Everything was going fine until we went into the deeper water. I had that warm feeling in my mouth and sudden sweats. Eug and Walter were busy dangling their rods. No, I had to puke. Kneeling on the seat with my head over the side I said goodbye to my breakfast. It felt great and awful at the same time. I sat back down and felt much better. But not for long. The final dregs of orange juice removed themselves from my stomach and diluted into the sea. This went on for a couple of hours until Eugene realised that I wasn’t trying to look closely at the fish. He tried to make me eat a sandwich. I had a couple of mouthfulls but they ended up back in the sea too.

Roly then stopped the boat and on the third attempt (and third anchor – the other two slipped off the rope!) anchored down. This was another method of fishing. I think they caught some fish. I couldn’t look. Well, I couldn’t move unless it was to turn round and heave and heave – there was nothing left to give! I had every layer on i possibly could but still felt cold. But the sun was out. Dehydration was showing its face but every time I had a sip of water my stomach warmed it up a little and threw it out again. After 7 hours it just wasn’t fun and I felt overwhelmed with relief when I heard we were heading back. This wasn’t before the sound of my heaving had also made Walter puke up.

On the way back, we saw dolphins, so there was a point to this suffering! And I had seen some flying fish. Dry land brought what felt like an instant recovery. Apart from a sore and empty feeling stomach I felt fine. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the sun by the pier. Perhaps not the best move after what I’d just been through. I spent the rest of the evening with pretty bad stomach ache. Eug forced me to go out for some food which did help in the end.

Eug didn’t catch that many fish but enjoyed his day out – and didn’t feel sick once! I’m never going deep sea fishing again!

Caye Caulker is quite different to San Pedro in that it’s MUCH quieter and therefore much more to our liking! Eug lugged the rucksacks along the beach until we found Tree Tops guest house. This place was a little palace! Our huge room was on the top floor and very clean and spacious. We had a balcony at the back and also a porch on the front which was a fantastic sun trap. Doris Creasy, the owner, was really helpful but her instructions and advice were perhaps a little too intensive!

We walked along the beach into the main part of town, which again is effectively one long street. We lunched at the Rainbow, which sits out over the water, and watched the fish. Our afternoon was spent back on our suntrap porch. It was a bit breezy but still very hot.

Dinner that night was at Habaneros, which is recommended in the guide books. it was very busy and we were lucky to get a table. This in turn seemed to affect the service. The food was tasty and very fresh – there was just too much of it. I felt embarrassed leaving so much.

After a comfortable sleep, we headed out to explore the next day. After finding somewhere for breakfast we had a good walk round. We found the pier where the island has split in two and Eugene tried his hand-line fishing from there. There were lots of fish and rays around but there were very few stupid enough to find the hook! That afternoon we booked a fishing trip for the next day – Eug wanted to catch some big ones and I had to be there to take the pictures.
We found a great Italian restaurant that night and had a fantastic meal.

San Pedro is basically one long street for tourists. There were plenty of tourists around but no cars. Golf buggies are the way to get around if you can’t be arsed to walk, or if you want to explore further afield on the island.

We’d explored enough for one day – it was so warm! So we laid in the sun for the afternoon with our books. Eug even went for a swim! Entertainment was provided by the windsurfing lessons. A local family also sat by the shore for a short while – the mother of which kept clearing her throat to launch large globes of gob into the sand. Nice.

We had dinner at San Pedros gastropub. Quiet and not that exciting but the fish, chips and MUSHY PEAS were great. Em was feeling a bit rough so we went back to Rubys but the room was stifling – we weren’t used to this heat and had been spoiled so for with air con. It was an uncomfortable night and the walls are rather thin so we heard every step on the stairs and most conversations!

We’d booked our flight with TropicAir online the previous day. It was that easy, and also extremely cheap. When we arrived there was a very small Cessna (that’swhat Eug called it) sat rather forlornly outside of a Portacabin, still dripping with the wetness of last night, while the actual ‘runway’ was little more than the very bumpy and potholed roads we’d travelled on to get here. Another tiny plane arrived and we were ushered on up the three wobbly steps. The plane was full – all thirteen of us! It felt strange being in such a small aircraft but the views were good. We landed at Belize International Airport and a few people got off. The door was closed and we took another 5 minutes to get to the Municipal Airport.

