Belize - April 2010

This trip was planned to attend a friend’s destination wedding.  They got married at a resort in Hopkins and we decided to go a few days early to go diving in the Cayes (keys).  We chose to stay on Caye Caulker instead of the popular tourist destination, Ambergis Caulker.  Caye Caulker is smaller and more laid back according to my travel guide.  I used Moon Handbooks Belize guide to help plan the trip along with the trusty TripAdvisor website. 

Day 1, Apr 20 – Arrival

We flew Continental from San Diego to Houston and then on to Belize City.  The airport is really small, it reminded me of the airport you fly into when going to Cabo San Lucas.  There are only a couple of international planes that fly in daily, but lots of small cesna planes that fly in the country.  Our plane pulled up to the terminal and we walked out and down stairs onto the tarmac.  It was a breeze going through customs.  We were out of the airport and in a taxi in about 15 minutes. 

Our taxi into Belize City was a station wagon that was covered in brown fuzzy things inside, like the seat covers.  It was like riding in Huggy Bear’s car or something.  The taxi ride from the airport to the water taxi terminal took about 20 minutes and cost us $50 BZ ($25 US).  The last water taxi to Caye Caulker left at 4:30pm.  We grabbed a couple of Belikin beers and sat in the waiting area for about 45 minutes.  The ride to Caye Caulker was crowded and took about an hour and a half.  We held our oversized backpacks in our laps the whole way. 

We got to Caye Caulker and walked off the pier and our hotel (TA Review) was right there.  We checked in and got settled in before exploring a little of the island.  We walked around and thought it was very quiet, there weren’t a lot of people around.  We found the tour company we were going to use for our snorkel trip the following day, so we stopped to say hello and get some information. 

After getting details for our tour, we found Rose’s Grill for dinner.  One of the girls working at the hotel recommended the place.  We walked up and saw all the fish laid out next to the grill.  We got to see what the options were for dinner before sitting down and ordering.  We both went for the fish kabobs.  The food was delicious. 

Since we had a long day of traveling, we decided to get some beer and rum, One Barrel, and head back to our room.  We sat out on our balcony and enjoyed a couple of drinks in the sea breeze before calling it a night.

Day 2, April 21 – Snorkeling on the Reef

Our snorkel tour with Raggamuffin (TA Review) didn't leave until about 10:30am, so we had plenty of time to have a nice breakfast.  Our guide book recommended Glenda’s for her cinnamon rolls and fresh squeezed orange juice.  The guide said the OJ was “the best two bucks you’ll spend on the island.”  The restaurant is located on Back Street a little away from the other restaurants and vendors.  You walk up and order through a window and find a table on the front covered porch.  Basically, the restaurant is connected to the house.  I’m not sure if it was Glenda that was running the place, but she brought out our coffee within a few minutes and then our food when it was ready.  The food was good and it was pretty inexpensive.  Our meal was $25 BZ ($12.50US) total and that included coffee and our bottle of OJ.

After our delicious breakfast, we headed down to the dock where our snorkel tour was to leave from.  We boarded a sailboat that took about an hour to get out to the reef and our first stop.  Our first stop to snorkel was Coral Gardens.  We snorkeled here for an hour on our own.  When we got out, we had lunch on the boat.  We had fish sandwiches and fruit.  The next stop was Shark-Ray Alley.  As we pulled up, our skipper, Patrick (or English is what Reynolds kept calling him), was throwing chum out to attract the nurse sharks.  There were a lot of them, but as soon as we jump in, they swam away.  We were in a protected area, so we had to snorkel with our guide, Reynolds.  We were able to see couple of sharks and rays during our snorkel, it was pretty awesome!  We headed to Hol Chan Marine Reserve for our final stop, which was also guided.  We saw a lot of fish and a sea turtle.  On the way back in to Caye Caulker, we drank rum punch and ate shrimp ceviche!  The only bad thing about the trip was that there wasn’t a bathroom on the sailboat.  By the time we got back to shore, I had to run to our room!

We had a little nap and rest after snorkeling and before going to dinner.  One of the girls at Raggamuffin recommended Syd’s for dinner.  We sat on the back patio.  In Belize, they don’t use past tense; so instead of fried chicken, it’s fry chicken.  Mike ordered the fry chicken and I ordered the fry conch based on the servers recommendation.  The food was ok and it was inexpensive, but we decided we liked Rose’s better.

We had some after dinner drinks on our balcony again before turning in for the night.  We had to get up earlier the next day to go scuba diving.

Day 3, Apr 22 – Scuba Diving on the Reef and Rum Stumble

I’m not much of a morning person when I have to get up early for work.  But, when I’m on vacation, I enjoy getting up early.  I want to get the most out of my day when traveling.  I want to have time to eat breakfast, to site-see, and to just relax and maybe take a nap.  Our room had a thatch rooftop and I would start waking up about 5am to birds sitting on our roof singing good morning.  If I was at home, this would probably not make me happy.  Since I was on vacation, I just wrote it off to part of the experience. 

