The trip from Antigua to my brother's in Belize was pretty good.
We took a little van out of town to Guatemala City and drank cokes and ate cheeseburgers in the bus-station while we waited for a full size bus towards the Caribbean coast.
Zipping along the two lane, winding motorway the volcano scattered terrain leveled out a little, grow hotter, wetter and more junglous. As night fell, rain started coming down heavy and the bus driver and his compadres cranked up the high paced, Central American music radio and put the peddle even further to the metal. With only the oncoming lane in which to overtake and a several tonnes of long vehicles winding along every mile of road, we seemed to spend almost half the journey with oncoming headlights in our eyes and the driver using his horn to clear a spot to duck back into before getting ploughed off the road by sixteen wheelers.
We got dropped off before the bridge over Rio Dulce and found beds in the waterfront Backpackers Hostel where reggaeton and bassy cumbia played loudly to itself in the empty jungle night. The dorms floated like a jettie over the river and after food and a cool shower I had a quite night's sleep on a simple wooden bunk. At day break I took a pleasant dive into the clear, sweet water to counter the sticky sweaty feeling of the tropical heat.
By 8:30 I'd been over the bridge and arranged a trip down river to the coast. The boat came up to the hostel jettie and we stopped of at a thermal spring before heading through a green, canyon banked gorge covered in cormarents, herons and pelicans.
In Livingston we split into different lodgings, me choosing to spend the nights in a hammock, for next to no cost, and Rich and Kim landing a cute little cabin in a rightfully well acclaimed place with its own Caribbean waterfront restaurant and private pier. We spent a couple of days enjoying the comfortable set up, took a speedboat ride to a sandy beach out of town and eventually paid our tax and got our out-stamp from Guatemala to then be ferried (once again) by speedboat across the bay and to Belize.
We took a taxi from the dock to my brother's work and have been chilling in Punta Gorda ever since. With just a short trip on one of the old school buses out to the Rangers Field Station to walk in the forest and learn about some of the conservation work that James has been involved in over here, we've mainly been just covering ourselves in suncream for the walk into town, seeking shade when the heat gets too much, eating burritos, playing pool, drinking beer and rum.
It's not a hard life here :) At least not for tourist or judging by the broad smiles that seem to cover most faces. A couple more days relaxing here and then I'll go up the coast to meet Sarah and bring her to see PG.
