This is a blog about the day we managed to get from Caye Caulker all the way across the country to the western border of Belize, using a boat and two local stopping buses ( and a stop off at the zoo).
The cold front continued to encroach and so we decided to cut our losses and travel inland, using today, the day that rain was forecast to travel. And it did rain…. Its COLD, everyone complaining and apparently, it’s a 100 year cold event in Florida and there is ice in the highlands of Guatemala!! Looks like they are losing their crops too, which is such a shame –Florida can probably survive the loss of their orange crop but we really feel for the Guatemalan’s, they struggle as it is ….
But at the start of the journey, as if the cold wasn’t enough, Gill was even less happy to wake to choppy seas and lashing rain, and was even less, less happy waiting on the quay at 8.30am for the water taxi! When it arrived, it was already full from San Pedro, so we were squashed into the back in the open air, next to the engine. We were given a green tarpaulin to protect ourselves (it didn’t work) and away we sped, bouncing along, in the wind and rain for the 45mins trip back to Belize City. Think it was the “saddo’s” boat – a guy with a head full of “Christ” tattoos smiling beatifically as we bumped along, two weirdo Americans, he with a long beard – (we thought they must be twitcher’s and we were right – they turned up at our Belize hotel with their bins…) – but of course you can see from the pics that Gill looks a bit of a saddo herself with her mac drawn tightly over her head – not a good look!
It turns out that this was the most luxurious part of the day!! Not wanting to risk walking across the worst quarter of Belize City fully laden, we took a ‘cab’ to the bus station. The urban decay was evident (as was the decay in the “cab”), run down wooden houses, potholed streets, made to look even worse by the rain and the glitter everywhere. We pulled up at the canal side bus station were where we had disembarked a week ago and it looked even worse in the daylight! We crossed the road into the barred bus station and breathed a sigh of relief. Actually, the people in the bus station and in Belize in general have been really friendly and helpful, its the youths on the gang controlled city streets that look mean. We waited a while, and then an lovely elderly gent helped us to board the correct bus to the zoo and away we went. 
45 minutes later, the bus stopped and dropped us off in what seemed the middle of nowhere, but packs on our backs we followed the signs to the zoo. Now let us explain, zoo’s are not our thing (apart from Beijing Zoo to see the panda’s –perhaps we just like zoo’s beginning with “B”…) but this is more of a sanctuary. All the animals are native to Belize and have been rescued, orphaned, a danger to the community or saved from being pets. The zoo is in the middle of the jungle and really felt integrated. We saw tapirs, toucans, vultures, cougars, ocelots (Gill really wanted them for a coat….) jaguars (most impressive), crocs, jaibaru storks, howler monkeys, spider monkeys – and lots more we can’t remember. It was fun – but the most interesting exhibits were the WT Americans – we thought it was Britney and the kids and Ant as usual wondered who was looking after the trailer…. But sadly it was only us who trudged back up the path, as tortoises again with backpacks aloft in the rain through the mud to find yet another local bus to take us to San Ignacio and towards the Guatemalan border again… We realised yet again that we continue to break the rules – we were in the middle of nowhere, no idea when a bus or if a bus would come along…… hey ho….
A bus did of course emerge from the gloom and on we crawled, stopping at the whim of every passenger, some were only 100m apart! People came and went, some bringing their own music, Simon Cowell would be pleased – Leona Lewis was ballading away at high volume on the Western Highway to San Ignacio…. We stopped briefly at Belmopan ( the tiny capital) before continuing onto San Ignacio. There are many Mennonite and Amish communities here and we saw a fair few horse and carts, with traditionally dressed Amish aboard, staring straight ahead.
