thoughts on Belize

So Brent and I had a whirlwind tour of Belize.  Yesterday involved four buses that landed us at Placencia, per Jen's recommendation.

 

The night before we went to Belize, we made the following list of things we collectively knew about Belize:

1) Guatemala thinks it owns Belize

2) I used to think Belize was in Africa

3) It's tiny, so tiny Emily and Laura ran into each other while their families vacationed there last Christmas break.  Evidently there are only 2 major roads (E/W and N/S) so it was pretty certain even before they left that they'd run into each other.

 

We really enjoyed our brief time there.  Some surprises/things I learned:

1) They all speak English there.

2) It's a very Caribbean culture there.  I guess that makes sense, but I was expecting something more similar to what I had seen in other parts of Central America

3) I gather it's becoming a very trendy place.  Tommy Lee Jones, Leonardo DiCaprio, Francis Ford Coppola, and the restaurant owner that chatted with me own islands/keys there.  Also, classy families like the Browers and the Chiswick-Pattersons are vacationing there.  It's on the up.

 

We're back in Guatemala now, and head back to California tomorrow.  We decided to spend the night in the "dirty port city" of Puerto Barrios tonight rather than hide in a hostel in Guatemala City where we'd have to run by the window for fear of being shot every time we wanted to cross the room.  I'd get grouchy being crouched next to the ground for the next 24 hours.