Travel Day - Orange Walk to San Ignacio

I wrote this yesterday.

Today was another travel day. We hopped on the bus early for the 2 hour bus ride back to Belize City. In Belize City, we immediately caught the express bus for Belmopan. In Belmopan, we switched buses and headed for San Ignacio.

We rode the entire way with a group of mennonites and I was shocked at how friendly they were. The movies have definately given me the wrong impression of the Amish. As we sat in the seat across the aisle from them, one of the men, complete with beard, hat and overalls, he looked at us and asked the typical travel question, "Where are you from?". From there we had the "Where have you been in the states?" conversation and then he asked "Have you ever seen Amish people before?" Shave off the beard and replace their clothes with jeans and t-shirts and he was just a normal guy. On another bus, an extremely friendly Belizean woman sat down near him and we could hear them discussing plants, business and traveling. Another lesson learned about not judging books by their covers. The guy was even wearing bright blue crocs!

After dozing off on the way out of Belize City, we awoke as we pulled into Belmopan and noticed a slight change in the landscape. Orange Walk resembled Texas, flat and green (besides the palm trees that remind you that you are in Central America). Belmopan started to get hilly.

San Ignacio is in the Cayo district which is very hilly (maybe even mountainous by Texas standards). It is absolutely beautiful. This is the part of the country with caving and river tours. Some of the most popular tours seem really expensive so we are going to have to choose carefully what to do.

As you can probably tell, we are having a hard time traveling slow. I would like to try to stay here at least 5 days before heading into Guatemala but we will see. We are feeling so comfortable in English speaking Belize and are getting a little nervous about heading into Spanish territory. I know that our money will go further in Guatemala so that might motivate us to move on. We keep reminding ourselves that we have nothing but time....how nice is that?