Spanish Outlook village in Belize

In my previous post I was telling you about San Ignacio, a very nice and interesting town. I was also telling you about a nearby village named "Spanish Outlook". If you want to visit Spanish Outlook, there is something you should know in advance. It is an amish town, the amish people have their own traditions, customs and culture, they are very unique. They have lived in this area for many years. In fact, in all Central America there are only a few amish town communities. A couple of them are located in Belize, and one of them is Spanish Outlook. I bet you didn´t know this story…………..did you?

I would like to tell you about a very interesting experience you can have when taking the road to Spanish Outlook. When you are coming from San Ignacio, you take a left turn from the main road to Spanish Outlook, it is not a paved road, it is in pretty good condition though. A couple of miles into that road, you suddenly get to a river, and if you want to continue in your way to Spanish Outlook, you have to cross that river to the other side. But guess what……………there is no bridge, and it is not a narrow river. How can you do to cross to the other side?. Don’t worry, there is a way, and very interesting indeed……..would you like to know how?

The answer is………….there is a ferry available for crossing the river. You have to move your car up into the ferry, and the ferry will take you to the other side. The interesting part with this ferry is that it is operated by a man, there is a driver inside some type of rustic cabin into the ferry, and that man has to operate some manual devices and gearshifts with his very own effort, moving some pulley. The ferry is attached to guiding cables, and it moves because of the man operating the pulley. That man works very hard all day, every day, going from one end of the river to the other all the time, taking the ferry, cars and people all the time back and forward crossing the river, with his very own hands moving the pulley. He is a full time ferry driver, almost never has a chance to take a rest ……..incredible!

Well, after crossing the river you will finally get to this amish town, Spanish Outlook. Very nice place, a lot of work in the area, agriculture, cattle farming, milk industries, chicken farms, it is a very industrial place in its own ways. And you wouldn´t believe what other industry is set in that very remote area inland Belize, I couldn´t believe it myself until I saw with my very own eyes…… I insist, you will never believe it…

Do you want to take a guess?. If you have never been there I bet you would never guess.........There are oil wells in the area!. They take crude oil from underground and take it to a nearby oil terminal. Yes, in this remote amish community inland Belize, I'm not kidding!. It seems there are oilfields in that area, with enough amounts to take it out from the ground and take it to the refineries. It is under the control of Belize government of course.

What interesting things you can see in these places. You would never believe that Belize has so many different places to see and visit. We will talk about Belize again in future posts, there is so much more to talk about this beautiful country.

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Getting to Dangriga and San Ignacio in Belize

As I was telling you in my previous post about inland Belize, I finally made it to Dangriga, which is a town located in front of the ocean. By now we are down south of Belize City. There are many attractions in Dangriga, being a town right there in the ocean, main attractions are associated to beaches, cayes nearby, everything for which Belize is famous all over the world. I will tell you more details about Dangriga and nearby places in other posts. Right now, let´s go back to inland Belize.

My next destination was another town named San Ignacio. In order to get there from Dangriga, you have to drive back to Belmopan, about one hour and 15 minutes drive as I mentioned in my previous post. When getting to Belmopan you just turn left and continue the main road to the south west. From Belmopan to San Ignacio you have to drive about 40 minutes, it's very near really.

San Ignacio is a very beautiful place, inside the mountains, a lot of nice landscapes. There is a river entering the town, and a very large bridge. A lot of rain forest places, even jungles nearby. It looks nothing like the beach, it is completely different, you couldn't believe these places actually exist in Belize.

There are also Mayan ruins in the area, not very far away from San Ignacio. That´s another visit and will talk about it in the near future. I had the time to have lunch in a very well known touristic resort in San Ignacio, it has a fine restaurant with a beautiful view to the mountains. The name was San Ignacio Hotel and Resort, pretty nice place. You can sit in an outdoor terrace, and enjoy the view while you eat at the same time. Very relaxing experience.

If you want to go back from San Ignacio to Belize City, it's only about 1 hour and 30 minutes drive. However, before going back to Belize City, I suggest you take some time to visit a nearby village in the way. Just ask local people about "Spanish Outlook" village, they will show you the way, it's very near to San Ignacio.

I will tell you about Spanish Outlook village in my next post……

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A quick visit inland of Belize

I'm sure when you think about Belize, you inmediately associate this country with beaches, ocean, cayes, diving, islands, all Caribbean type of destination. And you're right, that's the main reason tourists go to Belize, a beautiful place indeed, a paradise for diving into the ocean and looking at coral reefs. Cayes in Belize are famous all over the world, that is absolutely true.

