Caye Caulker, Belize - American Adventures 2015 (Part 3 of 9)

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I left Playa Del Carmen and hopped onto a bus to the small country of Belize. My sister has done this Central America trip before so she told me I have to have to have to go to the island of Caye Caulker in Belize ... and that's where I decided to go.

It was a night bus journey taking 8 hours. As I reached border control I remembered an article I read earlier saying that if you are in Mexico for only a few days then don't pay the exit fee despite how much they try and force you to do so. I was tempted to hide on the bus or run around the customs building to the other side and cheat the system (easily doable) but I opted to stay within the boundaries of the law .... in Mexico there are a lot of rifles walking about so it's best to avoid being shot. The official on duty that night was clearly bored as he didn't ask anybody to pay, just waved everyone through ... it was 3am after all ... woohoo, I saved 5 quid.

Next up was the Belize entry customs. Here they seemed laid back as I watched the queue in front of me grow smaller and everybody getting waved through. However, as soon as they looked at me I was searched and quizzed. No matter, it didn't take too long to convince them I wasn't smuggling powder from Mexico and that the bag of powder in my bag was for cookery .... honest.

After a few more hours on the bus we finally arrived into Belize City. This is quite an old not well-maintained city and has a reputation for being dangerous ... very old skool with painted 1960s buses that the US had donated to central america .... the so-called chicken buses, all different funky colours.

The next step was to get to the water taxi station. All other travellers flagged down a taxi as they didn't want to walk through the dangerous city. I did the opposite ... I don't like to listen to the negative hype ... all placed I've been to where people say is dangerous have been great experiences with great people ... and so was the walk through Belize City with my suitcase, asking rastas for directions .... they were loving it ... as was I.

When I arrived at the Water Taxi station the other travellers were there waiting so I hadn't lost any time ... just had more fun in the process. There was an Indian guy working at the shop inside who I was chitchatting away to, searching for shampoo and body wash ... I made him pull out 11 different brands, I gotta look after my body after all. When I asked how I get back from Caye Caulker island to mainland, he gave me his number and said to call him and he can arrange a bus to Guatemala ... he's the go-2-guy ... cool, making connections already. I didn't buy his shampoo tho, rip-off ... put 'em back in the box brother.

The water taxi took 45 minutes and was rougher than a night in Guantanamo Bay, bouncing around the water like crazy. It was worth it ... on the other end lay paradise, like I've never experienced before. Caye Caulker was a tiny island yet stunning. It was a lot quieter than normal so not high season, perfect for me. Plenty of tourists about and locals wanted to befriend you. 90% of the female travellers I met were blonde (the hair I mean ... just an observation I made). This is the kind of place where everyone talks to everyone and after a couple of days you start doing the same, nothing like city life.

I had booked accommodation in a popular hostel which was unfortunately called 'Dirty McNastee' ... this name scared me .... it scared me a lot, I thought they'd be serving me a breakfast omelette in a condom ... scared more so because it was on Crocodile St (named as there is actually a Crocodile on that street). However, let's not judge a book by it's cover ... or name, so off I went and all was well, nothing nasty about it. I was way too early for check-in but they gave me free breakfast whilst I waited. Chef Jason comes in every morning to cook for the guests .... he's retired and well-off, this is his hobby so he comes by and chitchats and makes people laugh and cooks up delights, then goes off and unwinds for the rest of the day under the sun.

At night they have free rum punch and games for travellers to have fun. I used to play pool with a local builder who was such a hustler he'd play with 1-arm and still whoop my ass and take my Belizean Dollar. One night there was a typhoon and we couldn't get to the other side where the bedrooms were so I ended up being hustled all night.

