Belize (in three nights)

Before arriving, I always thought that Belize was going to be a tropical paradise with amazing diving and palm fringed white sand beaches. My first impressions were somewhat different, with scrubland as far as the eye can see and a surprising number of burnt out/rusted cars lining the road from the border crossing to Belmopan (the capital, which I previously thought was Belize City... probably should have read the guidebook beforehand).

However, things drastically improved once we'd made it to Belize City and then hopped onto the ferry to Caye Caulker - one of the small islands off the coast). Lovely beaches, baking hot sunshine and the very laid back vibe of a country known for it's offshoot of Rastafarianism - the Garifuna.

Signs all over the place simply read 'go slow'. You get the picture.

We had planned to dive the Blue Hole - as it is one of the most famous in the world (it was a bit of a glorious legend in Berwick Diving Club all those years ago), however our timing was a little off and we had a last minute change of plan, if we wanted to get to Honduras (on a dodgy little boak across the sea) then we would have to be down south in 48 hours... otherwise we'd miss the twice weekly boat. Not that gutted as we had been planning on getting some diving done in Honduras and from what we've heard subsequently, the Blue Hole isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So, after a few relaxing days and nights on the Caye we made our way by local bus (belting out the standard reggae tunes, including some quality reggae style Christmas tunes) and to a tiny backwater called Mango Creek- cool name. A short (very fast and very bumpy) water taxi ride later we arrived at Placenia and the next morning made the boat.

Once two hours of immigration bureaucracy had been completed it was relatively plain sailing... although it was a pretty small boat and the 12-15ft swell made most of the younger kids hurl - always nice when you're trying to keep your own breakfast down. One mother had been feeding her astonishingly fat children coke, biscuits and sweets for the first few hours of the journey (it was amazing to watch them put those snack away) and she seemed surprised when they became ill... the little girl was quite cute until her splash back started to inch closer to my flip flopped feet.

Everyone was pretty pleased when we arrived on the north coast of Honduras, if only to avoid the puke.