The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary was established in 1986 to protect the jaguar and is considered the most important jaguar reserve in the world. We headed to the sanctuary mid-morning, knowing that we were unlikely to see the nocturnal jaguars.
After our ATM cave tour, we decided to head to Placencia for a little more beach time. It was late in the day, so we decided to stop for the night in the town of Hopkins where we were able to camp for the night outside of the Jambel Jerk Cafe. We were serenaded by a local band with Bob Marley songs. Across from the restaurant was a laundromat. Clean clothes!
We headed towards Caracol, the largest Maya site in Belize. The road is rough and slow, so we planned to camp half way and then get to Caracol early the next day. Before setting up camp, we stopped at Rio On Pools and played in the water for a few hours.
(Somehow this post got out of order…it should have been prior to the one about Caracol…)
Xunantunich is an ancient Maya ruin close to the border of Guatemala. The road to Xunantunich was fun in that it included a ride on a hand cranked ferry across the river.
Okay, nice title, but I cannot take credit for it, we saw it on t-shirts all over the place.
Back on the mainland we picked up the truck and did some grocery shopping to equip us for the next few days. We drove inland to the Tropical Education Centre campground, east of the capital of Belize, Belmopan. The camp is located adjacent to the Belize Zoo and is used as an education centre for school groups and researchers and is popular with birding enthusiasts. The campsite had a nice screened in swimming pool and a dining hall, hot showers and clean flushing toilets. All was pretty good except for the bugs. We are not sure what they were, but they would take a serious chunk out of you and seemed to particularly love Randi and me, although we all got our share of annoying bites.
We picked up my niece Randi and her girlfriend Amy from the international airport near Belize City on the 18th of February. Randi and Amy had planned months ago to join us for a couple of weeks travelling around Belize and we were excited to finally have them with us.