Photo website

We have a new website with photos, should you wish to have a look at them. There were a few glitches so they are not all labled yet.

www.flickr.com/photos/koehnadventures/

San Ignacio, Belize - Mary - We experienced our first PACKED bus last night. Our guide book warned complete chaos when loading buses in Belize. We were really lucky to miss this until last night around rush hour. The moment we stopped at the station, the back door and front door of the old school bus opened and people poured in! It was quite the effort to get off the bus, and we had no chance of sitting on the connecting bus. Luckily, it didn't stay packed for too long.

Today has been our first real day of rain since leaving Edmonton. It poured all night, and for most of the day, with a bit of clearing this afternoon which gave us a chance for an energetic walk to the upper part of town. The town is bordered by a river with lush green around it and the end of the walk had a great view over the 'river valley'. It turns out that the bridge to the nature reserve we wanted to visit today was flooded, so that meant a quiet day around town. San Ignacio has definately the most food variety of anywhere we have been and that is a wonderful change from fried chicken, chow mein, or beans and rice that we have expereinced everywhere else in Belize.

November first marks the official start of high season in Belize, off we go to Guatemala bright and early tomorrow morning!

Oct 31, Placencia, Belize - Mary - This will be our last time by the Carribean for a while. One of our small frustrations has been finding accomodations. It turns out that the guide book that we brought along was published in 2004, so it was researched in 2003. It seems that often, once accomodations are recommended in the book, they have it made, and they can become more expensive, or less well-kept. (There is one universal Lonely Planet that ALL backpackers use...it's quite entertaining to see how we all look the same clinging to that book!) Anyway, sometimes we settle with the first place we look at, and other times we check out several before deciding on the best option. This time we stayed in the cheapest place we could find, it really wasn't too bad, except you could feel each and every spring in the bed. We moved to luxury the next two nights in an airconditioned guest house. We also rented some snorkel equip for the afternoon and saw some colorful coral and fish just off the shore.

Dangriga, Belize - Mary - We took a day trip to Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Reserve, and it was definately a highlight of Belize. There are several such nature reserves in Belize, but they typically are not accessible by public transit. We thought we could take a bus to the park entrance and then a taxi to the park itself. The bus ride ended up being much longer than expected, and when we arrived at the entrance, there was little more than a tiny shop. No taxis. Fortunately, there was a family that had a rented vehicle for their day trip, and we were able to get a ride with them the 10kms in. We did a short (but very humid and sweaty) hike to a lookout over the basin and then to a great waterfall where we had a refreshing swim. It was so amazing to see all the plants and trees. There is so much diversity. We didn't see much in terms of animals because they come out more at night. I had a bit of a scare when we were hiking out, as I nearly stepped on a tarantula. Pretty scary, but I know it was more scared of me. (That's what I keep telling myself!) :) We took a lot more caution with our steps after that. It is cool how camoflaged the life is. When a frog hops and lands, it seems to disappear because it blends in so well. I wonder what else saw us today that we didn't see...