The Carribean town of Dangriga

We didn't plan to come here at all, but somehow we ended up in this little town, a true carribean paradise where we would meet the real garifuna culture!

(more to come!)

Taking it eazzy, mon!

Unfortunately, the Lonely Planet isn't very up-dated on Belize, and instead of taking any ferry from Belize City, we had to take a bus all the way down to Dangriga for a ferry to Honduras. Didn't matter, it gave us a nice chickenbus ride all the way from north to south Belize. During the bus trip we met the local people (a mix of black carribeans and even the odd Amish bearded American).

People were generally friendly and kind in warning and assisting us during this trip, and it gave us this "Jamacan" feeling of relaxation.

Arriving in Dangriga, we were already advised to rent a Cabana (A private house on the beach from a local and well known auntie). Auntie Ruthies Cabana's is really recommended for groups of 2-4 people that like the beach-view and private clean cabana for a normal price.

Unfortunately, our boat to Honduras didn't leave until saturday so we were kinda stuck in Dangriga for a couple of days...days to enjoy the sun, the culture, the sea food and the beach. Our cabana was only 4 meters away from the carribean sea, but since it has no tide, it's always calm water slowly crawling up and down the sand.

We saw dolfins swim at a distance and pelicans dive for fish, right in front of our house. On friday we went with a small motor boat to Tabacco Caye. An small island about 30 minutes away from Dangriga and a great place for snorkling and diving because of the carribean reefs.

It was quite expensive to take the boat, but we didn't had another choice and to be honest, it was worth it! The reef is really shallow (at some points too shallow to even snorkel) and we saw loads of fishes, parrot fish, tangs, even a stingray, an octopus and many others which I can't name yet. After 2 hours of snorkling on both sides of the island, we went back and thanked our Dangriga guide with tip and a meal. Charlie Gamboa is the only real tourist guide in this town and everyone knows him and he knows everyone. He helped us a lot (even with things we could have done by ourselves) but he's genuine friendly. Thank you Charlie!

On saturday we jumped on board a small boat that would cruise the gulf of honduras for 2 hours to arrive in Puerto Cortez. It was quite a choppy ride, since the wind was picking up that day, and I had to watch out not to lose my breakfast (again). But we arrived safely, rushed to the immigration office in Honduras to get a visum and sat down for Pizza at the Pizza Hut. Puerto Cortez (like many big Honduran cities) have loads of American fast food restaurants...and the sign of Pizza hut was welcoming after many days of local belizean food, especially since we didn't know what honduran food was.

Wendys, burger king, Mac Donalds, Dunkin' Donuts.. it's all there in Honduras and the cities are noteable richer than the other cities we've seen so far in Guatemala or Belize.

Oh wait, more to come in our entry about La Ceiba.