Belize

1       Yes, Belize is completely different. Firstly  - language: mostly English in Creole version, but also Spanish is popular too (but official language is English). Secondly people – in Mexico society its mostly white people, indigenous people or people who have roots in both of these groups. In Belize you can meet white people, indigenous people, black people, quite a lot diaspora of Chinese and even some German-speaking village of Mennonits. It’s really mixed. Also, because of the fact, that Belize used to be British colony (not Spanish like all the neighbour country) the architecture is completely different too – plenty of wooden building with big porches, reminds me Hollywood movies bout slavery. Country seems to be way poorer and more expensive too... From Orange Walk we took a bus to Belize City, when we spent a night. City (or town – its the biggest city of the state but has only 57 thousand of habitants) seems to be very poor and quite dangerous, full of drunk people and shady streets, but very interesting too...After few hours spending in the city, seeing church which looks exactly like the English churches looks like, we decided to leave this beautiful and tiny, but too expensive for us country and head to Guatemala...After few hours in crowded bus we came to the Guatemala border crossing.

Chetumal

1      Just before leaving Mexico it turned out that its not so easy...They has such a mess on the border crossing. The border crossing is  situated maybe 20km from the biggest town in the region – Chetumal. We had to pay some money (about 10-15 euro if I remember well) to leave the country – all the people have – it is kinda fee if you are leaving country by land (if you leave by a plane in most cases this fee is included in ticket’s price). By the border guardian wanted us to come back to Chetumal and pay this money there, in the bank, cause they don’t have opportunity to take the money in the border crossing...We knew that coming back to Chetumal, looking for a bank and coming back again to the border crossing will lasts hours, and we didn’t have too much time... I had to be very diplomatic. After few conversations, they finally “showed a mercy” a let us to pay the money to leave country there, not in the bank ;). Then we stopped one car which gave us a lift to the nearest bigger town from the Belizean side – Orange Walk...as you can see from the town’s name Belize is a bit different country and different language and area are not even the biggest differences between Mexico and Belize...

Laguna Bacalar

    We hitched all day long, hunders kilometres mostly by evergreen forests, full of hidden Mayans ruins hidden in it. We were heading Laguna Bacalar, which – as we were said – its amazing ‘Lake of 7 shades of turquoise’ but yet not so crowded comparing to other Yukatan places. We came to the city at early night, but felt completely safe in this lazy, relaxed city. We found a camping with one coconut for a person including in price J. Stayed there for 3 days, relaxing on the shore of the lake which has in real has amazing palette of colours. Then we moved to Tulum, one of the most tourisitic place in the Carribean coast of Mexico. We found fancy place full of US citizens with resort atmosphere...For example, the bus drivers have a deal with taxi drivers, and wont take you if have a backpage or luggage...We find it very unfair, its also way more expensive than other part ot the State, crowded and not comfortable enough for us (our hostel is situeated far away from the seashore, and than one which are close to the seashore seems to be to expensive for us), so after 1 day we decide to heading Belize, another country in our travel. Just after spending night in the hostel we are staying in the  side of the road hithiking south – to the Belizean border crossing.

Palenque

1       Salmonella in our case its so bad as you may think. Both of us have it. My boyfriend feels even worse, but still not so bad we are able to visit the city and the villages around. You just feel weaker, vomit and have a strong diarea. Need a lot of water, I mean A LOT of water and top the .... So after few days we didn’t even know its Salmonella, we thought its normal travellers diarea. So we moved to Palenque, our another destination, situated maybe 120 km further into west...in the middle of the jungle Mayans left huge complex of the ruins. There is also plenty of amazing waterfalls around. So, having Salmonella and don’t knowing bout that going to Palenque. We stayed in place called  Pananchel which is surrounded by a jungle; humidity is extremely high, monkey are jumping on our roof, etc. After1 days we realized its not a normal travelers diarea, so we came to the doctor, who told us the we have Salmonella and gave us prescription for a injections . After 3 injections we felt completely healthy. These days we were visited Palenque ruins full of piramids, which was really beautifully situated in evergreen forests and amazing waterfall with turquoise water you can jump into. When we finally felt healthy we moved to last part of our travel in Mexico – to Yukatan Peninsula.

San Cristobal de las Casas

1.       After visitng the Sumidero Canyon and nice city of Chiapa de Corzo we hitchhiked about 1 hour way to San Cristobal de Las Casas, one of the most touristic city in Mexico. It was a bit overcrowded by tourists (mostly from US), also the infrastructure was develepod in a ‘western way’ which means, that a lot of restaurant, bars, cafes, etc only pretended to be in Mexican, Chiapas style beying in real just a fake, which fit to imaginations of Americans and European. There was a lot of vege bars, ‘hippie’ cafes, hipsters places. In real, most of the tourists seems to be delighted that they could  have found place like in Europe (or US). We could also have noticed this in Mazunte, at the Pacific coast. We didnt like the atmosphere so much, but kind of had to stay longer than we wanted to cause of our terrible mood. I mean the city is amazing, full of old churches, Indingenous people in traditional clothes, big markets and mountainous atmosphere, but because of its touristic vibe 2-3 days its enough for me. We stayed 4 or 5 days...Why? We got a salmonella. Dont really know why, almost for sure because of street food...A lot of local have these problems, tourists also.  Even if you wash your hands very often, watch carefully what you eat and never drink tap water you can get infected. You can minimalize the risk avoiding food from street vendors, but this food is the best and the cheapest option...So we have a salmonella and have to stay a bit longer in San Cristobal.