Well, it's my 8 month anniversary today. I can't believe it's been so long. Time really does fly. The scary thing is that I've only got less than 6 months left to figure it all out (I think I'm there but just need to make a few final decisions which also depend on other people!). In that 8 months I've been to 17 countries (18 if you include my transit stop in the US!) which isn't bad eh?! So, back to Belize.....

Took a boat to Belize City and then a 'chicken bus' to San Ignacio. I'm not sure if this is why they are called chicken buses but they are renowned for having chickens on them! Ours, however, was fairly decent and they were blasting out the reggae music as we hurtled along the surprisingly good roads! Arrived in San Ignacio where we were staying in an eco lodge in little huts - creepy crawlie alert! We had a toilet and shower block with compost toilets which were actually luxurious compared to some of the toilets I've experienced over the last 8 months. It was basically a longdrop but had a proper toilet seat and you threw sawdust in after your business!

I was slightly disturbed to find a fairly thick book in the lodge entitled 'Tarantulas of Belize'. What? There are that many that they can warrant a book on one type of spider? So I then got my usual OCD of checking every nook and cranny to see what I could spot. I obviously have some kind of insect magnet as it's always me that attracts them. Sure enough, when we went to bed there was a cockroach on my pillow. Marjo plucked up some courage (well, I am useless as you know!) and got a bottle which it crawled into before she lobbed it out of the door while screaming her head off! No critters during the night so we survived!

The next morning some of us went to Barton Creek Cave where we got into canoes and travelled 900m into the cave system. Normally a cave is just a cave but it was pretty impressive with loads of limestone formations and some pottery shards, bones and skulls from the ancient Maya. Outside there was a spider monkey chained up so I asked about it. A big fat Canadian guy appeared with his giant belly hanging out and told me it was his children's pet. What? I challenged him and asked why it was chained up as it's a wild animal. Ignorant pig told me again it was his pet and if it wasn't chained up it would steal all of the tourists; cameras. I told him that if it chose to come back there every day for food and play with his children then I didn't have a problem with it but he shouldn't have a wild animal chained up in his garden (it was bored stupid). He then compared it to having a cat or dog at which point I walked away muttering as I would just have got into an argument and he was too dumb to understand what he was doing wrong. Grrrr. We then went to Five Sisters Falls for a dip in the pools which was ice. I got sucked into the current at one stage and lost my bikini bottoms - ooops! Then the rain started - and didn't stop for over 24 hours! We were getting the tail end of Tropical Storm Alex which had hit the Caribbean coast.

I found out an interesting fact while in San Ignacio. There is a large proportion of Chinese in Belize - running restaurants and supermarkets (a lot of them next door to eachother so you wonder how they make any money!). Anyway, it turns out that at one stage Belize was offering free visas to Chinese nationals to come and set up their business. At that time the US was also offering Belize citizens preferential treatment in order to get a green card so the Chinese were able to easily get into the US. This system stopped around 10 or so years ago so now most of them are stuck in Belize! In addition, there is now a growing population of Taiwanese here as the government is supporting Belize in some research into certain plants and trees so they are in tight partnership. All very interesting. The Chinese get everywhere!!