Well I always said if a Hurricane came in I would go somewhere else and try to miss it. That is not as easy as it might seem. I have been trying to outrun tropical storm Earl all day and it is following me. They say we are going to get up to 12inches of rain tonight. If I can tomorrow I am going to try to get to Guatamala. There is hurricane watch for the whole of Belize so they can't sell alcohol and lots of places are closed. I should know more in the morning cos they say the storm should cross the coast tonight.
Belize has now closed! The airport is closed the busses are not running and you can't buy beer anywhere
.
If I can get out of here tomorrow I will have to take a taxi to the border, do the usual border stuff then bus to Flores.
Yesterday at Belize City it was a toss up wether to go south or head to the mountains. Maybe Placencia or Punta Gordau? From there I can get boat to Honduras but they are on the coast and all coast here is under hurricane watch. As it turned out Placencia was evacuated anyway. I decided to head to the mountains and sit it out. I'm in San Ignatio trying to make sensible decisions but not knowing a lot about the weather here. Landslides and local flooding will happen here. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing but I am trying to sort this out in real time. I wanna go to Florres cos it is way cheaper than here but it is an island an might flood? My other option is El Remate bet I am not sure if the busses are running in Guatamala?
The hurricane hit at 4am with strong wind and lashing rain. I was expecting more wind but the rain was relentless.. It rained solid for 7hours it looked like is was not going to stop
.
By 9am it was starting to slow down so I ventured out to try to suss out what was going on. No power, no internet, all the shops are closed. It is hard sitting here trying to make the right decisions in real time and work out the best plan and still say safe. ( believe me I been thinking a lot) I have got a few people here wanting to go to Guatemala so I think I can fill a shuttle bus so we are looking into that. You have to remember we will be following the hurricane so I might not work. We can also get taxi to border then bus to Florres but we don't know if the bus is running? Local reports saying debris on the road and power lines down and govt say DONT TRAVEL!
So it Chu led down for 7hr and when I went out it was amazing. The river is up like you wouldn't believe. It must be up about 20mtr (I wish I could put the photos together) there are two photos in here that are taken in the same place looking at bridges the big one showed the river up the bottom bridge is underwater. There are a few of the pharmacy as well that showers the river rising. It has been rising all day but it is going down now. I couldn't leave here today because of the flooding at Benque and El Rimate.
So while I was looking around this arvo I ran into the two pommies I met a couple of days ago. We spent the arvo together, walked to the local ruins but they were closed after storm. It looks like we gonna share taxi to the border tomorrow.
I feel strange writing this now cos the weather is ok but I wrote most of it as it was happening.
Tomorrow I will get taxi to the border then bus to either El Remate or Florres not sure which one yet I still gotta look for place but I wanted to let you know I am safe.
San Ignatio
Wednesday, August 03, 2016
Benque Viejo del Carmen, Cayo, Belize
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Comments

2025-05-23
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Ngaere
2016-08-04
Stay safe. :)
Kim
2016-08-04
Sounding quite interesting but take care....border crossing into Guatemala will be something I will be interested in hearing about...!!
Ashlea
2016-08-05
Thanks for the update. What an adventure! Stay safe and dry xx
Aprille
2016-08-05
I notice a lot of the buildings are bright colours