However, I would like to tell you about a trip I made to inland Belize a few days ago. Not a lot of people have the chance to make this type of trips. Who would want to visit the inland part of a country which has some of the most beautiful cayes and islands in the Caribbean?. Well, there are a lot of people interested in visiting some other destinations in Belize, there is a lot more to see other than beaches and cayes you know.

Anyway, let's start by saying that many people think that Belize City is the capital city of the country. Even myself, not a very long time ago thought that. I was wrong, and many people are wrong also. For your information, maybe you already know but many people don´t, the capital city of Belize is Belmopan, it is about one hour driving south west from Belize City. It is located inland Belize. You know, Belize City is the largest and main city in the country, but it is not the capital city.

The road that goes from Belize City to Belmopan is in good condition, the landscapes are nice, rural areas, very green. It is plain terrain all the way, no mountains or hills, not a lot to see really. My final destination was the city of Dangriga, it is located south east from Belmopan, about one hour and 15 minutes drive. Road in pretty good condition also. When you get to Belmopan you have to turn left and you're in your way to Dangriga. The landscapes change dramatically on this part of the trip. You start to see mountains all over the place, very beautiful views indeed, it is like a rain forest, very nice.

There are some interesting tourists attractions in the area which we will talk about in other posts. For instance there is the Blue Hole National Park, it's in the way to Dangriga into the rain forest. Local people say that it is like a hole in the middle of a river, the water goes from the hole into the ground and travels many miles until getting into the ocean, going through underground caves. Can you believe that?. I'm not completely sure it's really that way, but it is like a local legend and tradition. We will look into this famous Blue Hole in other posts as I said.

There is also a very famous view looking to the horizon at some mountains about the middle of the trip to Dangriga. It is the "sleeping giant mountain", local people say that if you look with full attention to that mountain, you can actually see the figure of a man sleeping, the mountains in the horizon somehow actually look like a sleeping man, a giant man. I could not believe that, not until I saw it with my very own eyes….it is true, the mountains have a shape of a giant man resting, that's the sleeping giant. What an interesting place indeed.

In another post I will tell you about the continuation of this trip, very interesting…

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Would you like to know what is Pulapanzak?

What am I talking about? Am I kidding you? Maybe you are wondering if this word "Pulapanzak" is some mistake, what is it?. Well, the word Pulapanzak is the name of a very famous waterfall in Honduras, in the heart of Central America, and of course, like many destinations we've talked about on our blog, you bet it is a very beautiful place.

Let me tell you that Pulapanzak is located very near Lake Yojoa, and it is a very good place to visit especially if you like nature and things related to rain forests or similar places. If you ever visit the Lake Yojoa area maybe you could make some time to take a quick trip to Pulapanzak. You can drive very easily to get there, it´s about 30 minutes drive from Lake Yojoa. If you're driving from South to North, like going from Tegucigalpa to San Pedro Sula over the main road, just after passing Lake Yojoa take a turn left, it's in the way to "Cañaveral", a very well known place in the area. Don’t be afraid to ask local people how to get to Pulapanzak, they will tell you, it's not difficult to get there.

All the way from Lake Yojoa to Pulapanzak is very beautiful, a lot of nature surrounding the road, very green landscapes. As you admire the mountains, trees and little towns along the road, in no time you will be in Pulapanzak.

When you get there, you have to get out of your car and walk. There are safe places to park your car, from there you have to walk in order to get to the waterfall, you can not see the waterfall from the road. But don´t worry, it´s not a long walk, only a few minutes.

Once you get there, I'm sure you will agree with me………it is a very beautiful natural scene, the waterfall makes a perfect picture for a good memory. I suggest you take some good pictures of the waterfall, with you in the pictures of course and the waterfall in the back. It feels like you are in the jungle, admiring how beautiful some natural places can be. This waterfall reminds me about some great places I have seen in many movies and TV documentals. It is very beautiful indeed.

Don´t expect to find hotels, resorts or very complex touristic facilities in the waterfall area, even though there are some very good hotels in Lake Yojoa, only minutes away. If you can take some food and water with you to the waterfall, that would be a good idea. I hope that it can stay that way for many years, I mean, the less touristic infrastructure, the better, it feels more natural that way.

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Would you like to go to Santa Lucia in Honduras?

