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Published: November 26th 2006
view from our hotel door
this was the view our room had on caye caulker. it was right on the beach and we arrived just after sunset. it was stunning.Claire:
Caye Caulker:
We left Playa del Carmen and traveled 8 hours south and across the border into Belize. From Belize City we took a quick and bumpy water taxi out to the tiny Caribbean island of Caye caulker, a few miles of the Belizean coast. We arrived quite late and so did nothing but have a little dinner that night and book our snorkeling trip for the next day.
We woke up the next morning and wandered barefoot from our little beachfront room (fantastic view!) along to the little dock where our sailboat waited to take the whole tour group sailing. There were a few other people that came along on the trip and maybe about 20 in total. We got all geared up and headed out to the high seas! Ross got a bit ill (may be a slight understatement) which was rubbish and meant he wasn’t up for any snorkeling so I pottered about on my own in the water. We stopped in 3 sites for snorkeling: a normal bit of reef for a free for all ‘getting used to the water’ swim; Shark Ray alley (eeeek!); and Hol Chan nature reserve.
I took loads of
belize city docks
we waited here for our water taxi. what we saw of belize city (the former capital of belize)wasnt very pretty so it was good that we were only passing through. blurry pictures on our crappy underwater camera so Ross can really feel like he was under the water too (not!) but I doubt any of them will turn out.
The reef that runs down this coast is the second largest barrier reef after the Great Barrier Reef so I was expecting something quite spectacular. There were loads of cool fishes everywhere but most of the coral we saw out on the reef was dead or damaged due to the last hurricane that hit the coast. Even Ross was able to see the huge stingray and sharks in the aptly named shark alley and he stayed firmly of the boat. I touched a stingray!!! But the 4 foot nurse sharks stayed well clear of the snorkel groups. The captain of the boat caught a couple of lobster and made us some ceviche with it for the trip back to Caye Caulker (ceviche is any kind of seafood uncooked and sort of mixed with lime and chili salsa - super tasty). We were also forcibly fed extra strong rum punch (drink faster people!) and by the time we got back to shore I was having trouble standing on the deck (because
water taxi to caye caulker
we got a packed water taxi from belize city across to caye caulker, a bumpy 45 minute ride off the coast. of the big waves obviously…).
That night we chilled out on the beach and had fresh fish and lobster bbq with heaps of garlic (my first real try of lobster and it was amazing!) then we went to a local bar with swings and lots of Rasta music and U.V. lights for more rum.
The people on the island are ridiculously friendly and have such a relaxed way of life. They always shout at visitors ‘Go slow man! Where you going so fast?’. Belize is a mainly English speaking country but everyone speaks Kriol too, a broken Rasta English that has become a language in its own right. It’s really easy to listen to, even if you have no idea what’s being said.
San Ignacio:
We left the island sadly (there was talk of mutiny against the tour leader so we could stay longer) and headed inland to western Belize and San Ignacio. We stayed at a little place called the Trek Stop which has loads of little wooden cabins out in the jungle. Just on the way to breakfast you could see howler monkeys, loads of butterflies, about 10 different bird species, and a squirrel type
lobster dinner
the whole group and some other random people we met on the snorkelling and diving tours we did earlier in the day had a big lobster dinner on picnic table on the beach animal called a coati.
Our cabin was great and the cool jungle noises at night rocked (loads of crickets) but the spiders really didn’t rock. Opening our cabin door to find a 3 inch wolf spider on the bed post was not the best greeting. The night we arrived one of the owners, a lovely man called john, came to welcome us at dinner and afterwards let some of the group hold his pet tarantula. I was on the other side of the room peeking around the door. Later, as I was emailing mum, a freelance non-pet tarantula scuttled across the floor of the computer room/museum. John came to take it away and it crawled onto his back so he couldn’t get it off him. Needless to say I was absolutely piddling myself.
