Stoplight Bridge
by grandmaR
San Ignacio is across the Macal River from their sister city of Santa Elena. To get from one side of the river to the other you must cross the one-lane Hawksworth Bridge - Belize's only suspension bridge which was built in 1949. Walking across is pretty easy, but in order to cross in a car, you have to take your turn. In order to avoid confrontations in the middle of the bridge, traffic is controlled by Belize's first traffic light and one of the few that are anywhere in the country. It's difficult to take pictures of the bridge from inside the car, and so one time when we were crossing to San Ignacio, I got out of the car, and walked across while Bob drove.
Local 'Laundromat'
by Bwana_Brown
The day after we arrived at the Trek Stop, we asked the Belizian lady (Flora), who prepared meals in the kitchen, what was our best option to get our 13 days of laundry seen to. She said it was no problem to have one of the villagers in San Jose Succotz take care of it (US$6) and she would look after the details for us. That was great, so we brought our pile to her in a plastic bag and she sent it off into town, with a promise that it would be returned by the next morning. Later, as we walked along the highway in the village on our way to the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich, we could not help but notice a happy group of villagers doing their (or was it ours?) laundry at the edge of the Mopan River! In the distance you can glimpse a part of one of the sets of rapids on this river that we braved while on our tubing trip. As promised, the laundry was returned by 7 AM the next morning and, although a little damp, it soon dried out in the sunshine on our cabana's clothesline.
Along for the Ride
by Bwana_Brown
At the end of our Mopan River tubing voyage, we were picked up at the Clarissa Falls Hotel by the Trek Stop's pickup truck. There were two guys in the cab and a little girl in the box of the truck, so, along with our tubes, Sue and I hopped in the back with her to enjoy the sunshine and breezes on the 4 or 5 mile drive back. It turned out that 6-year old Geneveva, in her school uniform with frilly socks and pink sneakers, was the driver's daughter and had just been picked up from school. We were surprised when she began to chat away with us in perfect English with not the least bit of shyness (she said that her parents make her speak it even at home because it is really good to know more than just one language).
She sang the songs for learning your 'ABCDs' and 'Twinkle Twinkle', but with different words than we are used to in both cases. We showed her a trick way of using your hands and fingers to make a church with a steeple and the people inside it. She really loved that and repeated it over and over.
It was not long after we were back at our cabana getting freshened up, that she came running down to help Sue with some small bits of laundry. Geneveva also had a great time 'helping' with the make-up session. It seemed that we had made a friend on our drive back because she came down to see us on the subsequent days when she was brought to the Trek Stop by her parents! We sent her a card with this photo in it, as well as some small games after we returned to Canada.
Tubing
by grandmaR
One of the possible activities at Clarissa Falls is tubing. If you have time, Jena will take you up to the ferry at Xunantunich, and you can float down to Clarissa Falls. But I didn't have that much time, so I rented a big tire inner tube and took my snorkel camera and floated down the river to a landing for the cable boat where I was picked up. It is a little bumpy going over the fall areas (which are tiny rivulets really - not big falls like Niagra or anything) and my butt sometimes would hit the rocks, but it was very gentle. Of course when I went, they were in the middle of a drought - it might have been more exciting if there was more water in the river. I fell out of the inner tube just before I got to the cable boat, but I retrieved the inner tube and waded to shore. Jena picked me up in her truck when she went and got the children from school.
I saw a kingfisher (I tried to get a picture, but it wasn't very good), a green heron wading on top of one of the falls, ducks, swallows, a big orange tufted bird, and a horseback rider. (You can also go horseback riding at Clarissa Falls) You rent the inner tubes for $BZ10 and arrange either for drop off or pick up.
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Wooden toucan
Agouti
Collared aracari toucan
Blue Morpho butterfly (male)
