Like the dutiful wife that she is (she wants to stress she did it in a hurry before we went snorkelling) Fiona fixed my dog bitten swimming trunks - for concerned parents and family out there the dog in question was an American ladies pet and it didn't break the skin but left me with a massive bruise.
When we got to Belize City it was new years day and unsurprisingly the bus station was not a hive of activity and there were no direct buses to our destination - Crooked Tree.
After a long and protracted argument over the price of a cab we agreed to go with Patrick and we're glad we did.....our taxi ride turned out to be one of the best bits of our time in Belize. It started with us stopping off to pick up his brother Kareem who bought us a beer each for the journey - it was one of two beer stops we made and was included in the (admittedly high) price.
Us with Patrick and his brother Kareem - Patrick had not really worked out the peace sign, I told him what his gesture meant in English and he almost wet himself laughing
It just so happened that the biggest bike race in Belize was underway, the new years day classic Corozal to Belize City. Kareem used to cycle for a team in this race so we kept stopping to watch the groups come past.
For two of our three days and both of our boat trips it pissed down - even though it was supposed to be at the start of the dry season!
It was nice until it rained - although we did see over 40 spp in our three days check out our updated list http://ralphandfi.blogspot.com/2011/09/listmania.html
The crooked tree lodge was on a lake which we did a night tour of and saw fishing bats and Morletts crocodile. The fields around the lodge were full of birds and at night fireflies and frogs.
We were told on our boat trip that this town was named after a particularly gnarly tree were everyone - mostly fishermen used to meet. However, a taxi driver in Belize city told us another version of the tale, he said that its named after 3 conmen who used to sell the towns land to various
This is a firefly, they are surprisingly hard to capture actually glowing and yes I did try without the flash on
There were two very cool dogs hanging about by the boat to the ruins at Laminai
poor fella - Fi gave him some leftovers
black collared hawk
To get to the ruins we had to get a boat up river which was another opportunity for wildlife spotting (although we were highly disapproving of the other tour boats feeding the spider monkeys Bananas
Mennonites are producing the oil drilling equipment (that's what's on the barge) for the operation on Belize's coral reef. According to our guide the Mennonites produce 70% of all Belize's produce and wear rather fetching dungarees.
black orchid the national flower of Belize
howler monkey - these guys seem to love ruins
Cool tree at the ruins, of all the ones we visited Lamanai - meaning submerged crocodile in Mayan (appropriate as we saw an american saltwater croc on the way there) was probably our favourite, it was in a nice setting , the buildings were very impressive and the whole thing was a bit more low key and understated than the others.
the palms were huge
the US embassy paid for this to be covered with fibreglass
The ruins were occupied for around 3000 years from 1500BC.
the "high temple" was appropriately named
the view from the top
Jaguar face on a temple
horse balls - honestly that is what they are called
Trucks full of sugar cane at the sugar cane factory. The sugar cane is used to make rum.
vermillion flycatcher
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