entry for LONELY PLANET FORUM
WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA tourism OPENED with a BANG! ( October 7th, 2008 )
We got a phone call from 3 Flemish Tourists, doing a reverse direction GRINGO TRAIL tour yesterday and picked them up downtown for an overnight at our FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL. They were enroute to Placentia and via Punta Gorda, and soon this week back to Guatemala; where they were working in a remote Mountain village Hospital. We sort of get the odd tourist backpacker in our off season at our HOSTEL for travelers. They found us through TROTTERS GUIDEBOOK in DUTCH. They were Veerle, a 26 year old nurse, Steven the 31 year old boyfriend working at the remote mountainous hospital in the village of Yalanhuitz, and his sister Kristel age 35 years, visiting for a month from Belgium. Normally September, October and November, are our dead off season for tourists, though in November we do pick up the odd one passing through. Our FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL, is usually going through re-painting and repairs at this time. I had just told my wife yesterday morning, that I expected we would start to get a trickle of GRINGO TRAIL travelers this month. Lo and behold, a few hours later we got three. Their story is interesting. They come from Antwerp and hooked up with a long term volunteer organization www.vivirenamor.be running a village hospital serving many remote high Guatemalan villages. Apparently they had just finished an 8 month stint of volunteering and were seeing the surrounding Central American countries. The job paid their air flights from Belgium and they lived in a small wooden shack in the village, with a bedroom big enough for the bed, but no toilet available. Steven worked as the hospital administrator and Veerle worked as the nurse. The villages in the mountainous area are mostly Lan Chuj Maya indians and Q'anjobal Mayan indians. The Maya have 22 distinct different languages through the old Mayan Empire. The oldest Mayan temple can be found in San Salvador around 7000 years old. A lot older than any Egyptian pyramids. In Belize, our temple pyramids go back about 4000 years.
On my trip to our twin town market this morning, I noticed a string of tourist backpackers on the street in the central bus and restaurant area of our twin towns of Santa Elena Town and San Ignacio Town, and in the local TOUR OPERATORS offices, saw them fairly full of tourists, going out on daily local tours and site trips. I stopped by my friend BOB the Englishman, at PACZ TOURS and asked him about the off season and mentioned the tourists around, in what should still be our OFF DEAD season. He said, it picked up a day ago and they are coming in like crazy from all over. I sort of wasn't expecting this to happen for another month. Nice though for business! Guess I will have to miss my own vacation? The OCTOBER flood we experienced from a torrential TROPICAL STORM # 16, has now gone down, in the Macal and Mopan Rivers around Western Belize Cayo District. Cold weather has been around for two weeks and maybe it is a lot colder in North America and in Europe?
We have a news blog, maintained this year, a few times weekly, with photographs and news of the "Western Belize Recreational Area" of the CAYO DISTRICT of Belize. If you are interested try: http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com
WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA tourism OPENED with a BANG! ( October 7th, 2008 )
We got a phone call from 3 Flemish Tourists, doing a reverse direction GRINGO TRAIL tour yesterday and picked them up downtown for an overnight at our FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL. They were enroute to Placentia and via Punta Gorda, and soon this week back to Guatemala; where they were working in a remote Mountain village Hospital. We sort of get the odd tourist backpacker in our off season at our HOSTEL for travelers. They found us through TROTTERS GUIDEBOOK in DUTCH. They were Veerle, a 26 year old nurse, Steven the 31 year old boyfriend working at the remote mountainous hospital in the village of Yalanhuitz, and his sister Kristel age 35 years, visiting for a month from Belgium. Normally September, October and November, are our dead off season for tourists, though in November we do pick up the odd one passing through. Our FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL, is usually going through re-painting and repairs at this time. I had just told my wife yesterday morning, that I expected we would start to get a trickle of GRINGO TRAIL travelers this month. Lo and behold, a few hours later we got three. Their story is interesting. They come from Antwerp and hooked up with a long term volunteer organization www.vivirenamor.be running a village hospital serving many remote high Guatemalan villages. Apparently they had just finished an 8 month stint of volunteering and were seeing the surrounding Central American countries. The job paid their air flights from Belgium and they lived in a small wooden shack in the village, with a bedroom big enough for the bed, but no toilet available. Steven worked as the hospital administrator and Veerle worked as the nurse. The villages in the mountainous area are mostly Lan Chuj Maya indians and Q'anjobal Mayan indians. The Maya have 22 distinct different languages through the old Mayan Empire. The oldest Mayan temple can be found in San Salvador around 7000 years old. A lot older than any Egyptian pyramids. In Belize, our temple pyramids go back about 4000 years.
On my trip to our twin town market this morning, I noticed a string of tourist backpackers on the street in the central bus and restaurant area of our twin towns of Santa Elena Town and San Ignacio Town, and in the local TOUR OPERATORS offices, saw them fairly full of tourists, going out on daily local tours and site trips. I stopped by my friend BOB the Englishman, at PACZ TOURS and asked him about the off season and mentioned the tourists around, in what should still be our OFF DEAD season. He said, it picked up a day ago and they are coming in like crazy from all over. I sort of wasn't expecting this to happen for another month. Nice though for business! Guess I will have to miss my own vacation? The OCTOBER flood we experienced from a torrential TROPICAL STORM # 16, has now gone down, in the Macal and Mopan Rivers around Western Belize Cayo District. Cold weather has been around for two weeks and maybe it is a lot colder in North America and in Europe?
We have a news blog, maintained this year, a few times weekly, with photographs and news of the "Western Belize Recreational Area" of the CAYO DISTRICT of Belize. If you are interested try: http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com
Ray Auxillou
Hillviewhacienda
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