A taxi took us on through Belize City to our hotel. It didn’t really feel like a big city, more like a big town. All around were clap board buildings, probably once rather gailey painted, but now showing the signs of peeling paint and damp creeping upwards towards tin roof hats. We crossed over a couple of canals, but there were no narrowboats, and indeed little life associated with them. A relic of the past that has little chance of being brought back to life, judging by the rest of the city.

The Hotel Mopan, allegedly “where the interesting people meet” checked us in and showed us our room which was fine. We got a good breakfast there and then perused the guide books on the comfy chairs on the porch. We didn’t think there was going to be that much to do here either and the stories of hassle and after dark muggings we kept hearing about were also putting us off. We’d planned on having two nights here but we were now starting to think otherwise.

Eug suggested we head straight off to Caye Caulker in the morning, which is where we had the remaining week booked for 5 days of R&R. I liked his thinking but was this going to be too long for us in one place?? Further flicking through the guide book revealed that Ambergis Caye and the tourist area of San Pedro was manageable for a night. The clincher was the fact that San Pedro had a budget hotel called Ruby’s, which is the name of one of our cats – and we’re starting to miss them quite a bit now. So we called Ruby’s and then went out to book the short flight (15 minutes) out to Ambergis Caye.

We had a quick wander around Belize City but admittedly weren’t that taken. We walked down to the harbour, which was a bit of a tourist haven for the cruise ships coming in for a few hours. Further along the harbour, we met an interesting guy. I made the mistake of smiling as he passed by and Eugene had just lit up so he introduced himself to blag a fag. He used to take people out on dive trips but now, he just washed cars and strolled the harbour, doing the minimum to get by, and with the name of Able, he certainly was adept at most things which involved the minimum of effort for the maxixmum reward. And did you know that when you look at the picture of the Queen on the Belizian dollars (it’s wierd seeing the Queen, looking so young, and on different currency) that she looks younger the more you stare at her? And her pearl earrings and necklace jsut disappear in front of your eyes? This guy had seen it himself. We didn’t get suckered in to pulling out some cash so he could show us what he meant (and make the very notes we pulled out disappear as well!). He also liked crystals (probably the white sort) and could look into them and see people coming round corners – it’s great how they work. My fingernails had almost cut through to the bone on my hands at this point and I couldn’t face eye contact with Eugene in case I burst out laughing. Our space age buddy blagged another cigarette from Eug before floating off into his own little world. Definitely the most bizarre conversation we’d had so far this year!

Lunch was in the market hall at “Big Daddys” and a set lunch of chicken, rice and beans, and potatoes – a whopping plateful. Feeling rather full and a little tired we went back to the “interesting” Hotel Mopan for a long siesta.

We’d spied the Harbour View restaurant (funnily enough, down at the harbour, the oldcustoms house, as it rurned out to be, and probably one of the best loved buildings in Belize City) as a nice place to go for dinner and aimed to get a taxi down there as it was after dark. We walked out with this in mind but ended up walking the whole way there which was a bit daunting but hassle-free. My heartbeat quickened as we walked across the bridge where 2 guys seemed to be arguing about drugs – but that may have been my overactive imagination! Apart fromthat.the whole city was pretty much silent, which made walking along the sidewalks, not so long ago thronged with jewellery laden cruise ship visitors, slightly daunting.

We had a lovely meal out on the terrace. Good food and service, and a stunning ice cream, which I normally can’t bear.

It peed it down as we were about to leave. Our host for the night kindly escorted us to the nearby Radisson where we met Linden, our new driver in this city which isn’t worth spending more than half a day in.

We found, according the the guide book, the “best place to eat in town” for a late lunch, which wasn’t anything special at all but still a respite after our long sweaty bus journey. Eug left me with the rucksacks so he could venture out to find us a hotel, from the limited selection available. We were booked into the “Bonefish Hotel” which at 40 quid a night was extremely expensive considering it was extremely basic. On the door hung the sign “Your home from home”; there’s no place like this ‘home’ in our minds! We had our own bathroom which is always a bonus, or so we thought until the cockroach wander across the broken tiled floor!

We spent a few hours this afternoon catching up with email and our blog. There really didn’t seem to be anything else to do or see here, and despite being next to the sea, the beach was uninhabitable (almost like the Bonefish Hotel), covered in debris and generally very unpleasant.

Back to the “Bonefish” for a wash and brush up. No hot water. Great. This was manageable considering it was so warm outside. Eug complained about the lack of hot water and the management said they’d switch it on for us. Thanks!