In this post we would like to talk about a little colonial town located very near Tegucigalpa, capital city of Honduras. This town is Santa Lucia. If you ever think about a colonial spanish kind of towns, there are a lot of options in Central America, from Guatemala to Panamá, all over the countries there is a wide variety of towns under this definition.

However, now we will talk about Santa Lucia. Well, what can we say?. A lot of things. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Santa Lucia is peace and calm, very relaxing place. If you like old spanish type of towns, you will love Santa Lucia for sure. There is one great advantage on Santa Lucia, it is very near Tegucigalpa, it's only about 20 minutes driving, the road is in good shape. You can go there anytime if you ever visit Tegucigalpa, no matter if your visit is related to business or work, you could go there very quickly to have lunch or an early dinner, it's a visit you can´t miss.

I visit Santa Lucia whenever I have the chance. A lot of people I know from Tegucigalpa actually live in Santa Lucia, they live in the middle of the mountains surrounded by nature, a lot of pine trees, the weather is great, you can breath fresh air all the time. It is very relaxing indeed.

If you ever go to Tegucigalpa some day, you should definitely plan a visit to this town, it's in the way to Valle de Angeles, another colonial town which I have written about in other posts. Even though you could make a quick visit as we said before, we suggest you plan a visit on a weekend if possible, or any other day where you have enough time available. It would be ideal if you could get to the town, park your car, and take a walk on the cobblestones streets, walk as much as you can all over the town, go into the colonial church, take your time to watch the natural landscapes all around you, feel the taste and odors of colonial towns, talk with the local people, enjoy a cup of coffee, try the local food, see for yourself the beautiful flowers in the country, bottom line……relax, relax, relax.. What an incredible feeling!. And if you had more time to spare, let´s say a couple of days, you can actually spend the night there, there are many colonial hotels available in the town.

If you ever visit Tegucigalpa and couldn´t go to Santa Lucia, it would be really a shame. However, in a clear day with sun and no clouds, you can actually look with your own eyes this little town inside the mountains from Tegucigalpa, just take a look to the mountains in the north east and you will have an idea of what this town is all about. But the best thing would be to go there. Remember, it´s only 20 minutes drive…

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Vacations in Roatan

As a continuation to our last post about Roatan, we would like to tell you as an information the next things about this paradisiac island. Roatan and the Bay Islands are located very near to the north coast of Honduras in Central America, we're talking about the Caribbean here. It has an exceptional location, we're talking about the center of the American continent, very easy access from many places. It is very near from the South East part of the United States. For a better reference we will show you a location map, you can see here that it is very easy to get here from some major cities like Miami, Houston or New Orleans, also from many cities in Central America.

There are a lot of ways to get to Roatan, one of the most usual ways to get there is by air. We want to tell you that Roatan has an international airport which receives daily flights from Houston in Continental Airlines, from Atlanta in Delta Airlines, from many cities in Central America via Taca Airlines, there are charter flights coming from Europe from time to time. There are also a lot of local flights coming from Honduras main land, daily flights to Roatan. Bottom line, getting to Roatan is very convenient and easy for any tourist.

Another way to get there is through Cruise ships from the Caribbean, this travel alternative has had a very fast growing rate in the last few years. It is very common to see big Cruise ships in Roatan, right there in the docks. We were in Roatan a few weeks ago and we saw a Carnival Cruise ship, that is very usual. International Cruise lines arrive to Roatan very frequently. Can you imagine how many tourists visit this island?. It is incredible. When you are in the island, you are in a very touristic place, you can see tourists from all over the world. It is very usual to see American tourists, canadians, from europe, there are a lot of italians tourists and residents in the island as well. Also a lot of tourists from Latin America. As we said, tourists and people from all over the world.

With these many people visiting the island, Roatan has a great amount of Hotels and touristic resorts, a wide range of offerings, let's say for every taste, for every budget. However, even though there are a lot of hotels and touristic infrastructures, at the same time we can say that it is still a place yet to be discovered, yet to be fully developed by the big international hotel chains, famous hotels are yet to be installed. This is something that is coming in the next few years, in a very near future. Hopefully when this happens, the island will still keep it's natural beauty, one of the most atractive things of the island is that it still keeps many natural spots and places that are in its natural shape, we could describe many places in the island like virgin places.

