ext212 > americas > belize 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 Belize City: - The Welcome to Belize sign as soon as you leave the airport. - Our happy-go-lucky driver who fooled us into paying him US$80 for a ride. - So what? We were drinking our Belikins in the back. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

I can even drive us to the nearest police station, mon!, our cabbie tells us as we toast our first Belikin beers in the back of his station wagon. We ask him if it's okay for us to drink in his car and if it really is okay for him to be drinking while driving. Belize is like America, mon. Only, we're more chill here. The boy and I smile at one another. Not even an hour in the country and we're already liking it. We couldn't wait to get to our first destination: the Cayo District. Our itinerary tells us we have to cab it from the airport to downtown Belize City. From there we take another bus to Belmopan, the new Belizean capital. And finally there´s one more bus to Cayo. The trip would have been cheap but would also have been a two-hour ordeal. We just weren't in the mood to deal with any potential transportation problems. So we took up our driver's offer to drive us straight to Cayo for US$80 -- pretty steep but we're drinking beers in his cab. Aldous Huxley wrote that British Honduras, as Belize was called before its independence in 1981, would certainly be one of the ends of the world. "It is not on the way from anywhere to anywhere else...it is all but inhabited." With only a population of just over 250,000, Belize remains one of the most relaxed countries in Central America. It is gratifyingly cosmopolitan with a mixed population of black Creoles, Spanish-speaking mestizos, Maya, East Indians, Syrians, Mennonites, Chinese and North Americans. Today, Belize is one of the world's leading ecotourism destinations. We were looking forward to jungle hikes, wildlife and snorkeling around a coral reef whose size trails only Australia's Great Barrier Reef. BZE - Phillip Goldson Airport We took a US Airways flight from Newark to Belize City via Charlotte. Cabs to Belize City All cab rides from the airport to Belize City are US$20. Belikin beers Belize's number one beer. There's also Lighthouse.