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Published: February 10th 2009
Goff's Caye
Where we stayed on our first night sailing.Every great trip has to start somewhere. After a great visit in Vancouver, we flew overnight to Belize for our first taste of Central America.
Landing in Belize City, we hopped on a water taxi and headed out to Caye Caulker, the popular backpackers hangout. With “Go Slow” as the island motto, we did our best to get into the traveling groove, enjoying the island life for a few days. After a few relaxing days of trying not to get too badly sun burned, we decided to try a sailing trip down the Coast. Despite word of a “cold front” circulating around town we hopped on the “Island Lady” and sailed for three days down to Placencia .
The cold front ended up being strong winds and in fact cool weather and was a bit of a downer on otherwise a pretty neat trip. Luckily we were in great company with couples from Britain and Sweden and a fellow Canadian… and lots of Belikins, the national beer. The sailing was great with wind pushing us down the coast. However, this also created some big waves which limited the snorkeling along the reef and it was too rough
to get to the good spots. Despite the weather we had fun, especially camping on tiny little islands with only a few palm trees for protection.
With the weather not getting any better on the coast, we took to the jungle in search of the elusive jaguar in Cockscomb Basin Sanctuary. For a full day, we hiked around 30 kms of trail through the tropical moist forest of central Belize. Except for tracks, no jaguars to be found this trip, but we were quite impressed with the leaf cutter ants and a cute little ant bear that we came across on our hikes. Also to be found were tapir tracks, beautiful waterfalls and lush jungle (like walking into Walt Disney’s “Jungle Book”) which were a very cool experience for both of us.
With no sign of the beach weather to the coast, we hopped on a few busses and headed even further inland into the Cayo district in Western Belize. Meeting up with a few other Canadians, we rented a car and cruised around Pine Forest National Park, checking out beautiful limestone pools, rivers, caves and waterfalls.
Our last day of Belize was definitely
Top of Ben's Bluff in Cockscomb Wildlife Sanctuary
Mt. Victoria on the left is the highest peak in Belize one of the highlights going on a tour to the Actun Tunichil Muknal caves. After hiking to the mouth of the cave across rivers and through a jungle, we started by holding onto everyone and following our guide, pitch black, into a stream coming out of a cave. Enveloped by darkness, waist deep in water, we both agreed afterwards that it was the darkest place we have ever been. Luckily we were all well equipped with headlamps and we hiked up the underground stream until we reached a massive cave filled with Maya artifacts and even skeletal remains! It was a very unique experience.
With those adventures under our belts, we are off to Guatemala tomorrow to continue the journey. For anyone thinking of Belize we would recommend it. It is fairly expensive and we didn’t have the greatest weather but it definitely was easy to travel in. The people were very friendly and the food was good. Andrew is yet to tire of Chicken, rice and beans though Britt might think otherwise…
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mama
non-member comment
We love your blog and the map of your travels. Your cold front is relative to the Yukon! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us. Looking forward to more. mom and dad