Belize City funky town oasis : Seaside Guesthouse
Most backpackers only spend one night in Belize City. It is a very funky town, affected by decades of hurricanes and neglect. Still, it has a frontier town feel, which some would say borders on dangerous.
We avoided Belize City years ago and went directly to Cay Caulker on the advice of our guide book.
This time, we were up at 2:30 am and en route almost 12 hours. We had looked in our The Rough Guide guidebook for a place where backpackers stayed so we could get the latest on the ground info. Belize had recently had catastopic floods.
We also searched other journals on the internet. We found similar reports by all.
This old house has a nice tropical garden and homey feel. We like old houses. Others might feel that it is overwarn. One girl said her room was dirty. Our room was fine, and we were glad that the fan worked. We discovered the hot water heater was out of order in our bath, but we had asked for room without bath. One down the hall had passable hot water if you could figure out how to use it.
We spend three nights, enjoying carousing with the travellers. Robert got some guitar lessons from Mitch, the American owner.
We met nice people from Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, England. The most interesting person we met was a German working in Belize. He said he sometimes rented a room at the SeaSide Guesthouse to work on his guitar playing. While we were there, he practiced often.
He suggested we pay for Mitch's gas and get Mitch to take us to Gale's Point so Mitch could get some much needed time off. Mitch called Emmeth, a resident of Gale's Point who makes drums, teaches music and creole culture. Emmeth played an impromptu concert with Mitch and Ulrich. Quite good fun!
As often happens, we later ran into several travelers we had met at Seaside Guesthouse. To a person, they complained about the cost of staying there, including cost of group meal in evening. They also complained about the high costs of traveling in Belize compared to surrounding countries.
All in all, we think the Seaside Guesthouse is good for at least a night, maybe several. Ask for a discount if you stay more than one night.
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