The poor choice of places to eat forced us out to the Pelican Beach Resort which was a taxi drive away. On our way to find a taxi we were spotted as token white people as one guy told us he had just been released from prison and could we give him some money so he didn’t have to sleep in the park that night? The freedom of the park sounded rather luxurious but we told him we’d come out without money to which he graciously moved on. The driver, Gifford, was cool and the roads were full of potholes. Eug struck a deal with Gifford that he’d pick us up in the morning on our way to the airstrip, and agreed that 7am at the Bonefish wouldn’t be too soon to get away from this place.

The Pelican Beach Resort is supposed to be the poshest place to stay in Dangriga. There didn’t appear to be many people staying there and the place itself came across as simple and souless. As usual, Eug and I were the only people in the restaurant! There was a limited choice for dinner. Eug had salad for starters and I had a lukewarm ladle of carrot and coriander soup. Eug then had a steak that “was brought in for the holidays” with “coomber salad”. Steak and cucumber then. I had the ginger fish which looked nothing like Geri Halliwell and was actually quite nice, also with “coomber salad”. Overall though, considering the price, the meal was rather disappointing, summising Dangriga as a whole.

We got a taxi back and watched some TV in our room. It rained hard that night, and thankfully we’d be getting out of this place in the morning.

Just before 12.45am Em had almost had to shout across to me “Could I hear the rain?”. ‘Oh, so that’s what that thunderous noise was!’ And there I’d thought it was our next door neighbour’s snores!! And pour it down it did, although the rythmic rattle of the raindrops on the floors around our hut soon settled me back into a deep slumber, ahead of our early morning ride across the arm pit of the Carribean separating Guatemala from Belize.

The 16 seater boat had kindly come along to pick us up from the Hotel Rosada’s own jetty at just after 6.45am, meaning we were first on board. A short hop to Livingstone’s main jetty and the rest of the boat’s passengers embarked with a variety of bags and other items, but no chickens this time around.

And then we were off, with the skipper stood at the back, ten passengers huddled in the middle of the boat and a lookout posted up front. Within five minutes the look out had found a strip of tarpaulin that was fed down the side of the boat between passengers and the uprights for the boat’s roof, intended to provide some respite from the increasing amounts of spray that were coming over the side as be skimmed across developing sea swells. It had a limited effect, and provided us with a giggle, since the the couple sat at the front decided it would be better just to let the tarp wrap itself over their heads. Fine until they tried to escape its clutches and discovered they were packed in like a packet of M&S sandwiches.

As the outline of Belize began to appear the weather brightened a little, although not that much, and it was a miserble start to our Belizean adventures. Spot on 8am, one hour of sea dancing later, we pulled in alongside Punta Gorda’s dock and touched Belizean soil (well, concrete actually) for the first time. Immigration formalities easily completed (the Belizean official said he would allow Eug in because they shared forenames and it was a good name to have!), we were out on the main street, not that you’d know it.

Punta Gorda, (or simply PG), is nigh on horizontal in its approach to life. It is soooooo laid back! Within five minutes we must have been greeted (not hassled) by at least ten people, all with a relaxed smile, happy-go-lucky way of life and great big grin. We got some breakfast (well, coffee, actually, since we didn’t fancy chicken stew and rice at this time of the day!), and then bagged a couple of tickets for Dangriga, our planned place for the night, around 90 miles up the coast from this southern entry point to Belize and a sweaty, tedious four hour bus ride away.

While the roads were, in the most part, excellent, we managed less than 25 miles an hour because of the Belizean propensity to want the bus to stop for them wherever they want, either to get on or to get off. So, within the space of three hundred yards we sometimes stopped four times, highly frustrating when you think just how much time could be saved. let along gossip passed on, if everyone stood in one place for the bus to pick them up!!

Dangriga arrived, and we were to wish it hadn’t.

Eug went off to look for a stick to tie the fishing line onto and I did two bowl fulls of hand washing. There are only so many days you can wear a pair of pants! Eug came back half an hour later with a cracking (i.e, good, not broken!)piece of bamboo – a superb fishing rod. He began fishing as I settled down with my book.

The fish weren’t shy, and they weren’t small either. They liked the sweet nuts and bread we used as bait. I had to have a go after a while but couldn’t touch the fish – they stank!

