Shell on 2 wheels: Belize (or Bell-ee-say as it's called locally)

Caye Caulker - an island we visited off the coast of Belize.

Belize is a strange little country. I knew nothing about it at all except that it's good for diving. I had also heard it's expensive so we planned to pedal through quickly enough. But as usual after a few days you get to grips with a place and then the odd stuff becomes interesting so you want to stay and explore. As it worked out we stayed a week in each of the three countries on Rosalinde's route.

Just to give you an idea of the geography.

I say strange because in the middle of all this Spanish speaking hispanic culture here is a little English speaking bubble. Well that's what it says on the tin. If we actually sat down to chat to someone we couldn't actually have a conversation in English. Belize used to be called British Honduras until 1974 and the queen appears on their currency and well some English words pop into each sentence. But it feels more like a Caribbean island than a part of the land mass of Central America. The people are much darker than in neighbouring countries. There is a Jamaican twinge to their accents and they flick between Spanish, English and Belize Kriol. You also hear the sound of steel drums coming from houses/bars. And there is also a distinct Indian influence. Go figure.

All the signage is suddenly in English.

Belize has a population of about 300,000. So the same as Iceland as we learned recently during the Euros. It is about 300kms long and 100kms wide. So not dissimilar to Ireland really. It ranks 101 on the Human Development Index a full 30 places behind Mexico. So it's considerably poorer but considerably more expensive. There is a designated gringo trail which I hadn't come across before on my bike trip trip. But the whole country seems to be used by backpackers and other tourists as a springboard to get to the islands. We caught a boat from Belize City, a total no go area according to all the guidebooks, to one of the Cayes (pronounced Keys). There are 450 Cayes in total. The one we picked was the backpacking mecca of Caye Caulker which in 2016 was devastated by Hurricane Earl. Everywhere we looked there was construction underway.

Caye Caulker. Backpacker heaven. White sand and turquoise water.

Camping in someone's garden in Caye Caulker. They only
vaguely quiet spot on the party island.

Beautiful views from our campsite.

View from our 11usd per night per person camp spot. Ouch.

View from camp spot.

Back on the mainland we actually bumped into a few cyclists. My first in quite a while. And always such a highlight. Rosalinde had a knack of finding them along the roadside.

Emanuel was from Switzerland. We rode and camped with him
for a couple of days. Lovely hotel owners offered us breakfast of coffee and bananas.

A hotel owner let us camp in the garden of his hotel for 3usd per night. Fab.

Hotel garden by the river.

Met a Catalan/French cycling couple at this roadside cafe.

We ended up really liking Belize. The roads were decent enough. There was hardly any hard shoulder but it didn't really matter as traffic was light. The weather was warm but not too hot. We cooked every morning and night which meant we could stay within a 10ish usd per day budget. The people were lovely. Unusual but lovely. This below pic of of some Mennonites, a small community of German speakers who also live in Belize.

German speaking Mennonite children who live in Belize.
Both young and old men wore the same uniform.

All the shops in Belize are owned by the Chinese.

This wildlife sanctuary was a particular highlight. As with so many 'NGO project campsites' gringos pay a high price to stay but usually the money is going towards a cause. Most also have volunteer programmes. This particular one was no different. Volunteers (mainly from the US) paid 200 usd per week to come and volunteer at The Monkey Bay Wildlife Santuary. It doesn't sit well with me that you pay to volunteer but I know that's kind of how it is.