chocolate and sweet sponge cake for breakfast - odd!
-Watching/feeling thousands of bats scream out of a cave just after sunset. I just stood there and trusted them to fly around me. They did.
- Lake Atilan -beautiful. Lake, volcanoes etc. Very nice but be careful on sunny afternoons ... and be prepared to run. Fast! (see Easter Extra post)
- Antigua - Fantastic colonial town full of ruined churches (ruined in 1773 earthquake and never restored), cobbled streets and colonial houses. And they go mad over Easter (Holy week to be precise) when there are almost endless religious parades walking round the streets, day and night. Even the tablecloths in the restaurant are purple for the duration. The locals prepare carpets made of coloured sawdust, flowers, fruits, vegetation etc depicting scenes from bible and animals. The procession contains thousands of participants all dressed similarly, copious amounts of smoke and usually a very large plinth with a religious image on it (Jesus or his mum are the favorites) carried by up to 80 people staggering under the weight. They all walk straight through the carpets, so destroying them. And then the locals start making another one for the next procession. The amount of effort put in is incredible!
However, they do NOT have chocolate easter eggs. So save me some!
Guatemala is the most interesting place in Cental America by some distance - not without problems though.
Unfortunately I have managed to get ill again! (3rd time this trip) which is a real pain, but have managed to scrape myself over the border to Belize and onto a small island about 200m wide, surrounded by part of the worlds second largest barrier reef. More about that next time ...
Only 3 weeks left of this trip now, so will be trying to cram in a bit of Mexico before flying out of Mexico City and getting home on 10 May.
Luv Pete
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