2003-11-29 Belize Zoo 2003-11-30 Rafting the Caves Branch 2003-12-01 Jungle Biking and Cave Tubing 2003-12-02 Rafting the Macal 2003-12-03 Kayaking the Sibun 2003-12-04 Island Day 1 2003-12-05 Island Day 2 2003-12-06 Island Day 3 2003-12-07 Lamanai Ruins

Day 1 (Friday, 11/28/2003)

It began pouring rain about five minutes after we landed in Belize City, in mid afternoon on the day after Thanksgiving.  The cold front that had pushed through Texas the previous day had caught up to us and decided to park on Central America and dump for a while.  After clearing Customs, we flagged a cab to our hotel, the Belize Biltmore, which is located a few miles out of town on the Northern Highway.

A few words about Belizean highways:  there are exactly five.  For that matter, the same could be said for Belizean traffic lights.  The lack of electricity in many of the smaller villages makes roundabouts and speed humps a more practical choice for traffic control.  The highways are typically narrow and can be heavily potholed, particularly in subsidence zones near the coast, and they represent just about the only paved roads in the entire country.  The Western and Northern Highways branch out from Belize City on the coast and lead inland to Guatemala and Mexico, respectively.  The Hummingbird Highway cuts southeast from the inland capital of Belmopan, passing by Ian Anderson's Jungle Lodge and the Blue Hole National Park as it winds its way down to the coastal town of Dangriga (refer to the map on the previous page.)

The Belize Biltmore isn't exactly a four-star hotel (think: Motel 6 with palm trees), but Belize City isn't exactly a four-star city either.  From a tourist's point of view, Belize City's only purpose is to provide basic accommodations between the time that your plane lands or your cruise ship docks and the time that you are spirited away to more scenic locales.  Since we had arrived a day early and had never been to the city, though, our boredom and ignorance got the better of us, and we decided to take the nickel tour.  The rain had abated somewhat by the time we made it downtown, but there really weren't more than a few blocks of shops to look at.  Thanks to a map provided by the outfitter, we found a local restaurant and had a nice Creole dinner while sitting out a squall.  After dinner, we took a somewhat less-than-prudent hike through the bad part of town trying to find the cruise ship terminal, in hopes of seeing something that halfway resembled a souvenir shop.  No such luck.  The docks were completely empty.  We did find a relatively new Radisson, however, and called a cab from there to get back to the Biltmore.

Day 2 (Saturday, 11/29/2003)

We were not scheduled to meet our guide and the rest of our touring party until 4:30 PM, so the three of us from Austin decided to take an extension trip out to the Belize Zoo.  The zoo, which is located about halfway between Belize City and Belmopan on the western highway, is really more of a wildlife park than a traditional zoo.  It contains only native Belizean animals in their natural habitats, which are built right into the jungle using the trees and other features that existed prior to construction.  The zoo features a variety of exotic birds, reptiles, big cats, monkeys, and smaller mammals, such as the collared peccary (javelina.) Due to the overcast conditions and jungle canopy, most of my pictures came out too blurry to use, but what follows are the ones that were salvageable.

We met up with the rest of the eight that evening, listened to an appetizing lecture from our guide Neri on the parasites and snakes of the Belizean jungle, piled into a van, and headed inland to Ian's, our base of operations for the next four days.