Touched down on time, around 6:30am; it was nice to walk through passport control without all the hassle of filling in landing cards and custom cards.

Home sweet home and a cuppa PG Tips was nice to come back to.

Both with little sleep, we got up early to head out to the Empire State building which opened at 8am and went up the observatory deck. It was very cold and windy on the deck but got some good photographs.

We went back to the hotel to pack up all our bags and kept them stored them with the bell boys. As usual, for very little work they expect a tip for practically doing nothing. We then headed down to Staten Island Ferry, which is a free ferry service from NYC to Staten Island. The main reason for taking this ferry was to see the Statue of Liberty and the round trip was about an hour long. It got cold and started to rain on the way back.

We walked up to Wall Street and saw the Stock Exchange Building with a huge American flag on the front of it. As we wondered to Broadway for some more photos, the clock was ticking fast for us to head back to the hotel to pick up our luggage to the airport. 

We got back late and found the black car the bell boy ordered for us was in fact a limousine. 

We got to the airport on time and amazingly check in was very smooth. We were delayed on the plane for an hour before taking off and having a kid behind us was not exactly peaceful.

Both woke up late but Li was a little worse for wear. We both managed to get out and jump on to the NY tour bus for some sight seeing. Went up near Central Park and did some shopping in Tiffany’s. They had a separate lift dedicated to the sterling silver department (3rd Floor), it looks like where all the tourist go.

From there we saw SAKS on 5th Avenue and lots of other expensive fancy stores. We made our way to B&H, which is a large store dedicated to photography equipment. Tony was in heaven for hours. Later, we took the night tour bus around downtown New York and across to Brooklyn which took 2.5 hours, followed by a visit to the Rockefeller Center where we saw New York City at night.

It was midnight by the time we got out and went on the hunt for food which we just made last orders at Hard Rock Café.

Got up quite late and headed downtown into New York. Spent most of the day wandering the streets like homeless people, but looking at lots of shops. Li had a makeover done in Macy’s and got a pile of makeup for MAC.

Signed up for the tour bus for 48hours, meaning that we can use it for transport, so did a bit of this in the afternoon as well.

Had dinner in Chinatown then headed out in the evening with some friends that Li knew when she spent some time previously in New York. Li ended the night with a couple too many drinks but had fun.

A day full of hassle and travel. Firstly, had to perform the, now standard, tyre change on our wonderful car. Next a 3 hour drive, 2 hour wait in the airport and then 1.5 flight to Miami. This is where I am now, waiting for a delayed plane to New York, currently only an hour late but I’m sure the Americans will put in some more pointless checks & questions to make it delayed just slightly more. Need beer.

Final took off, some nice views over Key West on the way to NY. Got to the hotel around 1am, tired & still in need of some beer!

Nice early start to the day thanks to the local bloody 2 legged alarm clocks. I think they’d end up in a pie if I lived here; however, we headed off to Cockscombe Basin and was there by 7:45am. Our guide started to show us around; saw lots of birds, some insects and even tracks from a Jaguar, but nothing really as good as we hoped as Cockscombe is famous for, and the only Jaguar park in the world. After four hours we parted company with the guide and £20 for his services, which didn’t seem too bad for that amount of time.

Headed down to a beach side village called Plancencia. At the moment it looks primary like a building site, but you can see that in 5 years it’s going to be a huge resort area and full of fancy homes for rich people. Huge houses on massive plots are being built everywhere basically. Tony did some snorkelling and found a cool looking star fish but not much else. Had a fantastic dinner in an open-air beach side restaurant. Shrimps (prawns!) chicken, snapper fish were all good.

Ended the day by taking a really slow drive back (and up to Cockscombe Basin again) to see what other animals we could spot. Saw some more birds, frogs, a small fox like creature and best was something that we think was a Puma; at least, it looked like that sort of thing & was around 3 times the size of a normal domestic cat (and would probably have like to eat one!) Anyway, it came right next to the car & Li got a really good look at it then it wandered off into the jungle. Overall, Belize is really good, loads of nature things to do & glad we came; however the number of mosquitoes here really is a bad point, you can’t even get from the car to the room without being bitten. Also, the roads are primarily unmade; if you’re coming get a 4×4, a big one. Tomorrow, New York. Tomorrow, New York.

After breakfast, we packed up all our stuff ready to head off but Tony found a flat tyre and the one we took off and pumped up also was flat.

It took a couple hours to finally get the tyres fixed and be on our way. We made a detourt on the way to Gales Point Manatee, the idea being to see some manatee’s in their home environment. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that you had to hire a boat for the day as it’s only during the breeding season that you can see them from the land; the rest of the time it’s an hour away by boat. Still, had a quick look around and some nice rice & beans with the locals before heading off.

Arrived at our cabana in Hopkins; nice quite place although the neighbours could do with a bit of clean up and throwing away all the crap in their bit of the beach. However, it’s on the beach, got hot shower and mosquito nets. A/C wouldn’t have gone a miss, being over 100F and all; but compared with some we saw on the way here its 5 star. Organised early trip to Cockscombe Basin for tomorrow; bed by 10pm, asleep by 3am as it’s so bloody hot, awake at 4am due to the cockerels. Point to note, mosquito nets believe it or not are draft proof so you don’t get the nice sea breeze; however, they are not sound proof so you get the heat & the noise.

