Belize, Central America. We started our journey by renting a big American 4×4 pick up truck, which at first did not seem appealing but after the first turning off the main highway it turned out to be a god send! The roads in Belize, I’m not sure can be described as roads, more like clearings that people struggle to drive through. The joke of choice when we reached our many places to stay was if we had a good back massage on the drive in. On a tightly packed schedule as usual, driving was the only way to get around in the time we had but getting from A to B quickly was another matter, we soon realised that doubling the Sat Nav’s estimated journey time was a good rule of thumb with the constant sudden braking and sections of 5mph coasting on the bumpiest roads I have ever come across.

 

After finally arriving at our jungle villa where we would spend the night, we rushed straight back out to just about catch the tiny car ferry on the last run of the day to cross the river and get to the Xunantunich Mayan Ruins. Wow! We were absolutely speechless as we explored this amazing site. Climbing the massive steps, walking around the narrow paths and through the bat filled rooms, we found ourselves standing directly on top of the ancient stone structure with stunning views over the surrounding Jungle and apparently all the way to neighbouring Guatemala.

 

On the last day of our jungle adventure in the heart of Belize we set off on an early morning drive to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary. Up to this point we had been hiking everyday on some amazing trails and nearly felt like we were all hiked out, but arriving here we were given a new boost of energy starting when we arrived at this plane wreck in the middle of the jungle. I loved taking photos of this with the growth all over showing the jungle taking hold.

Moving away from jungle life and the pesky sand flies, (Chris counting over 40 bites on his legs alone) We returned back to the airport, dropped back the trusty old pick up and suddenly found ourselves rushing through “security” with our hand written boarding passes and straight up into a tiny prop wing plane seating 8. Our short flight of 30 minutes took us over the lovely turquoise sea and after a very nerve wracking, what can only be described as a wrestle, we landed in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye Island. Colourful buildings, golden beaches and roads filled with golf buggies, we suddenly realised where all the tourists had been hiding! After encountering only a handful of other foreigners in our whole trip to this point, it felt very different but did make us appreciate how peaceful we’d had it so far. We only had a day on the island, so after a good nights sleep we got up early and sorted our primary reason for coming to the island, snorkeling at the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world! It was well worth it just for that, we swam with reef sharks, sting rays, a variety of tropical fish and what made it so special a sea turtle! Thank you Belize, you were great.

 

I’m working on a short video which I will be posting soon, see below for more photos from our trip.