More Belizean Cities: San Ignacio and Belmopan

10/10/09-11/10/09

Having left Caye Caulker behind, we headed to the west of Belize to spend a couple of days in the town of San Ignacio. After the relaxing atmosphere and relative luxury of Caye Caulker, it was a bit of a disappointment to arrive in yet another sad-looking town, devoid of any places of interest. Our hotel was also rather grim, but at least cheap, and the owner, Kenny G, seemed friendly, albeit a little strange. He failed to mention, however, that we had to supply our own toilet paper, so I was getting quite annoyed everytime I went to the toilet to find there was none there! And on the day we left, he purposely stayed out of our way to avoid paying us back our deposit, which was a mere US$2.50. But on principal, and because it was so obvious that he was trying to get away without giving it back to us, Vic went back to the hostel repeatedly until he finally caught him in his office and he was forced to pay it back! Ha!!! Victory at last :) We have since heard from other tourists who have stayed there that he apparently supplies his guests with any drugs they might want! We should have known he was dodgy!

One thing that we really did enjoy here was our visit to an Iguana Conservation Project (hence all the iguana photos), which has been set up in a luxury hotel a short walk from the town centre. We were told about it while having lunch on our second day and we decided to go and have a look. The project was started a few years ago to increase the survival rate of the green iguana, a species which was beginning to disappear from the area. The aim of the project was to rescue young iguanas from the wild and care for them until they were old and big enough to fend for themselves, at which time they would then be reintroduced to their natural habitat. In the last two years or so, they have also begun a breeding programme to increase the iguana population. I think they must have had about 100 iguanas there when we visited, at least half of which were little babies of about 15cm long from head to tail. The iguanas tend to be ready to be put back into the wild when they reach the age of 4, but Gomez, the oldest iguana at 9 and over a metre in length, has become a permanent resident and is considered more like a pet now. Although he is a green iguana, his skin is now orange with black stripes....apparently this colour change takes place as the iguana gets older. All of the babies that we saw were bright green and very jumpy....we were given some to hold but they just kept jumping off :) They were easier to hold than the bigger ones though, as their claws were not as sharp. Vic was lucky and wearing a t-shirt, so he didn´t feel a thing with six iguanas sitting on top of his arms and shoulders, but when I had just three on my arm, I could feel their claws everytime they moved and I had a few scratches by the time we left. It was a great experience though and, as you can see, we have some fantastic photos. I also have a video of our guide telling us about the iguana's defence mechanism. Most of the iguanas at the project are very tame, hence we were able to hold them and even stroke them. There are a few, however, that are a bit more wary of humans, but even these ones give you a couple of warnings before resorting to biting you. Firstly, they have a flap of skin on their neck, which flares out when they feel threatened and secondly, they use their tail as a weapon to flick your hand away if you stroke them. If you continue to bother them after that they might very well bite you, so you have been warned :)

We had hoped to visit a community of Mennonites while we were in San Ignacio, but due to public holidays and the weekend, we were unable to get there without a car. Kenny G was apparently going to find someone who could take us there, but this mystery person never materialised unfortunately. There are two Mennonite communities close to San Ignacio: Spanish Lookout and Barton Creek, with the latter of the two probably being the most interest, as the community there is very strict with regards to the use of technology and machinery etc. Apparently they live in conditions similar to 300 years ago, using a horse and cart to move around. I´m sure it would have been really interesting. Other Mennonite communities are gradually adapting to some modern ways of the world with some using tractors on their farms and others wearing regular clothes instead of the traditional dress: straw hats, checked shirts and trousers with braces for the men, and plain dresses and headscarves for the women.

Although we had planned to visit Belmopan (the capital of Belize) on a day trip from San Ignacio, we decided not to spend another night there, and decided instead to head to Dangriga, a beach town on the east coast, and spend a couple of hours in the capital on the way. It was hardly worth it, as there is absolutely nothing to see in Belmopan. Our guide book describes it as a ghostly capital, and it´s so true. There is no life there whatsoever. When we asked people for the centre of town, they looked at us as if they had never heard of such a thing as a town centre :) We ended up going to see the government buildings, which were nothing special as you can imagine, and then for a long walk towards what we thought would be the town centre (according to some directions Vic had got), but we never ended up getting there. We got to a main road, asked for more directions, followed the directions, and still didn't find anything interesting, so we decided to go back to the terminal and get out of there! We were hoping that the last few stops along the beach would be more reminiscent of Caye Caulker....it doesn´t seem that Belize's towns are very well equipped for tourists :)