Leg day!

Hello everyone from Belize!! Our first full day in San Ignacio at the Cahal Pech resort https://www.cahalpech.com

Our resort is on a hill overlooking the city, technically two, they call them the twin towns. The other is Santa Elena. We are what I would call a cabin with a thatched roof. It reminds me of a cabin that I stayed in with my family a couple of times when I was a kid up in Clear Lake, Iowa. The inside is actually finished though. It’s rustic but the doors are better than our hotel in Costa Rica. The A/C is not that great though. By evening it’s having a hard time keeping the vaulted ceiling of that cooled. It does cool off after a while again though. We debated seeing about a room in the actual hotel building as it would probably cool better.

It is hot here, temperatures in the afternoon are going to be around 100 and there is a bit of humidity. This morning it felt reminiscent of Cartagena. This is the off season here for tourists so things are not super busy. Next month the hurricane season starts, as does lobster season.

There is a lot of interesting electrical work on the property, they have run a bunch of lanterns along the sidewalks with just romex sometimes buried sometimes not with connections that are just twisted and taped, no wire nuts, no boxes at junctions and no conduit. The plumbing has some issues, when you shower after a while the sink starts to bubble and then the shower drains really slow. They do seem to be doing some work around the building so I don’t know if these things will be improved as well.

The resort is clean, the staff are friendly we have a nice patio that is screened in with chairs and a hammock. The room has a decent couch. There is hot and cold running water which doesn’t always happen in warm climates. Cool water for evening shower and warm in the morning seems to work. To Emily’s disapproval there is no way to heat water for tea. There is a tv, though we haven’t tried it. There is a ceiling fan but Emily’s little travel fan is a better option I think, you can get air moving where you want it so think about packing one on your next trip if you don’t already.

Today we started off with breakfast at the restaurant here at the hotel. It wasn’t bad. We have also had two evening meals and they were okay as well. It’s not a fancy place, it’s open air like a lot of restaurants in the area. They could use some fans for when there isn’t a breeze and the bar could turn down the bass and volume on the music they play. I think they are trying to create a fun atmosphere around the bar and pool but the rest of the place doesn’t have that vibe. The restaurant is called the Cooling Rack and if you ask me it comes off as a place that would fit in a small town square with fake ivy that needs dusted on the shelving unit by the cash register where they sell some local woman’s jams or baked goods. They do have a few interesting things on the menu like the chocolate balsamic pork chops I tried last night. They would have been better if they used some Iowa chops, for those not from Iowa, Iowa chops are around half to three quarters of an inch thick. Most the meat here is not thick cut, though outside of the states it rarely is, we tend to serve and eat large portions compared to other places. They did serve two though, a single thicker one would probably be juicier.

After breakfast we went down the road a short ways and visited the Cahal Pech Mayan Ruins. We were unsupervised, you pay your ten dollars and they let you just go roam around and climb whatever you feel like. No safety signs, no real rules were given to us other than where the restrooms were located. They only workers in the area were the groundskeepers. They are not very big when it comes to ruins, but they are big enough for a good leg workout climbing to the top of them.

We talked to a couple from California where were on break from college, he’s in an MBA program and she’s in law school. We offered to take a picture of a gal from Belize and a male companion from Memphis Tennessee. There was only one other couple there but they just said hello in passing. It’s always interesting to meet people when on vacation. The guy from California gave us good reviews for our planned trip on Thursday.

After the ruins we walked down (like a 13% grade, I checked it with the level on my phone) to the Cozy restaurant and bar. The food wasn’t bad there. We stopped because we were hungry and I needed some food. I ordered a Cuban but I got a chicken club. The place was interesting because the open areas had wood slats around the bottom of the railing then above was all chain link fence. We sat and wondered about if we should have tried the place across the street where they were cooking on half a 55 gallon drum on the sidewalk, it seemed popular with the guys in white uniform shirts, maybe police or security guards.

The other topic for conversation was “what part of visiting a country makes you feel like you actually seen that country?” It was also framed as what activity do you have to do or what do you have to see to not leave disappointed. When we went to Jamaica we really didn’t see Jamaica, we seen the resort for the most part and passed through the rest.

We sort of decided that we really need to be able to get out and walk around and see local people going about their business. It is otherwise a really hard question to answer easily. What are your thoughts, feel free to comment or email one of us. Do you need to visit every town, go to every scenic area, do you need to spend a certain amount of time there or is there an activity that you have to do?

After lunch and pondering the big life questions we finished our walk down the hill, it was not all 13%, and went downtown to a few shops and then to the market. The shops were standard tourist money vacuums. Since it’s the slow season it wasn’t very busy. The market was full of fresh fruits and vegetables. There were a few tourist places and several clothing vendors. Our driver yesterday said that on Saturday it’s really busy everyone who has something to sell shows up and it’s like a flea market.

We took a cab back up the hill to the hotel and went swimming for a while. Emily developed a headache, she won’t be posting tonight and wanted me to let you know. She says it’s not too bad but the iPad screen wasn’t helping.

While in the pool we met an Air Force veteran who is semi retired he said. He is currently traveling the world doing a travel video blog on his YouTube channel Morbley Travels. I chatted with him for a while about blogging and sharing travel with people. I watched a few of his videos including one he did about Caye Caulker snorkeling. I think we may be going to the same place next week.

I don’t have a lot of pictures yet. Emily took more today than I did. I’m going to go around and get some of the hotel tomorrow afternoon. Cahal means place Pech mean ticks by the way. So Cahal Pech is the place of ticks!