We decided we liked Glenda’s a lot, so we had breakfast there again.  After breakfast, we made our way to the dive shop (TA Review) to check in and get sized for our gear.  We left Caye Caulker about 9:45am and headed for Hol Chan Reserve. They change dive spots daily. 

Our first dive spot was Pillar Coral. The coral formation made it look like tall pillars underwater. My max depth was 73 ft and bottom time was 53 min. The second dive spot was Eagle Ray Canyon and we made a drift dive. I had a large fish following right beside me for most of the dive, which was pretty cool. My max depth was 59 ft and bottom time of 56 min. Both times we had a 15 min safety stop before surfacing. We had about 30 ft visibility on both dives and the water temp was 83 F. The coral is beautiful and there was quite a bit of life.

After we got back from diving, we asked someone at the hotel desk where to go for burritos.  She recommended a place called El Paso.  We walked into a small seating area and ordered 2 burritos, one fish and one shrimp.  They didn’t serve beer, but said we could go to the store down the street to buy a couple and bring back to have with our meal.  They even gave us a bottle opener to use.  The burritos were delicious and filled with peppers and onions.

We decided to go down to The Split and Lazy Lizard and check out the scene.  It’s a popular place on the island where people go to sunbathe, snorkel, relax, and have drinks at the bar.  Mike snorkeled around a little, while I leaned up against a tree to read, and then we decided to have a rum and coke at the bar.  The bar was pretty busy and everyone was friendly and having a good time.  At some point, we decided to have a pub crawl and stop at all the bars along the beach to have a different rum drink.  We stopped at several places and had rum with coke, lime juice, coconut water, watermelon juice, pineapple juice, and grapefruit juice.  We ended the night with delicious mojitos.

Since we enjoyed the fresh fish at Rose’s, we had dinner there for a second time.  We decided to get different things to try, so we ended up with a fish kabob, a shrimp kabob and a grilled grouper fish.  We finished it all too!

Day 4, Apr 23 – Driving the Hummingbird Highway to Hopkins

For breakfast our last day on the island, we decided to try the Amor Y Café.  It wasn’t as good as Glenda’s as far as price and food, but the coffee was really good.  They specialize in egg sandwiches.  I had an egg and cheese sandwich and Mike had fried eggs with homemade toast.  We also shared a fruit plate.  Our breakfast was $40 BZ ($20 US).

After breakfast, we went back to our hotel to grab our things and headed to the water taxi terminal to head back to Belize City.  Once there, we took a cab back to the airport to get our rental car.  The cabby was very friendly and when he found out we were driving down to Hopkins, he gave us some direction.   

Getting our rental car took a little time as they don’t really use computers like rental companies do here in the U.S.  We had to wait for paper work to get printed out and she had to walk around and check the car for damage to make sure we didn’t get charged with anything. 

We were finally on our way around 11:45am.  In Belize, they drive on the right side of the road, so that made things a little easier for us.  I used our guide book to find a place to stop for lunch on the way.  We stopped off at a place called Amigo’s and grabbed a burger and fries and super sized iced teas.  It was hot and humid in Belize, so the iced teas were very satisfying.  While we were waiting for our food, a lady came to our table to tell us about her shop next to the restaurant that sold gifts and some baked goods.  She had brownies and mango bread for sale that day.  We ended up buying some and they were delicious!  We looked for her on the way back through a few days later, but she wasn’t open yet.

After lunch, we debated on stopping at the Belize Zoo for an hour.  The guide book recommended it and I’d read that it was a fairly “natural” zoo, so we stopped.  All the animals in the zoo are native of Belize.  The zoo was started in 1983 when the animals weren’t needed by a film company any longer.  Instead of releasing the “tame” animals back into the wild, the zoo was started.  The zoo is used by schools to educate children on the local animals of Belize.  The zoo also runs the only jaguar restoration and research program in the world.  It is a cool little zoo and the animals are in as natural as possible compounds.  It was so natural that sometimes it was hard to see any of the animals.

After our hour at the zoo, we continued down the highway towards the Blue Hole National Park.  There is a Blue Hole dive sight, but this was a little swimming hole that we were looking for on our drive.  We found the entrance, paid our park fee, changed in the changing room, and made our way down the steps to the blue hole.  It was definitely blue and very cold, which was refreshing since it was hot.  Mike put his goggles on and dove down and said it was freaky looking down there!  We spent about an hour exploring the little area.

Back on the road, we drove past little towns.  Kids were playing outside at school.  People were all along the road either walking or riding bikes.  Some people were even walking along with machetes. People lived in old, run-down shacks and would sit around the porch or under shade trees.  These houses would definitely be considered condemned in the States.