The island itself is pretty small ... I went for a walk and went from one end to the other in 20 mins. On my way I booked a snorkelling tour, melted another local with my eyes and got a deep tissue massage to relax the body after the long bus journey. I was reminded on a number of occasions the motto of this island .... 'Go Slow'. There are signs and tshirts and posters saying 'Go Slow' all over the island. I was walking too fast when I 1st got there, and by fast I mean snail pace to London standards ... yet a local stopped me ... "hey relax man ... u don't wanna be walkin like dat or u gonna get speedin ticket maaan, go slow bruda .... sloooowwwww" .... so my 20 mins walking back became 45 mins, including the stop at the shop to buy me some jazmine-scented shampoo ... my hair was gonna feel silky smooth that night, ooh la laaa.

Currency here is straight-forward, you can either pay in Belizean dollars or US dollars, and 2 Belizean dollar = 1 US dollar, always ... no complex conversions or exchange rate fluctations, noone is trying to rip you off like they were in Mexico exchanging from Pesos to USD. There is also a single ATM on the island (relatively new, prior to this if you didn't have enough money you'd have to get a boat back to the island, and if no money for that, swim and hope for the best).

I was on the island for 5 days but relaxed most of the time on hammocks and striking up conversations with randoms. There was an outdoor cinema, yoga, a place to sunbathe called 'the split' and the snorkelling and diving events, not much else. I went to one of the rooftop sunset yoga sessions and it's on a 1st come 1st serve basis. The class was overbooked but I really wanted to go so when the teacher said there's one more space left I ran in front of everybody and claimed it .... not very zen of me I know, but 'u shnooze u lose' ... simples.

The island didn't have a beach but 'the split' was where everyone sunbathed .. it was a wooden deck at the part of the island which at some point in the past split into 2 during a storm. Great vibe here, reggae music, everyone making friends, a bar, jumping into the sea, local food stalls.

If I could sum up Caye Caulker in 3 words, it'd be: Rum, Reggae, Rastafarians ... with Bob Marley their king. The local Reggae bar was the go-2-spot with hammock swings, poles on the dance floor, cool vibe. It was in fact Bob Marley's birthday while I was there ... I learnt this as I walked on the streets and a local shouted "It's Bob Marley birday maaan, have a coconaat wid me" ... and I thought he was bullplopping just to sell me a coconut so I told him I didn't believe him ... later Google told me I was the numpty.

The snorkelling trip was unreal. I'd booked it with a company for the following day, but the weather wasn't great so I said I'd like to postpone it for another day. They weren't too happy but when I asked "would you go today?" and received the reply "no way" I told them to "not waste my money then, this sh!ts expensive, we postpone". When I did go it was amazing ... I've snorkelled in the Philippines but this is on another level. The reefs, big colorful turtles, manta rays, all sorts of amazing creatures. I was in a scene of Finding Nemo for 3 hours. I got to swim with sharks and almost had my hand eaten by piranha-type fish.

It didn't take me long to relax into the simple life. I'd even started doing my own laundry, which was a confusing experience at first. I was asking the local women for tips and they were super-happy to help, giving me powders and fabric softeners and telling me what to do. When I washed all the clothes I hung them up and was pleased with my efforts, until another local woman came by to tell me that's not the way to hang up wet clothes or I'd be waiting days for them to dry ... and gave me more tips ... it was great.

On my final day I went to eat at "Auntie's Take Away". I was getting frustrated as other people were getting served before me and I wasn't getting heard ... but then I remembered the motto of the island to Go Slow and Relax ... shouted out my order in peace and all was Ok. Waiting for the food I responded to many more Shaloms .... for some reason people on this island thought I was Israeli so I kept getting greeted with a 'Shalom' here and a 'Shalom' there ... in the end I gave up explaining that I wasn't and just went with it ... 'Shalom brother'.

I got up early to catch the 6am water taxi back to the mainland to hop onto a bus to Guatemala. I'd bought the ticket from some stall on the island but when I got back to the mainland, that Indian guy was upset with me because I didn't use him. I made friends on Caye Caulker and we were all going to Guatemala together .... the journey continued ...

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