We arrived in Belize around 4:30 pm which around 3:30 pm Belize time. They don't follow daylight savings time so they are an hour behind. We decided to rent a vehicle from the airport to head out to San Ignacio which is near the western border of Belize and Guatemala. I'm so glad we did! We got a Suzuki 4x4 that ran pretty well. This will be the third country I've driven in, not including the U.S. The speed limit is 55 mph on all roads. And really there are only a few main highways. Luckily, we were on the Main Highway the wholeway to San Ignacio. We passed several small towns, villages, and cities. People walking along the side of the road and even riding bikes. Little kids running around by themselves with no parental supervision...it's crazy! We had a very short delay in one town as a down powerline blocked the road. Without even realizing it we went around it as I was following most of the traffice through someones front yard...Oh well, when in Rome.
We arrived in San Ignacio and found our hotel. Beautiful! Nice, clean, friendly staff, air-conditioned. The hotel was newly renovated and they did an excellent job. Our room overlooked a jungle behind the hotel. I'm so glad we decided to do it right this time around. Once we settled we went and got our complimentry Rum Punch from the hotel bar, "The Stork Bar." Ahh, Belize.
Our hunger was winning over cocktail time so we headed to town and ate at the suggestion of the bartender at "Hannah's", which was really "Ko-Ho Han-ah's" which means "Let's go eat" in some unknown language. We forgot to ask what language it was. Anyway, we age beans and rice, plantains, Marie Sharpe's, and Belikin. Fantastic! Very delicious! The restaurant was very quaint and comfortable. After dinner, we had a night cap from the bar and hung out at the pool on the hammocks. Just like PFB...Sigh. So we went to bed early as we were planning a long trip to El Pilar in the morning.
Without wanting to we woke up really early to start our day and ate breaky at Hannah's. We drove to Bullet Tree and then headed north on this unnamed road to El Pilar. I'm so glad we got 4x4. It was a tough, gravel road that had sharp inclines at some points. The landscape was beautiful and we could recognize undiscovered sites within the small ranches and farms along the road as we drove. It was only 8 miles from Bullet Tree, but it took forever because of the road. When we finally got to the park entrance we paid entry with the park ranger. Which was pretty much a local guy holding the fort. We were the only ones there. It was awesome. We had the whole site to ourselved and we walked through each of the plaza complexes. El Pilar is fairly untouched as they have not started the reconstruction of the temples. Most of what we saw were monumental architecture still covered by vegetation. Although most of the temples were not exposed, it was still very impressive. We even got to walk beneath one of them! We spent about three hours there roaming the site and taking pictures.
So we headed back to San Ignacio and ate at Kelley's old stomping ground Eva's. A huge disappointment as I had raw fried chicken and Jenn found a metal nut in her food. Yes, a metal nut. Luckily she didn't break her tooth on it. She just took it out of her mouth and said, "Look a nut." How it got there I don't know and when we told the waitress, she stuck out her hand for it and said, "I'll tell her in the back." You stay classy Eva's.
Anyway, dinner was alot better after we had a short nap at the hotel. We ate at Martha's and it made up for it. We left early had a cocktail back at the hotel and got our luggage ready. Next the beach!
1 comment:
Where are the pics???
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