San Ignacio, Belize

We spent three nights in San Ignacio, the second largest urban area in Belize, about a 90 minute drive from Belize City and only 9 miles from the Guatemala border. The main street is Burns Avenue, on which we stayed, which is busy day and night, but not obnoxiously so. About a week before our arrival construction workers on Burns Avenue (right across from Pacz Tours) unearthed Maya pottery and human bones believed to be over 2000 years old. How cool is that? Needless to say, construction on that road is now on hold.

Since we arrived on a Saturday, we were able to visit the busy market with vendors selling their wares, vegetables, and fruits. It was here that we got adopted by a stray dog.

I felt the town to be quite tourist-friendly and even though there were tourists all around it did not give off that ‘I guess I haven’t left America’ feel. We did meed a couple Americans but lots more Europeans. Grungy back-packer like folks. I would be hard pressed to say we saw any Black tourists, but there was a young Ghanaian woman that we met in a bar who was doing a 4 month internship there.

For the most part we had drinks at Greedy’s and Mayawalk, and ate dinner at Hode’s Place, Ko-ox Han-nah, and at Cenaida’s. They were all pretty decent but we preferred Ko-ox Han-nah.

We met quite a few interesting people including a local older Black man with dreads who spoke a lot and said he had been a lawyer and that he schooled with the Prime Minister. In his words, the Obamas are both Junior Lawyers. Not only that, he stated that he was of one of three Black families that originally owned property on San Pedro. He really was happy to see us Black tourists but he wanted us to go to Hopkins and Placencia as we would have more fun there (more Black people). He was quite an interesting character because he made you wonder how much weed he smokes on a daily basis. But he was harmless and we never saw him again.

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