CAYE CAULKER I.II.I.I – DAY ONE 09/09/22 A two-hour ferry ride away stood my first destination in Central America – an island called Caye Caulker in Belize! With a fresh breeze and sea spray in my face, I felt reinvigorated. The melancholy of leaving Mexico behind soon turned to exhilaration as I was about to step into another country. And […]
BELIZE – PEOPLE
BELIZE PEOPLE POPULATION Whilst around 50% are Latino, more than 25% of the population is Creole; descendants of sub-Saharan African slaves who were brought to British Honduras for labour. In addition, Belize is also home to Mayans, East Indians and the Garifuna; people with mixed African and American ancestry who used to live in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. […]
BELIZE – LAND
BELIZE LAND GEOGRAPHY Belize is a rhombus-shaped country that’s around 23,000 kilometres squared in size. Found on the north-eastern coast of Central America, the country is bordered by Mexico on the north, Guatemala on the west and south, and the Caribbean Sea on the east. The north is mostly flat and is dominated by forests, swampy areas and coastal plains, […]
BELIZE – HISTORY
BELIZE HISTORY PRE-COLUMBIAN The first people known to have inhabited the land now known as Belize were a few scattered bands of hunters and foragers back in 2500BC, with the first Mayans taking over in 1000BC, building impressive cities all over. Amongst these were the powerful cities of Xunantunich, Altun Ha and Caracol. POST-CONQUEST Unlike like what had happened in […]
BELIZE – COUNTRY
BELIZE COUNTRY NAME The name Belize is thought to have two possible meanings, both derived from Mayan words. The first is said to come from the word belixe, meaning muddy water referring to the many swamps and rivers found in the country. The second, perhaps more interestingly, is proposed to have come from “bel itza”, literally translating to “The road […]
II.III.IX – Home
II.III.IX HOME Constantly moving on from adventure to another, I failed to notice my time in Colombia was almost up. On my last day, I opened my eyes and I was wide awake. I wanted to keep them closed, to go back to sleep. I wanted to stay in that moment right before you wake up – when things are […]
AFTER MEXICO
AFTER MEXICO RECAP I started out this journey with no expectations whatsoever. One month into it, I had already exceeded some which I didn’t even think I had. Before I left, I knew one thing and one thing only. This would be my time. And in being on my own, I found myself using that time to improve myself. Reading: In […]
II.III.VIII – Wandering
II.III.VIII WANDERING Just before we’d get to enjoy the city of Bogotá, we had one final road trip planned in order to cover as much ground as possible. Luckily, Pedro’s father offered his car for that. Our first stop was the Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá which are salt mines extending some 650 feet underground with a church at their epicentre. Apart from being […]
I.I.XI.I – Chetumal: Day One & Two
CHETUMAL I.I.XI.I – DAY ONE & TWO 07/09/22 & 08/09/22 One last comfortable bus ride later and there I was, in my final destination in Mexico, the city bordering Belize – Chetumal. I gotta admit, I wasn’t quite ready for it. Getting to Chetumal meant I’d be leaving Mexico, and whilst usually that would mean it’d go back home and […]