World Belize Belize City

110 Degrees with Pete and Cath

Belize Jun 13, 2009

To say that it had been a long trip “home” from Cuba to Mexico would be an understatement – we’d left Maria and Rafaele, our friendly hosts in Havana at 4 o’clock in the morning on 9 June, and eventually arrived in Caye Caulker, Belize the following lunch time. We’d travelled through 4 countries and apart from a brief couple of hours where we managed to collapse into a tired sleep in Chetemul, Mexico – we had been “in transit” for 32 hours in the sweltering Central American heat. “The Eater” as Holley has affectionately been named, didn’t quite know what to do with himself after not eating for 4 meals, and T, to her own admission was so hot and bothered she totally forgot to feel seasick on the 45 minute ferry trip from Belize City to Caye Caulker – all in all, morale was a little low! But oh was it worth it...

A reef runs the entire length of Belize, from Mexico in the North to Honduras in the South, resulting in the most brilliant of calm blue seas, and hundreds of Caye’s (pronounced Keys), or islands, lie scattered along the coast which is only 300km long. Some of these Caye’s are only large enough for one palm tree and a beautiful white sandy beach – others have remote diving resorts consisting of a couple of shacks. Caye Caulker is a little more established, if one can call two dust tracks, a handful of restaurants and rooms for rent, established!

We spent three glorious days in this tropical paradise. We managed to find a room at a place called “Happy Lobster”, for the four of us and filled the happy hours reading, watching the sunrise and sunset over the ocean, eating fresh mangoes and papaya and seafood and doing a little bit of Spanish and exercise in between. It must be said that I (Cath) is by far the weakest link in the exercise regime, often opting for a lie-in rather than a sweaty jog along the beach.

The highlight of the trip to Belize had to be our one-day snorkelling excursion organised by one of the many dive operators on the island. We had read that Belize has consistently been rated one of the best dive/snorkelling spots in the world over the last few years and we weren’t disappointed! After a strong cup of Caribbean coffee and some raisin bread we braced ourselves for the bumpy 2 hour boat ride to the Blue Hole with Elih, our captain, Errol our guide and 4 awesome tourists from The Netherlands, America and France who would be diving. One of our favourite things about our travels has been meeting and chatting to the people along the way, most of whom have done an astounding amount of travelling themselves - and the 2 hours passed quickly.

We have been lucky enough to do 6 snorkelling trips up to this point in Mexico and Cuba and all have been incredible. The Blue Hole was no exception and a highlight was watching the scuba divers rise from the depths with between 6 and 10 Grey Reef Sharks circling them. Zack and I both pulled off our snorkel masks and decided that the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) was now too much to handle and we would try to do our scuba courses in Honduras in ten days time. We did manage to swim with a turtle at the Aquarium dive site which was amazing, especially as it swam to the surface to breath less than 2 metres from us.

Teneale has now become known as the “Cabbage” because, as incredibly bright as she is, she has a knack for ‘head butting’ objects around her not realising her own space. These objects have included the overhead bins in the plane, the top bunk in our hostels, John’s foot and just about anything else that is just out of her peripheral view. She blames her contact lenses but these Zinidin Zidane episodes are an almost daily occurance and we look forward to them as much as second helpings of chicken fajitas!

While snorkelling at Half Moon Caye our guide pointed out a 3 metre long nurse shark (big enough to make you check your pants when you get back to shore) and our Cabbage, not realising that it was even there, swam over it with a tickle of her bikini strap!

After some discussion on whether or not to head south while in Belize we eventually decided to make our way to Guatemala instead. Our time originally allocated to Central America has started to race by and there’s so much to still see and do...So with the lyrics from Dido: “I’ve still got sand in my shoes,” we leave the beach and make our way to the thick jungle and towering peaks of Guatemala.