The cave was a really neat place and I’m glad we continued on our journey to get there --- we were extremely tired and almost gave up. It was really cool inside the cave and you could swim in the water if you wanted to. We didn’t want to because the river was brownish in color (coffee color as one of the resort personnel referred to it) and it wasn’t very appealing. Time to head back now – it’s about 2.5 hours until we get to our home.
By the time we returned we were exhausted – tons of time in the car and not like you’re used to here. It was very stressful driving in the car on those roads. We bounced around so much on that trip it was amazing.
Saturday night the local town of Benque Viejo was having a big celebration. In reality what it was was like a local carnival we would have here in the states. Carnival rides, food and games. This was no local carnival though this was a big celebration and everyone was going there tonight. Everyone did go. There were all dressed up like they were going to church and as we walked around the grounds we noticed how well behaved all of the children were. We didn’t hear one whiney kid the entire night and we noticed how all of the older children really seemed to be taking care of and watching out for the younger kids. There were fireworks, a big soccer game and lots of enjoyment being had. On the way back Ron saw a sign on the road that said “Burgers”. Guess what – we stopped. It wasn’t a restaurant – it was someone’s house and they were serving food on their front porch.
The next day we decided to venture to Guatemala. We loved the hammocks we had been spending so much time in and wanted to purchase one. We had to drive to the border (20 minutes away), park the car and walk across the border. There we’d pick up a taxi to the shopping district. At the border we had to exchange money for Guatamalan money – this made things a little confusing as Belize was 2:1 and Guatamala was 7.2 :1.
Boy, I thought the Belizeans were poor but they are far from poor compared to Guatamalans. Once we crossed the border you could really see an economic difference. In fact, it was a little intimidating and scary. We had taken our camera with us but felt very self conscious about taking it out of the backpack to take pictures. The shopping district was the equivalent of a very bad US flea market. Many vendors all selling the same thing.
The difference is that this is where many people came to purchase whatever it was they needed. Many of the stuff being sold was similar to items you would find in a
Dollar store. We finally found our hammock and boy was it cheap. Normally Ron would try to bargain – not here – we felt so bad for the vendors selling. They were very friendly but spoke very little English making it difficult to communicate.
Another 
site to visit was Xunantunich (Chew-nan-to-niche). This is a very ancient Mayan city not far from Chaa Creek. To get
there you had to take a ferry across the river - another brown river that many families were actually washing their clothes in. The ferry was truly an eye opener. It was old and rickety, held 2 vehicles and basically was pulled across the river by a cable and a crank. On the other side of the river was a remarkable city. We followed along with a tour group and learned many interesting facts about both the Mayan culture and the City of Xunantunich. The views from this city were absolutely beautiful and the buildings they built were absolutely amazing. I would highly recommend visiting a Mayan city if your travels ever take you to one.
