Belize Tourism WAAAY down for January!

Typical overnight backpacker traveler tourist.



Just checked with tour operators and the Tourist Business in Cayo West is WAAAAy Down. We await the BTB statistics with much interest.

One Belizean just back from CANCUN, says he got a suite on the beach in the most expensive hotel, for $80 a night, had his own jacuzzi in the suite, all food free, all drinks free, everything free. CANCUN is FULL, overbrimming with tourists.
The story was the Mexican government got the airlines to halve their fares to CANCUN and the hotels to cut prices by 50%. IT WORKED for them.
The whole overnight tourist industry in Cayo West is complaining of the scarcity of tourists during the month of January. Blamed are rapacious airline ticket costs to Belize.

Saturday morning photo at Twin Towns Macal River market.

Two Mennonites selling Yogurt made by Janet at her Saturday stall, along with some other homemade delicacies Janet Lohr is a Mennonite widow with a small farm about two miles out of the Twin Towns area of Cayo. With five daughters, she has 32 cows. The cows this morning she said, are being milked at around 15 gallons a day. There is not enough milk production in Belize, so there is no trouble selling fresh milk. The young 18 year old girl visiting, is another Mennonite by the name of Melanie Shetla. Her family immigrated to Belize from Indiana, USA. The Mennonite community originally moved into Belize about 50 years ago and cleared jungle land. They are now the most industrious immigrant Belizeans in the nation and produce most of the agriculture and industry and manufacturing. There are dozens of different cults, or sects divided by charismatic preachers, each with their own intrepretation of the Bible. They build and maintain their own roads and schools.



Flute player at the Macal River Twin Towns market in Cayo District. The Western Belize Recreational Area and Agriculture economy. This was a Saturday market in the morning photo. This man plays a mean saxophone, he says he learned in New York City where he was a professional street musician. Now back in Belize without saxophone, or money, he would dearly appreciate if someone would donate him a saxophone, to earn a living with in Belize. He has no money to buy, or import one. I've known him for about five years here. What he has is a good quality wooden flute. Sometimes he gives lessons.

THREE NY CITY GIRLS ABANDON COLD FOR WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA

Three New York girls, Katie, Lauren, Julia, comrades from working together, arrive in Santa Elena Town, Hillview on the slope of Green Parrot Valley, staying at FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL. They are splitting a week of early vacation at cut rate airfares for December, 2008 at $144 USA roundtrip, by American Airlines to Belize City airport from New York City. Half their vacation will be spent in WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA and half on Caye Caulker, just inside the Barrier Reef, at TINAS BACKPACKERS HOSTEL on the beach. Here they are holding coconuts each, fresh from the tree in the background of the backyard of the hostel.
That night, they slept about 11 hours non-stop, as they were tired and the trip down took two days, with a sleep over required in Miami. Their plans are the two Mayan ruins of Xununtanich, Clarissa Falls for lunch and swim, then Cahel Pech. The following day they are doing the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave Trip, to the entrance to XIBALBA underground passage of the Maya to the Spirit world. With sacrifical skeletons, pottery and a mile trek fording three streams in darkness. ( Well they will have head lamps! ) From there they will be off to Caye Caulker on the Great Coral Barrier Reef and Tinas Hostel, and hopefully, time permitting a trip to Shark Ray alley for a swim with these animals, then on to Hol Chan Channel Marine Preserve in the Barrier Reef to see thousands of different kinds of fish while snorkeling.

http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/

Best Internet Cafe in the twin towns until now!

In the last month another second internet cafe has opened up in Santa Elena Town side of the river Macal. They claim they are charging $3 an hour, haven't tried them yet. I've been going to this one on the San Ignacio Town side of the Macal River for a few years now and kind of feel at home there. It is air conditioned, got fast DSL speeds when the place is not packed, that is! Greg Aguirre is the proprietor sitting behind the counter. For prices he is the lowest in San Ignacio at $3 Bz per hour, rounded out to the nearest quarter, or shilling as we call it here in Belize. Greg has done a fair amount of repair work on my two old computers as well. Though I'm hoping my daughter Tina will bring a new E MACHINE back from Houston, as my other daughter Wendy in Houston said yesterday they were on sale at WalMart. I really need a new one, as these I have, are constantly breaking down now. This internet cafe for Greg is in the Del Rio Mall, which is on the next street over from Burns Avenue, the main street in San Ignacio. The street is called West Street and as I sit here in this internet cafe, I can hear some kid practising on the Cornet, next door in the Chinese owned music teaching shop. Next door to here is a Hindu restaurant where I normally eat a very cheap lunch of Somosa and Ginger flavored Lime Juice, Hindu style.
The BTL monopoly have been promising us internet service in our section of Hillview, a suburb of Santa Elena Town, for about 14 years, but they lie every year about it and never do it. They only want the icing on the cake and serving only town centers where the land is flat and easily reached by either land line, or cell phone towers. We can't even get their cell phone signal in Hillview, as we are behind a ridge and they will not put in repeaters around the South Side of the Twin towns for the growing population and suburbs. Too many hills they say! At any rate we cannot get internet service of any kind where I live, so I have to drive the two miles once or twice a day, to do e-mail and tend to my business interests. This is the place I must come to communicate with our tourist guests who are making enquiries for our budget Falconview Hostel Adventure selling place.