Everyting's gonna be al'rite...

Reggae, rum, 'relax man', big mommas, and Marie Sharp's flaming hot sauce...that about sums up what Belize is all about. Guatemala is pretty chilled too but the difference between the two is marked even on the border. As soon as we arrived in Belize it was sun, smiles, dreadlocks, that Jamaican lilt on the tongue, reggae beats on the decks and the smell of BBQ chicken in the air. I loved it! Even though we were many miles from the sea in San Ignacio, the Caribbean spirit was still very much in evidence and only became more pronounced as we made our way down the coast to little visited Hopkins beach.

Hopkins and Placencia, two southern sea side towns in the Stann Creek district of Belize, were the two highlights of our trip to this sun drenched corner of the world. Very different from each other, they provided an  interesting insight into life in Belize and its development as a tourist destination.

A brief stop in Bali...

I've recently been reviewing all of our photos and blogs from the trip in a bid to put together some sort of tome cataloguing our adventures. During this process I realised that some of my posts had been left unfinished and whole countries undocumented. I aim to rectify this with a new flurry of activity on the blog that will hopefully continue long after the records are up to date!

I recently watched Eat, Pray, Love the terrible hollywoodised version of the book with the same name; the story of an American woman who goes off travelling for a year to find herself post-divorce...blah blah blah...you get the picture. The book was equally bland and self-indulgent, but one thing that did catch my eye from my Sunday afternoon perch on the sofa, was the beautiful cinematography, the stunning scenes of Ubud's terraced paddy fields, the unmistakable Balinese village streets...it took me right back.

The Spice Island

Chris and I landed in Zanzibar with no expectations whatsoever. All we wanted was a beach on which to rest our weary legs post-Kili and we hadn't thought any further than that. Zanzibar was the obvious choice and after a full day on the bus, arriving in a crowded and scary bus station, missing our evening ferry and a night in a seedy Dar es Salaam hotel cum brothel, we were more than ready to get there.

I have been to an embarrassing number of beaches in my time. Yellow sand, white sand, black sand, pebbly, wavy, calm, crystal clear, murky, sunny, windy, tropical, Arctic. It is amazing how different they can be, yet how they draw people from far and wide. Everyone loves going to the seaside, they are the focus of  annual holidays yet if you look closely, very few have all the elements that make them truly special; that make them places you really want to go to unwind. Most of the time, if we're honest, it can be a bit of a chore going to the beach. I have already waxed lyrical about my love of Palolem beach in Goa so I won't bore you with that again but I do think that Zanzibar may be the only place I have been to in a long time which ticked the majority of my extremely demanding and fussy beach holiday boxes!