A free beer for everyone who can tell me what is the capital of Belize?

… if you said “Belize City”, you owe me a beer. Like Canada and Australia, the capital of Belize is not the biggest or best known city. In the case of Belize, it’s not even a real city as it has only 14,000 inhabitants. It’s Belmopan and we graced it with a visit today. We left our campground after a short and sticky night in the forest. The temperature in the tent was acceptable, but the humidity was more difficult to manage. After a shower we hit the road to Belmopan – looking for breakfast, a new supply of books to read and some long trousers to wear in the jungle. We found breakfast in a small bakery. We asked around for a clothes shop and were given a lot of directions… not all pointing to the same destination. After crossing through Belmopan 3 times we found the place and we found a pair of trousers! We didn’t find any book stores though.

We continued our drive to San Ignacio – close to the border with Guatemala – to visit the ‘Xunantunich‘ site. You have to drive the car on a ferry (the most modern one we have seen in Belize – and the site is a short drive further down the road.

After the site visit we walked through town to look for books – as we did not find them in Belmopan. We found a second hand bookshop in the main street and we both managed to find some new literature. Then we drove out of town and bought some fruit and cheese for tonight’s dinner – as we already had a big lunch at ‘Mom’s Backyard‘ – a restaurant with a great view over the hills.

Tomorrow we are heading to Guatemala – where we expect everything to be again more ‘Latin’ and less ‘Caribbean’. Belize is a nice country, but somehow it feels like it should be an island in the Caribbean – not a country bordering Mexico and Guatemala. It was great being able to communicate in English everywhere and making silly jokes as in “I can’t Belize it” or “It is really unbelizeable” or “you have to Belize in something”… but we are ready again for some Spanish action!

We will say good-bye to Belize with a tribute to the roads. Rodrigo is holding up nicely (although we did drive into a big dip in Belize City), it’s Gabriela (we baptised our navigation with this name so she is inseparable from Rodrigo) who is letting us down every now and then.

Who put the bomp (in the bomp, bomp, bomp)

Who put the dip (in the dipdeedipdeedo)

Who was that man, I’d like to shake his hand

He made my baby fall in love with me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9fIbhyACU8

For those who don’t know Rodrigo and Gabriela, here’s a little taste to show what they are capable of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-qgum7hFXk