{"id":35,"date":"2017-12-15T15:13:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T15:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/?p=35"},"modified":"2019-01-23T22:59:18","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T22:59:18","slug":"heading-west-into-belize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/2017\/12\/15\/heading-west-into-belize\/","title":{"rendered":"Heading West Into Belize"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN IGNACIO<\/h2>\n

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We arrived in San Ignacio and disembarked at the town plaza where Colleen stuck up a conversation with some French travelers who wanted to consult a map of San Ignacio in our Lonely Planet book.<\/p>\n

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We found our campsite on it and started walking in that direction when a van headed towards us. We figured it was a taxi hoping for a fare but Patti emerged from the window waving at us. What a surprise, we planned on meeting her but not literally running into her. We hugged and exchanged greetings and agreed to meet up at Mana Kai our campground once she got settled at her place. We excitedly kept walking and walking and walking and realized we had passed our campground long before we saw Patti so were nit so frustrated because if we had found it right away we would not have found Patti right away!<\/p>\n

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The campground has a big field for tents, several bungalows, a communal kitchen and a palapa with hammocks, wi-fi and to the girls delight a TV, so much for our screen free vacation. I set up our tent and Patti soon arrived and we all hung out catching up then decided to walk into town and check things out.<\/p>\n

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The campground is right in the city with a big market right next door, the city center is only a 5 minute walk away.<\/p>\n

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We found the tourist strip with restaurants and tour offices pretty easily and decided this being Christmas to have some Christmas Nachos and rum punch.<\/p>\n

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On our 2nd day in San Ignacio I woke up first on a misty morning and made my self a cup of tea while talking to the owner of the campground. When the girls woke up Jakobi made us a breakfast of toast and Colleen went to the market and came back with papaya and melon.<\/p>\n

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Patti arrived around 9:30am and shortly thereafter we set out to find the runins at Cahal Pech, the Mayan Ruins ona hill overlooking San Ignacio that are within walking distance. I found walking directions on Google Maps and we walked back through town and up a steep hill climbing through residential neighborhoods and being Google Maps it took us to the jungle at the back of the complex. Some local kids directed us to the entrance.<\/p>\n

CAHAL PECH<\/h2>\n

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At the site there was a small visitor center with some exhibits and artifacts. It cost us each BZ$10 to get in. After checking out the visitor center we followed a path towards some tre covered mounds which upon rounding the corner in front of them turned out to be excavated ruins,<\/p>\n

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It was really cool. Stone temples and plazas and courtyards and steps. We climbed and sat and stood and walked and explored and listened in on other tour groups.<\/p>\n

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Ambiana who was not excited about visiting ruins at all was really impressed and wondered aloud ‘Why can’t we build our cities like this?’<\/p>\n

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I had been looking forward to finding the Mayan Glyph of my date of birth on an ancient ruin and was sad to see that there were no glyphs or stellas or ornamentation of any kind, all was weathered away and that which was not is in museums and art galleries.<\/p>\n

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We spent an hour exploring the ruins and were really impressed by the beauty of it. The site sits on top of a hill with a commanding view of the countryside. Very beautiful.<\/p>\n

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We spent an hour exploring and then went back down to town where I found my mayan glyph painted on the side of a building. It is the one on the right side of the picture in the stack of glyphs, 2nd from the bottom<\/p>\n

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We had decided as a family to take on big tour while in Belize and Ambiana had done some research and had picked a cave tour that sounded really exciting. You hike through the jungle to a cave opening that you have to swim into and then are led into the cave which contains Mayan artifacts and human remains. Back in town we heaed to the Maya Walk Tour office and booked this tour for the 5 of us for the next day. It was US$95 per person, 8 people to a guide, leaving a 7:30am the next morning.<\/p>\n

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We spent the rest of the day back at the campsite lying in hammocks and chatting with Patti. Colleen cooked us a pork chop dinner and we went to sleep soon after sunset with the rain lulling us to sleep<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN IGNACIO We arrived in San Ignacio and disembarked at the town plaza where Colleen stuck up a conversation with some French travelers who wanted to consult a map of San Ignacio in our Lonely Planet book. We found our campsite on it and started walking in that direction when a van headed towards us. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/belize-2018.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}