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Hopkins, Belize - the town were eveyone says hello

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World › Central America › Belize › Hopkins

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Hopkins, Belize - the town were eveyone says hello

May 25, 2009

Hopkins - Belize

We departed Dangriga on Sunday 24th May heading towards Hopkins in one of the local buses. It wasnt as busy as usual but unlike our journey from Belize City to Dangriga we would most likely have to hitchike some of the way to Hopkins. We got out at the Hopkins cross roads in the hope that someone would take pity on us and give us a lift the remainder of the way - some three miles. Thankfully our luck was in and we were on board a small shuttle bus within minutes. It was a small family heading to the beach for the day. We were most certainly greatful for the lift because it would have taken a long time to walk the 3 miles espically in the swealtering heat.

When we got to Hopkins we thanked our Reggae music loving friend for the lift and headed off to find some accommodation.

We bumped into some guys from the USA who were down for the weekend hicking in the local mountains. They told us they had to get back to Belize City the following day and said they would have to hitchhike - sounds like an adventure in itself. We wished our usually obsese neighbours - but not on this ocasion, they were quite skinning - good luck and continued our search for a place to stay. We tried a few places but everywere seemed to be pretty packed so it didnt look good but we found a place called Tania's that was cheap and comfortable by backpackers standards. It had 3 double beds a shower, fridge that admitedly didnt work and some fans for keeping coo - although later to my dismay i would find out that mine was rubbish. The people were nice and they even gave us fresh towels daily, which is great when you have been using the same towel for a while.

Only 15 Belize dollars a night so it was really cheap.

The locals are all really friendly and say hello to you all the time, which is just like being back home. It is a million miles away from Belize City where i didnt feel at all safe . On our first day we went down to the beach and relaxed. We took time to have a quick dip in the lovely warm water and headed down the beach to see what we could find. It didnt take us long to come across a little carnaval going on at the local school. We went over and started to play with some of the kidds. They seemed really interested in us because we were white and obviously not from the local area. I found out later that they were celebrating commonwealth day - any excuse for a holiday!

Again when we ate in the local resturant at night, the food was excellent - and again extremly cheap by our standards.

The local food is based on chicken, rice and beans. When it got dark we headed down to the beach to see if we could see the apparent luminus plankton that was in the local area but didnt see anything so we thought the guy who told us about it in Caye Caulker was telling us porkeys. To the guys credit he was right and the plankton did change to a luminus green but only when you were in the water and moved. It was an interesting to see the sea light up like a lightening strike of emerald green. The only downside to that experience was that the water really stank because of the plankton so a major scrubbing in the shower was required when we got back.

The next day we went to check out the rest of the region and quickly found out that you can take local drumming lessons.

We found the drum centre and had to book a time for a lesson but we knew we wouldnt really have an opportunity to do the drumming lessons so decided to go later in the evening just to watch. We hired a Mini Cat to sail around for a while, which was a lot of fun. We had it for 2 hours and went up and down the coast in it. We also got involved with the local drumming later that night and met some Americans who were on holiday. They couldnt believe the accomodation we were staying in and the length of time we were traveling. I know what your thinking, the answer is yes.... of course they love the Irish, doesnt eveybody? :-) and no they werent fat.

Day three of our Hopkins adventure and it started with a 6:30 wake up call, 2 bananas and 4 graonola and raisin cookies.

We booked a tour the previous day for a trip to Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary for Jaguars. It is one of the only santuarys for Jaguars in the world. Im not sure if the Jaguar is in danger but i do know from reading some information on them that the jungle is being destroyed, which inpacts badly on the Jaguar. We got a lift to the sanctuary by one of the local bar owners who must double as a taxi driver down some extremely bumpy ground. There was a road part of the way but most of it was dirt track.

Once we arrived we payed our ten Belize dollars to enter the camp and were promptly shown the routes that you could take on a hand drawn map at the entrance to the visitors centre - i just hoped the guy who drew it wasnt drunk at the time or we would definately get lost.

We opted for the waterfall trail, which took just over an hour to get to but in the heat and humidity it was a long and sweaty hour of walking. We got to the first waterfall and it was stunning, there was not another person in sight so we had it all to ourselves. We swam in it for quite a while to cool down and jumped off some of the ledges into the water even though it said no jumping. The water was really deep so it was safe enough to do it. Once we had rested for a hour or so we decided to go to the next waterfall, which i thought was 20 minutes away but to our surprise was over the next hill and was double the size of the one we had been swimming in. We jumped off the top of the smaller one which was about 5 metres, which sounds small but it certainly isnt when you are jumping it believe me.

We made our way back the route we came and it was much quicker going down than it was coming up. We took our ready made lunches then headed off to the tubing area. Basically tubing is when you get a big ruber ring and just float down the river until a certain point then you get out and walk back to the visitors centre. It took about an hour to go around but it was really relaxing - apart from the odd time when you would get hit in the bum by a stray rock that was sitting out of the water. Again there was no-one else in the water, although before we set off we met some extremely overweight Americans who went ahead of us by about 15 minutes. We swore we would catch them up because it looked as if they would have trouble getting into the ring and staying afloat but somehow they managed to keep one step ahead.

On the walk back from tubing we saw some monkeys just relaxing in the branches above us and one had a little baby on its back. It was an amaxing sight to see and capped a great day in the sanctuary. The only down side was that we didnt see any Jaguar but you cant have everything i suppose. Heading to Placencia tomorrow were we can hopfully find a bar to watch the Champions League Final because i am most certainly not missing that.

Hopkins is probably my favourite place in Belize because everyone says hello and are really friendly, so if you are going to Belize a stop off in Hopkins for a few days is highly reccommended.