Day 20 Going inland!

Today we left to go inland. We took a ferry from San Pedro to Belize City, which was a beautiful ride. Once in Belize City we had to catch a cab to get to the bus station. Belize City was very different from San Pedro; there were more cars and people. The streets and streams were very dirty. Once arriving at the bus station I was not sure what to expect. The station was like a ware house but more open. And oh the bus was a school bus. For some reason when I was thinking of a bus to travel on I was imagining the buses that we find in Wilmington. Oh no these were definitely school buses. The bus schedule was posted on a piece of poster board, written in marker, up on the side of the wall. The sign that specified which bus to take was a piece of broken wood painted with the designation. This is very different from the bus system we have in the US. Once on the bus we had a place over head that was built out of wood to stash our luggage. However, my bag was too big so I held it on my lap. Once on the bus we learned that there is not really a limit on how many passengers can be admitted and that there were random stops to let people off and on along the way. Our designation was the Belize Zoo which was only a 45 minute bus ride from Belize City, but it felt much longer. While traveling to the zoo we had to go through a police check point, at that point everyone who was standing on the bus just had to sit down, making it three to a seat.
Once arriving at the zoo I was not sure what I really expected. I had been to the Asheboro Zoo but I figured that it was not going to be that nice. The zoo only cost us ten US dollars which is significantly cheaper than most zoos in America. We had to walk down a gravel driveway to get to the ticket booth and entrance to the zoo. Many of us had to use the bathrooms. There were four old outhouses to the side that were falling in and the actual bathrooms with plumbing next to them. The old out houses were like the ones that you would see in the movies with the little drawings on the front to distinguish the men from the women’s. Once entering the zoo we began our journey through it. We were able to see the national animal, the tapir, which is a mountain cow. There were pumas, toucans, a jaguar, eagles, warthogs, and other weird animals that you might not find at some of the zoos back home. It did not take long to make our way through the zoo. The cages were not that bad but many of the animals looked miserable. However the animals that we observed were saved from the wild from being hunted and killed. The cages for the birds to fly around were relatively small so I felt bad for them, especially the eagle.
After leaving the zoo we had to wait on the bus to take us to San Ignacio. Once arriving in San Ignacio we found out that because it was Easter Monday that many businesses were shut down. Luckily we found a Chinese place to eat. All I wanted was an egg salad sandwich, but apparently an egg sandwich is an actual egg between bread and not egg salad. Other then it was not what I had expected it to be I ate it and it was not that bad. After eating we had to go check in to our hotel which was the San Ignacio Resort. The resort was really nice but was on top of this humongous hill. Needless to say we took a taxi up it. For the rest of the day we enjoyed the beds, pool, water and water pressure because when we left San Pedro we had no water and basically had not showered for about three days. This resort was like heaven.