To get to Hopkins, we were lucky enough to drive one of the most beautiful drives in Belize: the Hummingbird Highway. The Hummingbird Highway took us through the Maya mountains, passing through jungles and huge orange tree orchards all the way from the Cayo district to the coast. Though beautiful, the highway was fraught with peril. :) First, a dog decided to commit suicide right in front of us; we were driving along and suddenly about 50 feet in front of us, a dog ran into the road and laid down right in our path! What a brilliant place to take a siesta! We stepped on the brakes, and he changed his mind and wanted to live, so got up and trotted at Belizan pace ( that means "leisurely" ) off the road. Farther down the road, we saw a few kids playing in their yard. All of a sudden, the ~1 year old baby decides to SPRINT into the road! His six year old sister ran into the road after him, scooped him up and carried him back into the yard. We looked for the parents and saw the mother hanging out the window of her house on stilts, not looking all that concerned... Lastly, a full grown man who should have known better stood in the middle of the turning lane, so we stopped and waited for him to move, but nearly got rear ended by another driver, who laid on the horn at US!
But at last, we finally arrived in Hopkins. We found our bed and breakfast, the Hopkins Inn, pretty easily. Our host Rita was not ready for us to come into the room yet, so we walked down the beach to the other side of town to get some lunch.
The Hopkins beach is pretty depressing. It could be a lovely stretch of beach, but this was the most trashed and dirty beach I have ever seen. Bits of every type of garbage known to man were washed up on shore, along with a ton of dead sea grass. All the dead sea grass turned the water washing up on shore a dirty brown color. Also, the locals evidently make huge piles of garbage in their back yards (the beach is their back yard) and light it on fire, so there were tons of piles of partially burned garbage all over the beach! We finally decided to leave the beach and walk along the dusty road in hopes of a better view. There was not really much to see in Hopkins; I was really surprised that Lonely Planet put it in the top 25 Belize experiences.
We arrived at Driftwood Pizza, owned by a couple of US expats. It was so nice to have some pizza after trying very hard to find some Belizan food that was amazing; most Belizan food has been not all the impressive, and as "eating the culture" is one of our favorite things to do on vacations, we have been a bit disappointed in what Belizan cuisine has to offer. (they don't really seem to have their own cuisine - we can get a lot of Mexican food here, and the Central American staple of rice and beans, but haven't had anything really unique to Belize) The pizza was GREAT! I had a vegetarian Hawaiian pizza with eggplant instead of the meat, like I make myself at home, but they actually MARINATED the eggplant in vinegar and spices before cooking it and putting it on the pizza! YUM! I'll have to try that myself. I asked the owner how he marinated the eggplant, and he wouldn't tell me; secret recipe, I guess. They also put honey on the crust and added coconut and sun dried tomatoes to the Hawaiian pizza, which were both interesting touches. Gavin had his usual pile 'o meat pizza and also enjoyed it.
After lunch we walked back to Hopkins Inn on the road. On the way we were stopped by two little kids selling "sweet buns." Gavin was about to say no thank you, but I made him stop and buy a sweet bun; I had read in Lonely Planet that little kids go from door to door selling breads, cookies and desserts that their mom's freshly bake each day, and I had been hoping we would get to buy from one of them! The sweet buns were a kind of biscuit that was just slightly sweet and had a touch of coconut and the occassional raisin inside. They were nice and warm - probably not from coming fresh from the oven, but more likely because the kids had been carrying them around in the hot sun for a while. :) (Later in the day as we were driving out of town, we saw the same kids drop their WHOLE BOWL of sweet buns in the street, pick them back up and put them back in the bowl... Maybe it wasn't such a good idea buying from them after all...)
When we got back to Hopkins Inn, our room was ready. We are again staying in an oceanfront cabana with a nice, breezy deck facing the ocean, where they will serve us breakfast tomorrow. I asked one of the owners about doing a tour of Mayflower Bocawina National Park, and one of the tour guides happened to be at the hotel dropping off some other guests. We set up a tour that will take us on a hike to Antelope Falls and also on Belize's biggest zip line. We realized that we didn't have enough cash to cover the tour, so we had to drive to Danriga 20 miles away to go to an ATM; there are no ATMS or banks in Hopkins.
The drive to Danriga was uneventful, and the most interesting thing in Danriga appeared to be a storefront labeled B-Hive Coffins Fast Food - not sure I would eat there... :) The drive back had lovely views of the sun setting over the Maya mountains and the orange groves; I made Gavin turn around and stop several times so I could take pictures.
When we got back to Hopkins Inn, it was finally time to relax on the beach - the FIRST time on this whole vacation. (Gavin has been teasing me this whole vacation that I didn't plan any relaxing time, and when I am dragging him to all the different activities, he asks me "What's the matter, am I not relaxing fast enough for you?" :) ) We first walked over the the nearest grocery store across the street from the inn so Gavin could buy a Belkin beer; the national Belize beer, which he hadn't tried yet. ("It tastes just like every other country's cheap beer," he said. ) We dragged a couple adirondak chairs over in front of the water, took out our iPads and my small speakers, and sat in front of the water, me writing my journal and he reading. Gavin made a "beach bum" playlist for us to listen to on the beach. A local guy named Brian stopped to talk to us for a bit. Brian has lived here his whole life and makes carvings from driftwood. He was carrying a couple with him, maybe in hopes that we would buy them. :) He asked if we could climb the nearby coconut tree, and I said definitely not. He left us soon after, but he had planted the idea into Gavin's head. A few minutes later, Gavin suddenly got up out of his chair, walked over to the tree and started to jump up it, moving both hands and both feet at once. ("Ow! I pulled my groin!" were the first words out of his mouth. :) ) I of course didn't have my camera, but I got a picture with my iPhone, at least. :) Then I had to try myself. I climbed a bit more carefully to the height that Gavin had so he could take a picture of me, then I fell off. :)
We went to dinner at the Indian restaurant next door, which Rita had recommended. The food took FOREVER to get to our table, but it was pretty good. I tried their paneer tikka masala, and it tasted like they put several cans of tomato paste into it, along with the typical Belize habanero sauce to make it spicy. Not the best Indian food ever, but still beats rice and beans! :)
After dinner, we walked two doors down on the beach to a bar that Rita had told us was THE place to be on a Friday night. We met a couple from Austria (Jimi and Sabi) there and talked to them for a while. They are avid SCUBA divers, and Jimi had a bad ear infection. Gavin looked in his ear with our flashlight, told him he needed antibiotic drops, and then they bought our next round of drinks. :) We also played a bit of foosball with them and a few locals, which was fun, even though I am terrible at foosball. Gavin and I managed to win against Jimi and Sabi the first time we played with them, then quit while we were ahead and came back to the cabana to be lulled to sleep by ocean waves. We have another early start tomorrow...
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