We had a break to phone home to wish the parents Happy New Year. My mouth watered as our Sar told me that Mum had cooked prawn cocktail then roast beef. Back at the shed we made dry egg sarnies with the fishing bread. It filled a gap.

The rest of the afternoon was spent fishing. We also had a surprise visitor for an hour or so in the form of “steak cat”, who we’d fed in the restaurant a couple of nights before. Steak cat miowed to come into our shed and happily rubbed around our balcony for a while. She examined all of the catches before retiring and deciding to have a lie down on our bed! It was time for her to go then!

All in all we caught 19 fish, the largest going to Em at a weight of about 3lbs, very impressive indeed. Eug wanted to get some foil, make an impromptu BBQ and cook these for our tea, but I wouldn’t let the little boy play with any more things today.

It was another uneventful night at the Hotel and as usual, the restaurant was quiet, and the service was absolutely crap. We were looking forward to leaving in the morning!

Then we settled on the front terrace (on the “special tables”) to read our books for a couple of hours. It was hot! Even under a parasol we were boiling – and got burnt!! Eugene went to the reception to inquire about hand fishing lines. The hotel’s blurb says that these are available. Eug met the owner, Kevin Lucas. He gave him a bit of background to the place and told us that the New Years buffet would start at 7pm. New Year itself would be a quiet affair. And surprise, no hand lines.

We went back to our shed to cool off. Eug caught the 3pm launch into Rio Dulce to make sure we had some beers for New Year – the bar at Hotel Catamaran was not going to be reliable. He was also in search of some fishing line and hooks. The river seemed to be teaming with fish – it was too good an opportunity to miss. I stayed on the balcony with the latest book!! Our shed was not the best placed in that it was permanently in shade and not overlooking the main part of the river. However, after a morning of sun, the shade and cool was most welcome!

Eug came back in the dark. I expected him to be hammered!!! He’d had a nightmare getting a boat back and had to wait for the boat to pick up the staff. But he’d found fishing line and hooks – and beers, so we were sorted for the next day. He’d also been sold some strange tasting chocolaty covered nuts from a bloke in the street. I’ve told him to be careful before about buying things from strange men.

That evening, the bar had a few more people in it, including a selection of middle aged American blokes sat with Kevin Lucas gawping at the American football on the screens. Fascinating. We had a couple of games of crib and thought we’d better show our faces at the buffet. Again, there was no-one there. Mrs Misery told us we were early and that the buffet didn’t start until 9pm – her face really hurt as she told us this. We were relieved that it was less likely we’d be eating alone and returned to the equally exciting bar once more.

When the buffet did come round, we were surrounded by the more well-off and more rude Guatemalan families. Our table was designated for us. The food itself wasn’t anything special, disappointing in fact. Again, the service was miserable and minimal. Kevin Lucas was in situ but it didn’t seem to bother him. But if everyone has paid up front like us then why should it???

We headed back to those “special tables” looking out over the river and argued about Hotel Catamaran and how poor it was and should we or should we not complain. We were never going to have another New Year like the amazing party in Cusco last year!

Lots of fireworks were exploding across the river which was pretty. We were friends again as New Year turned and watched the firework displays going off everywhere else. Nice when you don’t have to buy your own fireworks and watch your money go up in smoke! 2005 has been a good year but has flown by. This next year will probably do the same but will be so different for all of us.

Happy New Year everyone!

Most places (even those less advanced than this!) will take email or internet bookings through a credit card. A couple of places had wanted faxes with a signature and credit card details. But not the Hotel Catamaran! I had to WIRE them money for the total amount for accommodation. This was not cheap at around 70 quid a night – at least double what they normally charge (and we pay!), just for staying with them over New Year. Having not ever wired money anywhere before, then this took me an hour one lunchtime from work – and of course Barclays charged me 25 quid for the “service”. A few days later the money had definitely left my account but didn’t reach the hotel until over a week later – but they did let me know when it arrived.

After all this effort, and reading the blurb in the guide book and on the internet, we were expecting good things from this place.

We were made welcome on our arrival after our long bus trip from Honduras. The guy on the desk wanted to take a swipe of our credit card – interesting, thought this place had a phobia of plastic! Then he saw that we’d paid (“Phew! A lot of dollars!”) and said it didn’t matter.

