San Ignacio

San Ignacio is the main town of the Cayo District and the hub for western Belize. It sits on the west bank of the Macal River across from Santa Elena, and it's where the tour companies, the market, the restaurants, and most of the visitors are. Nearly every cave, ruin, and river trip in the region leaves from here. For us it was the place we crossed the bridge to whenever we wanted to eat out or, twice, deal with the police.

Crave

Ken and Virginia warned us that Crave was spotty, sometimes great and sometimes not. We got lucky. John had a white fish with mashed potatoes that was simple and extremely well done, and dessert was a gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate thing that had no business being as good as it was.

We ate there with Kevin and Adrian, an American couple we'd met on the ATM cave tour that morning. He's an engineer and she's an occupational therapist, and it turned out they were staying at the same place we were. Meeting people and then running into them again at your own Airbnb is the kind of thing that only happens in a town this size.

The market and the police station

On the morning we left for the coast we walked through the market, where the produce stalls are stacked with bananas, plantains, peppers, and fruit we couldn't name, and then went to the police station to finish the wreck paperwork. The officer was apologetic: the report takes five weeks, he's supposed to hand out a receipt you can use to collect it later, and his receipt book was used up. He took our email and promised to send one by Friday. It is what it is.