You better Belize it

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Belize

The next morning we got back on the bus to cross over to Belize. We got off at the crossing to go to immigration, then had to walk over the bridge to Belize and go thru customs. We got thru customs and thought our bus had left, but a guy helped us spot it 400m down the road. Belize is on the Caribbean and we were back in English speaking territory. Most of them speak Creole, and even if you try real hard, you cant understand what they are saying. We took the ferry to Caye Caulker, and as soon as we got off, a local guy Paul wanted to takeus around to find some accommodation. He broke my backpack strap, but for the first time, he wasnt someone trying to hassle us for money, he works off commission. Caye Caulker is a small island, if you are on the street, you can see thru to the ocean on both sides. It is super clean and has white sand roads and beaches and the water is tropical paradise, all different shades of blue and turquoise. Paul assured us if you werent already in love, youd fall in love here. They have no cars on the island, only golf carts and bicycles, super cruisy.

We were real glad to be rid of Mexican music and food. Its the land of Bob Marley, reggae and finally good fish and lobster . And rice and beans...which should really be called rice with a few beans. Food and drink prices are pretty much the same as American prices, since it is an island. Internet was $10-hour. The diving is more expensive as well, but we wanted to do our open water certificate here so we could dive in Honduras as well. The reef in Belize is the second biggest in the world, only to the almighty Great Barrier Reef. The course was 4 days, the first day 4 hours of videos and questions, and then you do 6 dives after that.

The third day we went to Hol Chan, and as soon as we got underwater, you could see nurse sharks everywhere. We saw the most fish at this site. Another group was under as well, and they had a plastic tube about 1m long with holes in it. It must have had food in it, and the smell was attracting all the sharkies, who were swarming it. This one girl was grabbing thelp,mçlo sharks and hugging them super tight, it was like she wanted them to swim away with her, even though she was way bigger than them. We were secretly hoping they would bite her. The other dives were okay, but the coral is pretty muted, nothing like the bright colors in Australia.

At one end of the island was the Lazy Lizard, a bar on the water, with tables in the water, and a big diving board. I was telling Michael how I could do 1.5 flips off it, and he peer pressured me into doing it. I was fine not trying, as everyone in the bar is watching and everyone diving off. As I was walking out, thelocal guy was singing, ´¨show em what you got pretty mama, show em what you got pretty lady´. I jumped off and landed straight on my face. I must have had my eyes open, cause I lost one contact and it blew out both my nose studs as well...and I almost cried. Expensive dive. Funny dive. Michael also had a funny moment when we were diving, it was our second last dive and we went down deeper than 60 feet and Michael got narked which is when you get to much nitrogen in your body and it makes you all drunk and confused under water. Once he realized he had to go up to 40 or so feet to get the excess nitrogen out of his body.

The last night on Caye caulker we thought we would treat ourselves to a big fat lobster, it was amazing cooked over an open flame with garlic butter. It was big enough to feed us easily and all for $25. There wasn´t much happening, so we did a pub crawl, but from corner store to corner store and then headed to the local reggae bar where we did some serious crumpin. The next morning we took the ferry back to Belize City to make our way down to Honduras.

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