We finally pulled up to our resort (TA Review) in Hopkins about 6pm and checked in.  We had a hard time finding the front desk as there are 3 resorts in a row, but all owned by the same company and they use the same place to check in.  We ended up with a room in their newest addition, Villa Veranda.  New is usually good, but our room smelled of lacquer that they use to shine and protect all the wood furniture.  The room was decked out with a huge marble and tile bathroom with a ginormous walk-in shower.  It was definitely a nice place, but it felt out of place for being in Belize.  I would expect something like that in Hawaii, but Belize is a poor country and I felt it was a little too much.  If it weren’t for our friends getting married at this resort, we probably wouldn’t have chosen this hotel.  I would have rather stayed in Hopkins at a small B&B.

After settling in and finding our friends to check in with them, we headed off to Barracuda Grill at Beaches and Dreams for dinner.  This was a nice little open air restaurant on the beach.  We both had fish for dinner.  I had a special, I love to order specials.  It was grouper with lemon and caper sauce and came with pasta and green beans.  Mike had pesto fish that came with the same sides.  The food was delicious, but a little bit of a splurge.  Again, that’s what you get for being next to a resort.  Our meal was about $120 BZ ($60 US), but we figured it would’ve been even more for something like that in San Diego. 

We walked back to our resort to look for our friends and found everyone in the dining room watching a drumming and dancing performance by the staff.  The staff then got everyone up and dancing with them.

Day 5, Apr 24 – Scuba Diving on the Reef, Rehearsal Dinner and Karaoke

We had to get up early to go over to the dive resort (TA Review) to check in and get sized for gear.  I really wanted to dive with the whale sharks, but we missed that dive by a couple of days.  They only come close during a full moon when they feed on the plankton.

Our first dive site was 6th Cut.  My max depth was 82 ft and our bottom time was 40 min with a temp of 83F. The coral seemed way more abundant, but maybe not as much life on it as off of Caye Caulker.  It was beautiful though.  The second stop was Discovery Curlew Bank.  My max depth was 60 ft and bottom time was 39 min with a safety stop. Our dive master saw a hammerhead, but we all missed it. We did have a sea turtle swim right under us...soo cool!

In between our dives, we stopped off at a small caye island for our surface interval.  We had juice, watermelon and cookies while hanging off the dock.

After diving, we were ready for some lunch.  We decided to check out a local place in Hopkins.  The first place we stopped at the cook hadn’t shown up, so we went across the road to Innie’s instead.  I’m glad we did.  We were the only ones there and ordered two local Garifuna dishes off the dinner menu.  They were so nice there and the food was delicious!  We had 2 fish dishes, one with banana dumpling like things (bundiga) and one with coconut milk and plantains (hudutu).  Our meal was $40 BZ ($20 US) that included 2 beers.

We went back to our resort to relax on the beach before the rehearsal dinner.  The dinner was a BBQ on the beach and it was pretty good.  They made chicken and shrimp and had potato salad, ceviche and cake for dessert.  After dinner we all went into Hopkins to a local bar that had karaoke.  It was fun even though the machine didn’t work that well. 

Day 6, Apr 25 – Day of Rest and The Wedding

We woke up and went back to Innie’s for breakfast.  I had pancakes and Mike had fry jacks, which are a Belizean cuisine of deep-fried dough that puff up.  Both of our breakfasts came with beans and some delicious eggs.  The coffee was pretty decent as well.  Our meal was $22 BZ ($11 US).  When we left, Innie told us to spread the word of her restaurant since we liked it so much.  So, if you are in Belize around Hopkins, you must stop in for a meal!

We thought about planning an adventure before the wedding like going to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary or hiking to a local waterfall, but we decided to hang out at the resort and lounge around.  We ended up having our lunch at the resort, which was another BBQ. 

The wedding was on the beach and Mike was a groomsmen.  It was breezy the whole time we were in Hopkins except for the moment of the wedding.  I got attacked by sand fleas during the ceremony, it was horrible.  I had to run back to the room and shower afterwards. 

Despite my little issue, the ceremony was lovely.  They had incorporated their love for reading books into their ceremony and vows.  I think one of the flower girls carried each of their favorite books and they cited their favorite quotes in their vows. 

Day 7, Apr 26 – Departure

We woke up early to drive back to the airport.  We made the drive down with all the stopping and it took us about 6 hours.  On the way back, we didn’t make any stops and it took us 2 and ½ hours. 

We both really enjoyed our time in Belize and if we ever make it back, we’d like to go back to Caye Caulker and dive more and maybe visit some ruins in San Ignacio.

Trip Summary

Lodging - Seaside Cabanas, Almond Beach Resort

Food - Glenda's, Syd's, Rose's Grill, Amor Y Cafe, Amigo's, Barracuda Grill, Innie's, Almond Beach

Activities - Raggamuffin Tours, Belize Diving Services, Hamanasi Dive Resort