The road chose me

We stay a night in Dangriga, which is really a non-event. Val’s Place is a nice Hostel, but there is really nothing to do here. In the morning we move on and decide we want to get off the beaten path and find some real jungle in Belize. We stop to get a tank of gas and pay $BZ 9 / gallon or $USD 4.50 / gallon – the fill-up costs $USD 75! We turn off the main highway and drive on pretty good gravel for the first 10km or so, then turn off onto a very windy track. Before long it’s pouring huge raindrops as we make our way through extremely dense jungle down a track steep enough to require low range 4×4. Kate is pretty nervous wondering how we could ever get back up, having not seen what the Jeep is capable of.

The road in through the dense jungle

This palm tree looked a thousand years old

We find Barton Creek Outpost without much trouble and can’t believe the paradise we have stumbled into. About five years ago an American couple built this cabin on steroids out in the jungle to get away from it all. They now host backpackers and volunteers for the company it provides. It continues to pour rain long into the night and thankfully we pitch our tent on the covered veranda. As the sun recedes the temperature drops fast and soon I find myself shivering uncontrollably so I dig out all my thermals and -7°C sleeping bag that I put away long ago. It turns out to be by far the coldest night I’ve had since I was snowed on in Yellowstone months ago.

Barton Creek Outpost, right on the water

The river looked ancient

In the morning the rain has stopped and we set out in the Jeep with Mike and Laura, a couple of british backpackers to find a couple of remote waterfalls in the area. We spend most of the day on reasonable gravel roads, with the occasional mud hole or rock scramble to keep things interesting. We pop out at the view point to Thousand-Foot Falls and realize we are literally on top of a beautiful mountain range, with stunning views in all directions. The falls themselves are awesome due to the recent heavy rain and are actually over 1600ft (480m), making them the highest in Central America. After a ton of bushwhacking and aimless wandering and almost-giving-up we find Big Rock Falls, which are less spectacular but fun because we can get so close.

Big Rock Falls

Barton Creek Outpost is so great we spend another night camped on the deck, soaking in the serenity.

Trying to be friendly & I lost a chunk of my finger

The "cabin" at Barton Creek Outpost

-Dan

I’m normally not much of a zoo person, though the story behind The Belize Zoo is pretty cool. None of the animals has been taken from the wild, they have all been rescued from people trying to keep them as pets, or bred in captivity. The zoo only has animals native to Belize, and there are plenty of exotic things I’ve never seen before. It receives no funding of any kind and is run entirely from donations and entrance fees. The entire place has a really laid back feel, all the signs are hand painted and often have rhyming slang and other funny things to keep it interesting.

We spend a couple of hours wandering around taking it all in, sharing the entire zoo with maybe ten other visitors. It’s a really special place so I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Spider Monkey swinging through the trees

I'm happy about the fence keeping the Puma at bay

I've never seen anything like a Tapir

These parrots are amazingly bright

The Ocelot was taking a nap

The tucans were really cool

That would be a jaguar asleep in a tree

By far the biggest bird I have ever seen

A great quote

-Dan

We roll into Belize City and quickly find that everything we were told is more or less true – it’s not a very nice place to be, with lots of crime and very dirty rundown streets. The major roads have bigger cracks and potholes than most gravel roads I’ve driven on and are strictly a first gear affair. We stumble across a cheapish hotel that will let me lock up the Jeep for the night and Kate puts herself to bed feeling sick while I head out for Jeep repairs.

The zips on the rear window of the soft top have been acting up since I hit major dirt & mud in Alaska and I’ve been ignoring it as much as possible, kind of pretending it’s not there and hoping it would just go away. Yesterday one side gave out completely, not closing at all and jamming badly no matter how hard I tried to make it work. A close inspection shows both sides are worn down to the point of looking like flat plastic instead of zipper teeth.

