Belize - San Ignacio/Xunantunich

For our last two days we headed West to the city of San Ignacio. We were on the hunt for Howler monkeys (which we saw en masse), temple ruins and toucans in the wild (which we never saw, and are not sure exist). There are lots of ruins in Belize but in the interest of time we saw the ones which we most accessible. The temple site at Xunantunich is small compared to nearby Tikal, but stunning nonetheless. It only took us 30 minutes to check out the ruins and then we were on our way to the jungle. Here is Ben and our taxi driver/best friend in Belize, Indian, looking out towards Guatemala:

On the bus to San Ignacio:

Ben cranking our car over the river:

We stayed at the Inn @ Cha'a Creek. Kind of. The actual Inn costs $400 a night. We actually stayed at the Macal River Camp which is the ghetto of Chaa Creek, but is only $55/night! Again, we had multiple beds in our room - 4 twins to be exact, but no facilities and no electricity, which is quaint and fine, until you need to use the common bathroom in the middle of the night and the Howlers are out in full force. Our lodging included simple, community served meals and access to all of the amenities of the resort: Canoes, infinity pools, nature center/butterfly farm, nature trails, etc., so great.

After our one night there we had to head back toward the airport and were picked up by our trusty friend Indian, taken to the Belize zoo...where we finally did see toucans, as well as tapirs and jaguars (I was not interested in seeing these in the wild). Indian also brought us lunch...a freshly caught and cooked iguana, iguana eggs and a fresh salad :). He told us he was going to catch an iguana we saw and cook it for us and he sure did!

Here is Ben trying to choke down the iguana egg. I have eaten a lot of things in my lifetime, but I couldn't quite get over the texture myself. But the iguana was good.

What do you eat after you have iguana? Belizean chocolate of course. It was very very good.

Time to start saving for a return trip. Would love to bring the kids here someday. You'd better Belize it!