Anyways, we left early the next morning for an expedition to a nearby cave called Actun Tunichil Muknal (or ATM) which the Maya were known to have used for ceremonies as they thought it represented the underworld. We had to walk through the jungle to get there for about 40 mins (crossing a waist deep river 3 times) and then swim through the pool at
the cave entrance to get into the cave system itself. We spent about 4 hours in the caves, most of it at least thigh deep in water and clambering up and down big heaps of rocks (Craig you would have loved it!). The stalagmites and other formations were really beautiful and our guide was great. We got to the big ceremonial chamber eventually and walked in our socks through big piles of Mayan pottery and the skeletons of their sacrificial victims (the whole day was a bit surreal…). We took pictures but found it really hard to get a sense of the scale of the cave so let me tell you they were bloody massive and extra impressive. We returned to the cabins and found a 4 inch wolf spider on the roof. John tried to catch it but it was horrifyingly fast so he left us with a can of super strong evil killer bug spray and we managed to get the beast so I could go to sleep. We used so much of that spray I'm amazed I ever woke up again but it was a spider (and ant, and beetle, and every kind of insect) free night.
lobster chef
this is our dinner getting cooked on the bbq. this guy was pretty cool and sat and chatted to us for most of the night. Thankfully that was all the time we spent in spiderland and the next morning we left to cross the Guatemalan border.
I’m so sad we didn’t spend longer in Belize, it was a beautiful and fun country and the people were great. Maybe I’ll come back for a longer visit another time….
Ross:
Caye Caulker
happily we left the tourist hell of Playa del carmen and took a long bus trip to Chetumal were we swapped to a rickety chicken bus for the short hop over the boarder into belize and on to belize city. then caught a water taxi to Caye Caulker arriving just before sunset at possibly the coolest place on earth. the island has only three streets: Front, Middle and Back Street all of which are sandy tracks and traffic consits of bikes and golf carts. everyone is just happy to see you and wasn't long before the shoes were thrown off and stoating about barefoot like the locals. its impossible not to be chilled out on the island great scenery, great people and the local brew, Belikin, is great.
Claires comment about me being a bit unwell on the snorkel trip is a
the split bar
the split is where the island of caye caulker was literally split in 2 by a bad hurricane a few years ago. this cool little bar was right on the water that filled the split. serious understatment. half an hour into the trip my part digested breakfast was providing an excellent chum to attract fish for my fellow snorkellers.made a spectacular recovery as my foot hit the jetty and spent the rest of the night getting drunk with some excellent lobster BBQ.
San Ignacio:
Mutiny averted a very sad and dejected tour group spent our last couple of hours on the island, before catching the water taxis back to Belize City. Here we transferred to several taxis for a trip through town to catch our ride to San Ignacio from the bus station.
Belize City is totally bizarre from the descent chunk of the city we seen all the buildings are a ramshackle hodgepodge of wood and corrugated iron, strangest of all had to be the drive through bank machines?
Several bumpy and cramped hours later we reached the Trek Stop and Claire’s spider hell! Things started nicely; our cabin was furthest away from everyone else’s in the dense jungle (positive I could hear duelling banjos). Opening the cabin door, with only a torch to guide me in the pitch black I spotted an incredible drawing of a massive spider on the one
of the bed posts. When I found the light switch however I discovered it wasn’t a very good drawing, and Claire’s hysterical fit proved it was pretty real.
While Claire ran around gibbering in fear trying to find something for me to remove our squatter I kept an eye on the beastie least it should hide and crawl into Claire’s mouth while she slept (not that she would have slept in the cabin if it had).
With Claire cowering outside in an arachnophobia induced coma our tour leader Francesca provided me with a coffee cup to trap the spider. This thing could move like lightning but I eventually caged the beast severing the tips of its legs in the process and ejected it outside into the undergrowth.
The next day we were off to the ATM cave. This was spectacular, a nice stroll through the jungle, wading through rivers, swimming into a massive cave then clambering over massive rocks. Unbeatable and the closest we’ve come to any rock climbing since we got here.
Got back to another arachnid intruder who refused to be captured this time and as a result had to be terminated with a chemical assault that would
fishing the split
the current at the split was a bit strong so the fishing there was excellent and there were lots of birds just plucking the fish from the water. make UN weapons inspectors suspicious. We tried getting photos of this one but on the camera the spider looked about 2cm long.
Wish we could have spent a lot longer in Belize. Only wish we hadn’t wasted so much time in Mexico at the start of the trip, Cancun and Playa Del Carmen give you no sense of the real Mexico just Blackpool for stupid Americans.
C’est la vie, on to Guatemala.
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Greg Stevens(from Ross's work lol)
non-member comment
Hey
Hey guys, i'v been lookin at ure pics since u left, but didnt realise u can subscribe! It looks like u have been to some amazing places already! keep up the good pics! oh and the pics of the cave entrance look amazing! Anyway hope ure havin a good time! Greg