If we want to describe a little bit the geography of the island, we can say that it is aproximately 40 miles long from east to west, and it is rather thin in a way, we don´t believe it is more than 3-4 miles wide from north to south. Even though it is not very wide, it has a lot of mountains in the middle with tropical forests, they are incredibly gorgeous landscapes by the way, people can practice extreme adventure sports.
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As for the beaches, there are a lot, and we could describe the beauty of the beaches here with one simple expression ……..Wow!. We don´t have any doubt that we're talking about ones of the best beaches in the World, no kidding. Landscapes that could be in the best postal photos or calendars with pictures of beaches and oceans. You have to be there in order to appreciate the real dimension of such natural beauty in this island.

For divers this is a complete paradise, it would be very difficult to find some other place in the world with beaches like the ones in Roatan for diving and snorkeling. Coral reefs are right there in front of the island, and according to the experts on this field and activities, this is a very special place. A lot of people come from the US, especially from Houston every weekend to practice diving, it is a hobby for these fans. It is a diving paradise for those who have access to Roatan in a very easy way. They just take a direct flight with Continental Airlines and less than 2 hours after, they are already enjoying in Roatan, very convenient, isn't it?

In future posts we're going to tell you a little bit more about some visits we have made to Roatan in the recent past, and some special places like beaches in West End and West Bay. For now, we strongly suggest that you take into consideration a visit to Roatan if you are planning in the future any visit to places in the beach, it is a real alternative for a great vacation, it is worth it, you won't regret your visit, that's for sure…..

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Roatan, a paradise in the Caribbean

On this post we want to tell you about a touristic destination that we could consider like a jewel or precious stone if we were talking about paradisiac places, beach and ocean locations, the perfect place to take vacations if you want to really enjoy of white sand, blue water, beautiful natural spots. Well, this very special place is Roatan. On this blog we already had written something very brief about this beautiful place, but we also said that it was not possible to cover everything in one post and we would be writing something else in the future. Well, here we are then…..

Have you ever heard about Roatan or the Bay Islands? Does this name sound familiar to you? Do you have any idea where this place is located or what is it all about?. If you are the type or person that manages a little bit of touristic information related to beaches destinations, "Caribbean" type or similar places, you surely know what we are talking about and the name of Roatan will be familiar to you.

On the other hand, if you don't have any idea about this place, or if you had never heared about it, we want to tell you that you've been missing about the possibility of having in your potential travel and tourism destinations one of the best world class spots, first class, that doesn't have anything to envy to any other touristic destination in the world. We are not exaggerating, it is just like that, believe it or not!

If you already had information about Roatan, or if you already had heared about this place, we're going to give you a brief information that we´re sure is going to be very helpful if you ever visit this island. Or if you already have been there and would like to go again some day, it's always good to have additional information and tips from many sources.

Before we begin, if you didn´t have any information about Roatan, you could have a quick idea about how Roatan looks like in a very easy way, you can do it yourself in no time. They say that an image speaks a thousand words, sometimes images describe by themselves everything we could possibly write and try to describe about a place or location. Well, that easy way is through the Internet, it's the most practical tool that we have for getting information. You can go to Google, activate the image option and write the word "Roatan", click on the search button. Inmediately you will have a lot of images in your computer about this place. You will be able to see images with white beaches, blue water, spectacular sunsets, coral reefs, and so many other images related to this kind of views.

Roatan is a beach place that definitely falls into the category of paradisiac destination, that's a fact. The landscapes and views in Roatan are spectacular, very beautiful. When you visit this place, you inmediately start thinking about how beautiful our planet is, how wonderful our mother nature can be. We have visited Roatan many times, and every time we visit this place, we can never get enough from it, it's incredible.

Well, there is a lot to tell about this island, and as we said before, it's impossible to cover information on this destination in one post, we're going to have to cover this topic in separate notes, so our posts are not that long to read. To start, we want to tell you that Roatan is part of a group of islands in the Caribbean part of Honduras, in Central America. We're talking about the Bay Islands, that's the name of this group of islands. The largest island is Roatan. By the way, the other islands are also a world class tourism destination, no kidding!. But we're going to talk about those other islands in other posts so we don't make a mix of everything in this particular post. In this opportunity we will try to focus on Roatan, and also we're going to share with you some interesting information, and some personal travel experiences as well, with our personal touch and point of view. We were in Roatan a couple of weeks ago and it turned out to be very interesting, and even though we just visited this island, we're already looking forward to our next visit as soon as possible.

In our coming posts we're going to cover some topics and information about this paradisiac island in the Caribbean part of Honduras…