We were shown to our bungalow, which we have fondly referred to since as a shed. The bed was big and we had mosquito screens on the windows. There was a balcony overlooking some yacht moorings on the river. We had a fan and air con! The shower was reminiscent of those more basic ones we’ve used on narrowboat holidays. Behind the bed it was filthy and covered in dust. The rest of the shed wasn’t that clean either but it was acceptable.

Dinner was between 7-9pm and as it was nearly “last orders”, we hurried over to the restaurant. It was empty, apart from a couple of ladies wrapping napkins at the tables. And there was the most awful “Benny Hill” music tinkling in the background. It was funny at the time.

We were offered a glass of wine by Mrs Misery – it didn’t take long for her to get her nickname! And we ordered fish soup and steak. It was OK, although I struggled with the slimey “eyes and scales” in the soup. The isolation and “Benny Hill” tunes drove us quickly from the restaurant to the bar. The bar also, was empty. People go to bed early around here!

We had to buy “beer tokens” at the reception and then use them all of 10 paces away the the bar. The person who served us did not speak. Perhaps they were tired too?

Oh hold on! Some people returned on boats but soon disappeared. And then the guy on reception told us that the bar closed at 10pm and we’d have to move to some “nice tables outside” with our remaining drinks. This place is odd. And the bar closing at 10pm is not good when it’s New Years Eve tomorrow….

Now, the idea about paying for a shuttle bus is it takes you to your destination, it doesn’t stop a thousand times and it is relative luxury……….

We were dropped off at Rio Hondo bus station on the main road and given a ticket for the Pullman bus to Rio Dulce that would arrive in 40 minutes time. It was warm, dusty and dirty but again, the people there were kind and offered us seats and smiles.

An hour later the bus arrived (Pullman?? Pull the other one!) and the guy from the bus station ushered us across the main road to the already packed bus – surprise! As I tried to get on with the day sack, the bus driver told me to get off as the rucksack would have to go in the hold. So I waited for him to stop wheeling and dealing with the cigar- sellers and he got off. As his back turned I walked straight back on again. Eugene supervised him putting the rucksacks in the hold.

There were no spare seats on the bus. The guy from the bus station was checking the tickets and ushered me to a seat near the back where he’d made a guy get up for me. Fortunately for my conscience, this guy got off the bus down the road. Eugene was left standing in the aisle with many others. He stood for the almost the whole journey which was over 3 hours.

The bus driver was a nutter. He drank Red Bull. He shouted at people. And he enjoyed speeding. As we climbed into the hills again it was clear that the bus went faster than the plodding great lorries carrying containers towards Puerto Barrios and the Atlantic. Every single moment he had the opportunity (not that any one else would have described it as such) to overtake, he went for it. This entailed being on the rear edge of the container in front, lurching out into the other lane, dropping a gear and driving like a man possessed. Sometimes it didn’t work out, which meant hammering on the brakes as the lorry ever so slowly plodded past until he was able to swing back in again.

We went past the police checkpoint while it was still daylight. There was a large sign at the front of the bus that said “No Standing”. He shouted for everyone who was standing in the central aisle to duck to the floor as we went past them. It was like something out of a film. Everyone seemed really pleased that we’d “got away with it”.

The bus made quite a few stops on the way to Rio Dulce. We decided that the tour office in Copan had made a few quid from us – we could have easily made our way back to the border and on to Rio Hondo and then Rio Dulce by ourselves. We’d already done half of this journey two days ago. It’s wrong that they get away with this, since we’d have saved at least 15 quid doing it on our own, and without the palavar of waiting around at Rio Hondo where the trucks roar past with such frightening speed that surely there must a death a week as street hawkers dart out to get trade from buses that stop momentarily. Nevermind.

The people on the bus were really friendly. Eugene was entertaining the kids with the Woolies plastic finger toys. The guy sat next to me was friendly and chatty. I kept saying “Si” to his sentences. it was only towards the end of the journey that I told him I only spoke a teeny amount of Spanish but he didn’t seem to mind.

At 8pm we got to Rio Dulce. Finally!

Eug went to find a suitable place for the launch of the Hotel Catamaran to come and pick us up. Then he sweated his way back to the rucksacks and I, we called the hotel and then walked down to one of the docks. Five minutes later the boat was there to pick us up and we sped off down the wide dark river. It was cool doing this trip at night and intriguing to know exactly what our surroundings were. We’d find out tomorrow…..

It was good to finally arrive at our destination, the Hotel Catamaran on an island on the Rio Dulce.