Showing 1-8 of 8 results
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Tiny Town – Belmopan, Belize
Blog: Trans-Americas Journey - 10 August 2011
With a population of around 20,000, Belmopan is one of the smallest national capital cities in the world. Its name is a mash up of “Belize” and Mopan (the name of the area’s main river) and it’s home to Guanacaste National Park, the nation’s first and smallest national park at just 250,000 square yards. A trail winding through the park’s patch of jungle can be walked in less than 20 minutes.
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Bucolic Basecamps – Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, Belize
Blog: Trans-Americas Journey - 4 August 2011
The Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in the Cayo District of Central Belize, not far from San Ignacio, includes more than 100,000 acres of protected land in the Maya Mountains. It’s home to cougars, tapirs, toucans, jaguars, fantastic rivers and waterfalls and two notable nature resorts to use as bucolic basecamps while you explore. Food, forest and Francis Ford Coppola Like to eat authentic Italian food? Fancy the idea of hanging out where director (and resort owner) Francis Ford Coppola comes to relax and get creative?
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Borderland Basecamps – San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize
Blog: Trans-Americas Journey - 1 August 2011
Trust us when we tell you that most towns located within 30 minutes of a border crossing are best seen in your rear view mirror. Not so with San Ignacio. Sure it’s a border town. It’s less than 30 minutes from the Benque crossing into Belize from grimy Melchor on the Guatemala side. Despite its proximity to the border, San Ignacio is one of the more appealing towns in Belize with more Caribbean charm (festive colors, wooden bungalow architecture, creole accents, a languid pace) and less of the squalor of most towns in Belize.
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Into the Underworld – Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Cave, Belize
Blog: Trans-Americas Journey - 23 July 2011
Some tours are so hyped it’s suspicious. Can they really be as good as the chatter about them claims? In the case of Belize’s Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave the answer is yes. Ancient Mayan ceremonies and superstitions, human remains, a virtually unpronounceable name, narrow water-filled passages and more. It all starts out reasonably enough. After an early morning start with your tour operator in San Ignacio and a bumpy 45 minute ride you hike along a mellow, flat, scenic and mostly-shaded trail through the jungle for about 30 minutes until you reach the mouth of the cave.
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Flower Wars: Is Your V-Day Bouquet Destroying the Jungles of Belize?
Blog: Trans-Americas Journey - 11 February 2011
The dense and protected jungles of Belize are many shades of green. To the untrained eye the verdant tones run together in a blur of lushness—one plant virtually indistinguishable from its neighbor. But the growing number of Guatemalan slipping into the under-patrolled border regions of Belize see things differently.
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Cool Things To Do Around San Ignacio
Blog: Viva Latin America! - 7 November 2009
As mentioned previously, you can go do the marathon mission to the ATM Cave, or be ferried down to the Caracol ruins by the Belizean police. But if you fancy doing something a bit more chilled out, there are a few fantastic options. On the extremely bumpy road to Caracol, you’ll see a sign to Rio [...]
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Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave – Incredible
Blog: Viva Latin America! - 6 November 2009
Rarely do the Belizeans put restrictions on places in the name of preservation of culture. The exception is Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave, familiarly known in Belize as the ATM cave. You can imagine how many cash point jokes they can get out of that. Only two tour companies are allowed to visit ATM, and only [...]
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Guatemala vs Belize
Blog: Viva Latin America! - 6 November 2009
Wow, what a staggering difference. We didn’t have the best ever first experience of Guatemala. It began with the Santa Elena taxi drivers, swung through the less than thrilling Flores, nearly ended in heatstroke in Tikal and finally cost us 200 Quetzales in border fines. Alright, that last one was our fault, but on the other [...]
Showing 1-8 of 8 results
