Welcome to Belize

by FERENC IVANICS
We needed six month to get pass Mexico. We left Mexico exactly on the 180th day and thus, entered a new country: Belize.


Belize is a small country in the Caribbean Area, gained its independence in 1981. Its official language is English. Belize is poor and underdeveloped, its criminal record indicators are worrying. Entering Belize City (the former capital) is not a good idea, as we were told.


Anyways, we've met some good folks with positive thinking. The officer at the border said: "Welcome to the Paradise" If we think about infrastructure, and urban areas, this might sound somewhat sarcastic or ironic. But yes, there are natural habitats worth exploring in Belize as well.

New Shoes

From this post on quality of the photos will be noticeably lower. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The boys are low on resources and their camera consumes more energy than their cellular. While they don't have money to buy new batteries and don't have a chance to refill their depleted ones every once in a while, they take pictures with the mobile.

by FERENC IVANICS
We've been waiting so long for our new shoes. We waited in Playa del Carmen, where we found out that there was a misunderstanding about the date of posting the pack. We waited in Tulum, more than ten days. Postal Service told us that it takes eight days to deliver a package from the U.S. to Mexico. After twelve days we gave up, thought that someone on the Mexican Customs has two pairs of new shoes. When the pack finally arrived we were in Chetumal. But with some help they ended up in our hands and on our feet. :)


So this is a thank you paragraph: we'd like to thank to Clover Coyner at the Nike Corp. who thought that he would support us with these shoes. We'd like to thank to Kurt Caswell, great friend, writer and university prof. for packaging and sending the shoes. We'd like to thank to a tolerant and persistent Hungarian lady from Playa del Carmen, Anita Landauer, who was there to receive the pack and then delivered it into our hands.

We like our new shoes. First we found it a bit worrisome walking with vivid colors (silver, green, blue) on our feet, we'd been heading for Belize, after all, where many don't have the means to buy shoes, but many have guns. Then the dust of the road took away our worries. Now our new blisters are gone, we're on.

Roadside Curiosities

by FERENC IVANICS
We usually walk on roads with high traffic. We've seen a lot of things, but we think there are two hot-shots of the roadside: bottles filled with piss, tossed by truck drivers; used diapers tossed by parents. We've gotten used to their sight, I try to understand the habit but I can't really. I know it's smelly but there's at least two garbage cans in ten minutes drive.

This one on the photo puzzled us: why a six-pack? Were there six babies? All had crapped at the same time? Was this a long-time collection? Still a mystery...

Bacalar Lagoon

In case you haven't noticed, news on this blog are not exactly real-time. There are two separate reasons.

The boys don't have internet-enabled mobile devices (or service providers), they cannot post directly but with a delay (from internet cafes), which is sometimes a few days and in troubled periods can grow up to two weeks.

Even though the language skills of Ferenc and István have improved a lot, they post in Hungarian. One of us from the background team translates and edits all the posts. This adds another delay to the process, an additional two or three weeks. To get up-to-date news, subscribe to the twitter feed.

by FERENC IVANICS
Suddenly a red car stopped by our side, with a middle-aged couple inside. Soon we made clear that we weren't hitchhikers and didn't need a ride. Next day we found the place a German-Mexican guy had recommended us two months ago. He told us that the shore of the lagoon is clean ant the owner surely would let us stay for the night.



So we had fought our way through the jungle, found the spot, a small bungalow and... a red car at the lake shore. Yep, the red car of that kind couple. The Bacalar Lagoon is and extremely pleasant place and its water is even cleaner. We took a refreshing swim in the blue freshwater lake and moved on the next day.

Sian Ka'an, Part 2

by FERENC IVANICS
On the eastern shore of the peninsula there's rocky coast as well. If you look closer, many of these rocks are dead corals. Sian Ka'an features the third longest coral reef of the world. Unfortunately we don't have the means to scuba-dive watching the colorful fishies underwater.


On the other side of the peninsula there is a series of mixed-water lagoons. The water is crystal clear, so it's another preferred destination for scuba-divers.


We managed to walk to Punta Allen in two days. Bu there came the twist: How to get across to Playón, which is nothing but a wooden stage, a small harbor for boats. To our surprise we found a volunteer almost immediately. After crossing the bay (one or two miles) he mentioned that he wouldn't reject a small payment. But we couldn't give him anything, we were broke. Literally. But he did take it well.


From this point forward it was 40 miles of forest, totally uninhabited forest. Practically it was a 40 miles long tunnel. We lived on biscuits, milk powder and canned beans. We did have enough food for three days but definitely not enough water. On these parts of the reserve there's no coconut palms, so we could have gotten into trouble. There was almost no traffic on this road. On the second day we ran out of water, but then the skies opened up and small ponds began to form on the middle of the path. Thanks to our friend, Drew we had a water filter with us, so, we were saved.


Trees, trees, trees. The longest walk we've had under trees. And these trees gave us some headache when we were looking for a camping spot. But since there was no traffic, we camped on the road. Not on the middle of it, but on the road. And on the third day we reached Felipe Carrillo Puerto. It was a great relief. Was it worth it? Sure!!


Sian Ka'an, Part 1