{"id":197,"date":"2009-06-04T05:42:57","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T05:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/?p=197"},"modified":"2014-05-20T05:43:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T05:43:32","slug":"150859","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/150859\/","title":{"rendered":"150859"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>back at cornelio&#8217;s house in rio dulce!&#8230;didn&#8217;t have time to make it to el estor. hopefully tomorrow a quick trip to finca el paraiso (alexis&#8217; recommendation) and then honduras! below is my summary of belize.<\/p>\n<p>note: this was all written before a kid snuck into my room in hopkins, belize at 3am, and stole my wallet (this event will not be posted, but if interested, you can contact me directly, beto@sentradiaries.com):<br \/>\nwell, 2 quick days in belize and i&#8217;m out. belize is a tiny country, but it&#8217;s still hard to summrize it after such a short stay &#8212; and my comments may be off. i also missed the islands, which are the destination for belize.<br \/>\ndriving in belize is for the most part good. the signs are clear, the roads are mostly good. some tourist spots (barton creek, hopkins) have rough dirt roads&#8230;.but maybe that also adds to the charm? driving in the country seems very much like driving in rural america&#8230;only with a different environment (different trees, more humid, etc). overall, driving here is fine. nothing to write home about&#8230;.although i guess i just did.<br \/>\nbelize as a tourist destination is prob easier than other countries, because they speak english. but i dont enjoy it that much. naturally, most places i&#8217;ve seen are tourist destinations&#8230;.but here they feel like businesses. well&#8230;it&#8217;s actually more of the expats that open businesses here, that ruin the vibe. the locals tend to be very friendly&#8230;.and when you&#8217;re with them, money seems secondary. granted they need to make a living, but &#8212; as in guatemala &#8212; having a good time is more important. however, the expats here charge way too much for services and are much stricter. here&#8217;s an example: at the hotel i stayed at in san ignasio (run by a brit), i had to leave a $10 deposit for a towel. in hopkins (local run), i paid several hours after i got the key, i played with the kids and the neighbor showed me how to prepare a coconut. in a german-run place in hopkins, the owner was very&#8230;.well, german. nice, but curt and with overpriced services (relative to belize).<br \/>\nas with many places, with increased tourism come foreigners and international investments&#8230;.which alter the original feel (for both good and bad). for a young traveler looking for culture and adventure, belize is very &#8216;vanilla&#8217;. for older travelers who want an easy vacation in a tropical place, belize and hawaii are both nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>back at cornelio&#8217;s house in rio dulce!&#8230;didn&#8217;t have time to make it to el estor. hopefully tomorrow a quick trip to finca el paraiso (alexis&#8217; recommendation) and then honduras! below is my summary of belize. note: this was all written before a kid snuck into my room in hopkins, belize at 3am, and stole my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sentradiaries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}