Got up early for some horse riding; Li’s horse was called Champion and Tony’s was Belikin (named after the Belizian beer!).

It was a little rough at first getting used to the horses as they knew where they were going and controlling them wasn’t easy. Li’s horse was constantly eating leaves and hence lacking behind so ran quite a bit to catch up with the others causing Li to bounce lots in her saddle. Tony’s horse kept up with the lead horse quite well and Tony got quite good at steering his horse; he even found reverse gear at one stage.

The guide took us through the jungle trail and was extremely knowledgeable about the local trees & fauna and their medicinal use. We also saw a troop of Black Howler Monkeys which apparently is unusual in that part of the jungle. We passed a guy on the trail whose job was to rake the leaves off the trail path (we didn’t envy him). At the end of our horse ride, we booked to go on to a nocturnal night jungle tour for the evening.

Next we headed for a Butterfly Breeding centre which bred to export one type of butterfly (Blue M…). For lunch we went to a Belizian restaurant called Benny’s Kitchen and it was very good traditional food. Li had rice and beans and Tony had a tortilla wrap dish.

It was ever so hot and we both decided to retreat back to our cabin to cool down and ended up sleeping for an hour or so. For our last dinner for this stay, T-Bone steak again; it’s so good. We also had Conch Cervice to start with, which is a salsa style mix with Conch as the meat.

We started our night time jungle walk around 8pm; just the two of us & the guide (called Lion), so that was quite nice. Tony spotted a grasshopper drying out it’s wings (didn’t know that some species of grasshopper had wings) and then a snake that looked like it was going to eat the grasshopper…it didn’t which was quite disappointing for the camera minded amongst the group. Ended up not seeing a huge amount as it was a very bright night with almost a full moon, but we did get to see a number of different frogs and moths as well. The guide tried for almost an additional hour more than we paid for to find some mammals, but they just weren’t there. Really enjoyed it though; you wouldn’t believe just how dark it is in the jungle in the middle of the night! Next, Bed (well, beer & bed)

Had a bit of mince in the morning after breakfast and went off to Jaguar Paw for some cave tubing. Had some advice to try out the lunch in a local restaurant which did a mean rice and bean dish with stewed chicken. It was very good and only a couple of pound, so not bad really.

We trekked half hour to the start of the cave tubing, as we walked through parts of the jungle we saw insect bats, coconut palms and local fauna.

We were both given a large black inner tube ring to sit in and our guide Luis led us through various caves. Li was scared as usual but soon relaxed as we moved on. The rock formations and crystals formed over the years were impressive and the whole experience was relaxing.

We contemplated zip lining but were told by the guide that there was zip lining near where we were staying and it was cheaper so we didn’t do it. Turns out the only place to do zip lining is in Jaguar Paw; looking back, we think he wanted us to leave after our cave tubing as he hitched a ride with us to his mate’s house en-route back to our cabin.

Headed back to our log cabin and chilled out in the bar, Nolan – our barman was very friendly and was telling us what else we could do in Belize and made a good margarita for Li. Plan for tomorrow is to try horse riding and then head to a butterfly farm and nature trail…more unmade roads, great 😉

For dinner we both had T-Bone steak which was absolutely excellent (According to Tony, the best he ever had). We got the recipe off the cook who is the owner.

We set off from San Ignacio (where we are staying) to Mountain Pine Ridge (National Reserve Park); which is about an hour and half drive, most of it on dirt roads which were extremely bumpy.

We made our way up to the 1000 ft falls (which are actually 1600 ft) and it was ever so hot (over 100F). The car was a state by the time we got to the falls it was far from its original white colour; covered in red dust from the roads (and to think the rental lady wanted to give us a brand new lime green car). Tony spotted a hummingbird feeding on the flowers in a tree and it was a pretty little bird; spent lots of time trying to take photos of it.

We made our way to the next stop which was Big Rock Falls and we found the start of the trail but after 20 minutes of walking in the heat and through undergrowth we couldn’t find so we went back to our car (we were ever so thankful for air conditioning).

Next on our trek was to the Rio Frio Cave, it was very big and impressive. You can enter the cave via some stone steps and can head all the way in to the cave. It gets pretty dark in the cave but your eyes adjust fairly quickly and there is also a cave opening either end (so it’s really a bloody great big tunnel)

As we left the cave, we got a flat tyre and Li was scared (and quite unhelpful) as we were in the midst of the jungle and there was a lot of rustling in the bushes next to the car. After a long hot sweaty session changing the tyre, we both were covered in red dust and looked a state.

Last stop was the Rio pools which were large rock formations with pools of water interlinked. Tony decided to cool off and clean up by swimming in the pools.

We made our way back again on the bumpy dirt terrain; it got more interesting driving in the dark. By the time we got back to our hotel, we were hungry as we missed out on lunch and tired. We decided to have dinner straight away and Tony had a fantastic T-Bone steak.