San Ignacio

A long day bus ride, and after 2 hours of a 5 1/2 hour journey, what seemed like hundreds of people descended on our already full, dilapidated bus!  We learnt that it was chucking-out time after visiting at Belize City prison which made for an interesting bus journey from this point.  We didn’t stay in Belize City as there are areas that are not so safe, but I think all these ‘edgy’ looking doods descended onto our🚍! It was an extremely packed, hot bus with the boys literally being sat on by local Belizeans - we soon learn not to be kind and to share our seats, as you give them an inch and they will definitely take a mile!! Needless to say, this was a hard journey, the boys were not impressed but managed so well. It’s all part of the journey but very hard at the time and definitely the hardest bus ride so far… 


Besides the actual bus, the journey into San Ignacio was beautiful. Initially thick jungle with little Belizean villages in between, and then when heading into San Ignacio, for the first time on our trip, the look of home (with 30 degree heat). Beautiful green fields, cows, yellow rapeseed fields, ‘home trees!’, amongst a few more tropical fauna, including coconut palms and banana trees.


San Ignacio is a small, bustling little town with Rasta / Chinese influences - what a combo! 

We manage to beat the extortionate tour companies who wanted £520 for an 8-2 day tour (hiking in the forest and a trip to a cave), to hire our own little canoe and paddle down the river surrounded by jungle. Sounds and sights of the jungle within minutes of leaving the little town, and not a tourist to be seen! There are kingfishers gliding just above the water everywhere (my favourite bird), and more jungle sites including toucans in the trees and once again, spider monkeys. We manage to find a little calcium covered azul blue waterfall which we climb to the top of, a real memory of the day. 


We also hired a car to travel to the pine ridge mountain forest and at our first stop, we seemed to find ourselves at the Blancaneaux Lodge (owned by Francis Ford Coppla), a rather magnificent Lodge right near big waterfalls we wanted to visit. How we ended up there I don’t know, but after taking full advantage of the facilities (washing our rather delightful travellers socks in the warm water 😂, and a bottle refill with watermelon and mint water, an absolute luxury at the moment), we take a long hike through beautiful pine forests to the big falls. The hike was fantastic, with a feel of Canadian pine forests amongst a rocky river, and at the end, a spectacular waterfall with places to jump into the cool water, perfect after our long hike. A perfect day with one exception.,..we forgot to take food on the hike so we were out of gas and very moody by the time we got back!! Baggot’s without food = disaster! 

Comments

  1. Jo OwenFebruary 21, 2025 at 9:09 AM

    Awesome!! Loving the bird drawings too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diana PoundFebruary 23, 2025 at 4:01 AM

    Thoroughly enjoying hearing about this fabulous trip. Thanks for the time you are taking to keep us informed.

    ReplyDelete

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