The phone book yields only one auto upholsterer, so I set out in the pouring rain trying to navigate the city with a cheesy tourist map that has pretty pictures of animals and a smiling sun in the top corner. I quickly figure out that everyone in the shop is a Jeep enthusiast (Jeeper) and everybody either owns one, or has done at some point. The main guy has replaced many such problem zips and assures me he can have it as good as new. I shoot out quickly to buy the actual zip needed and upon my return the guys move all the furniture out of the showroom and I drive right up in there to escape the still pouring rain.

The Jeep all naked

In five minutes flat I have the entire roof off which disappears out the back to be repaired. I take the opportunity to clean and re-organize while it’s so easy to reach inside and move everything about. Everyone in the shop is really excited to hear about my trip and can’t stop admiring the map on the hood. I take out my paint and update my moving yellow line and they almost fall over to see my just painting it like that

The new zip doesn’t take long to install and we put everything back together in no time. It’s a very heavy duty zip which doesn’t go around the corners so well, but the guy assures me it won’t give any trouble for at least ten years and my assessment is that it’s about ten thousand times better than a zip that doesn’t close. All up it costs me about $75 USD and I’m really happy to have everything working 100% again. While we’re on the topic of Jeep repairs I forgot to mention a week back one headlight went out, so I changed it with my spare and bought a new one that same day.

The city itself is not very nice and we almost feel like prisoners in our hotel, hiding from the bad guys on the outside of the impressively tall perpetually locked gate. My advice to anyone coming to Belize is to give the city a miss, there really is no reason at all to come here.

-Dan

For our first night in Belize we camp in the costal town of Corozal and immediately feel a lot more comfortable than in Mexico. Being able to read every sign and pretty much understand every person makes me feel extremely safe and happy – I can tell I’m going to like Belize a lot already. At night we head into town and have a few local beers while playing pool.

This crew of leaf-cutter ants was moving across a road

We get moving the next morning and I throughly enjoy learning about a new country. Belize uses miles per hour and gallons for gasoline, so apparently they have not switched to metric. Also the Belize Dollar is artificially fixed at 2 to 1 to the US Dollar, which I had no idea about. After being in Mexico for two months I’m a little shocked at the prices which are much close to the US and Canada, it’s obvious this is not going to be a cheap country. I drive for about an hour without seeing a single road sign of any kind, and asking for directions yields the thickest Jamaican-like accent I have ever heard.

The main boardwalk at Crooked Tree

Our first stop is at Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, an extremely peaceful place where the local community is living in a sustainable way. While we are having lunch the park ranger guys wander over and we chat for a long time about a whole range of topics. Both of us immensely enjoy this ability to just sit around feeling very safe and chat about life. We wander around the sanctuary for a couple of hours, enjoying the peace and quiet while spotting tons birds.

So beautiful

We move along and find the Bermudian Landing Community Baboon Sanctuary, a small town that has lived in harmony with a thriving population of howler monkeys for generations. The visitors centre has just closed so we drive around kind of aimlessly looking for a place to stay. We end up at a tour company run by a funny guy named Shane. He charges us next to nothing for camping and before long we a sitting down to a delicious meal cooked by his grandmother enjoyed with some mango wine we bought from a guy with a stall on the side of the highway.

The lush jungle near Shane's place

We wake to very heavy rain and so the tent and some of the things inside are completely soaked and covered in mud. Not to be deterred we set out on Shane’s wilderness tour and are amazed to find a family of howler monkeys in a tree less than 30 meters from our tent. The really heavy rain seems to dampen their spirits a little no matter how hard Shane tries he can not get them to come down to him. We wander around in the jungle for a while learning about all the plants and trees before calling it quits. Just when we are about to leave Shane coaxes a couple of the younger monkeys all the way down to him. Kate holds out a small piece of banana and the smallest of them all comes down, tugs her hand closer and eats right out of it. It’s an amazing experience, although I’m not sure how I feel about feeding wild animals.
Shane assures me there is no dependance or habit forming behavior. Hmmm.

Kate and the little howler monkey

Kate is quite sick and we’re both cold, wet and tired as we set out for Belize City.

A howler monkey hiding from the rain

-Dan