After our exciting adventure in Laguna, the Mayan village near Punta Gorda, we arrived back in the town for the Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations, I cannot remember how much of this we told you last time. We were staying this time in a ramshackle cabana by the sea as the hostel was overun by American college kids. Sigh. Although they were the only other tourists in the town apart from the 3 Dutch people stalking us.... so that was okay, they blended. So it was a Sunday which meant everything was shut, but it´s okay as I was on hand with my ready steady cook talent to whip up a marvellous Belizean Stewy Beans recipe with only a tin of beans and a dead beetle... only joking, I also had some coconut milk and a potato... and a piece of garlic we´d been carrying around for about 2 months.

So a lazy day of creative cooking, then up the next morning at 5.30am to witness the boats coming in as a recreation of the Garifuna coming to settle in Belize after the evil british threw them out of Honduras. This involved lots of drumming and waving of flags and branches of tree, but the boats were just 2 rowing boats and it was 5.30am and both a bit bleary eyed.

Caught the 10am chicken bus to Placencia, which involves getting off at another ramshackle town called Independence then catching the hokey pokey water taxi across the mangroves to placencia, which is like a peninsula. We bagged a really nice room at Lydia´s place in a wooden house with big balconies with hammocks overlooking the sea. And the following day were joined by A canadian, swiss, american and australian girl who we enjoyed the happy hour rum drinks down the road with. The beach was nice, sea very calm to swim in and weather sunny and nice. This gave me (Evan) a chance to by my third sun hat of the year, we may have omitted the story of the demise of my second hat so i´ll tell it now. my second hat was a cloth one from Vietnam and was stained with the blood sweat and tears of many countries travel. The story unfolds at the market of Chichicastenango (which to me sounds like a complicated version of a card game, "i say Dorian do you fancy a game of Castenango..." "With a will Edmond, dear chap, but as it´s a Tuesday why don´t we be bold and play the Chichi rules"

anyway we arrived at chichi´s market and had been warned about theives and pick pockets, so i had dutifully buttoned my money away in my chest pocket, secured camera´s and clutched the back carefully about me, however as we came to the first cross roads of stalls i was mugged in a pincer movement reminiscent of a monty python sketch, for the old ladies of chichi converged on me en masse. being about 2 feet taller than them all i coulnd´t really see what was going on in the throng of the busy market place and by the time i´d struggled through the morass my hat ,previously velcro´d into my shorts pocket, was gone, presumably now adorning an old chichi ladies entire head...

anyway that lead to me requiring another on and a nice straw cowboyhat styled one was purchased and sits proudly with me now, not at all jealous that he isn´t a huge sombrero!

Far too hot from 9am til midday then it calmed down a bit. Got into a routine of making picnic lunches and seeking out cheap bar snacks in the evening, as the food options round here not very extensive. It´s essentially a holiday place but not at all crowded so quite restful. It was American thanksgiving whilst we were there, so went to dinner with .. I´ll give you their names now... Pallavi, Leena and Nicole... also 2 swedish girls they knew of old and Sam and Elliot, 2 american guys on vacation. Sam is in IT but more interestingly owns a pub in Vermont where they have an annual pie festival. how exciting. So we all trooped to a local restaurant for thanksgiving dinner, I had lobster VERY nice. And then feeling very full we went to our usual haunt the Tipsy Tuna ( which evan calls the stinky fish) a bit too full to enjoy the drinking or kareoke until Avril Lavigne comes on.... and suddenly all the girls are joining in... then Whitesnake (music tip number one. Let no night end without the playing of Here i go again on my own....)and the room is on fire and we´re downing rum again like no tomorrow. TOP TIP rum is not like vodka, 6 to 10 vodkas of a night, no problem at all... 6 to 10 rums.... very different story.

we had planned to leave placencia on the Friday morning after thanksgiving, nicole and pallavi had a boat to honduras to catch and bonnie had already headed south, however in the night there was the loudest thunder storm you have ever heard, and the rain the next morning was torrential... so evan sensibly persuaded me to stay around for another day of reading and playing yahtzee instead of getting ourselves totally soaked.

The following day however we did make it up to Caye Caulker which is a little island off Belize City. Belize City itself no one rates, and it is kind of a bit like a small town where everything looks like it needs painting, but that goes for much of belize I think... anyway I shall let Evan take over from here.

we caught the boat out to the Caye (pronounced Keys like the florida ones) and checked into the guest house we had been reocmmended, right on the sea front again. the place itself was lovely but lacked a proper beach for swimming, everything was day trips to great diving spots, which was not our cup of tea or in our budget so we again took hammocks and read (picture of dorian grey, working through the classics) and ate the nicest food we could find. we had planned to stay longer but without a swimming spot what use all that heat! after a coupld of nights we were back on the boat to belize city and up straight back in to mexico.

First port of call Tulum, site of some famous ruins and lovely beaches. the first night we stayed in town (nasty little town) in what the lonely planet recommended as a good hostel. Pah! it sucked. i was however impressed with the lying ability of the staff there who said a room on the beach front would be 600 pesos and other hotels on the strip we were on, were like prison rooms with no toilet seat... so ,tired, we succumbed and checked in.... to what was a prison cell with no toilet seat. had we realised the horrors they were describing were their own rooms we would never have stepped foot in the place. still it was for one night and next morning we hopped a cab and went to the beach finding a nice cabana on the sea front for 250 pesos and thus within our budget. the beach was glorious but the sea rough and not an easy beach to swim in due to the waves and the rocks, but you could dip to cool off. so we dropped our stuff and headed to Tulum ruins, a brief 5k walk down the road. as we approached we realised that we were well and truly back on the tourist trail as coach loads of rich americans piled in around us with uncompromisingly loud conversation of the ilk of " 6 times 4 is 24, i mean , right!" anyway we bought our tickets, had some lunch and went in. It was nice, it was a little bit like Disney does 12 century ruins in that the lawns were all mowed and coiffeured and the trees trimmed and planted artistically, which means it meant for some great photo´s but not a very authentic feel. anyway there was a little beach in the ruins which a lot of people go for but we decided to walk back to our little spot of beach to cool off. which we did and got very sandy in the churned up waters, but wait for the photo´s it was beautiful.

alas we had to eat in the hotel restaurant as it was the only place in reach. the food was 2 o3 times what we would normally pay and pretty rubbish which decided us on leaving Tulum for Valladolid on a short bus trip the next morning.

Valladolid is a small quiet town with less tourists and much more food options. we arrived and our chosen hostel was closed for renovations but we stumlbed on a fat mexican sitting in his shop with just a pair of shorts on looking very reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt, this may not seem like a lucky stumble but he offered us a nice room at half the price of everywhere else allowing us to get back on budget for a few days. We dropped our stuff in the room which is very spacious with own bathroom, luxury, or buxury as we call budget things that are nice (we don´t really)

exploring the town we found the tourist info spot, picked up a map, identified the best places to eat to cover a stay of 6 months and set about cramming that into 3 days. as usual in a mexican town there was some kind of festival on so we were able to grab some beautiful food and head to a local church for some orchestral tunes which again Jennifer will explain more about in due course. i liked ém