Caye Caulker, Belize
When planning this trip in 2018 it came to my attention that there were multiple ways to enter Belize, by Air, by Bus, and by Boat.
You can fly to the International Airport in Belize City, though this is not always the most economical choice. If for some reason you are in Mexico, as we were, you can take a Domestic Flight to Chetumal, that sometimes only costs $40.
You will have to go by some form of boat to get to the Cayes. Again, there are opportunities that originate in Belize City, and crossing from Mexico from Chetumal.
This seemed like the worst option when I was doing my previous research, but maybe I was wrong. I maybe would have appreciated a rickety old bus on an unmaintained road. I’ll let you decide for yourself
Leaving Mexico
I consider myself to be a fairly “chill” person, and I like to cut costs in some areas but not others. We started in Mexico City and decided to fly to Chetumal to enter by boat. This had several advantages. Firstly, any flight from Mexico City to Belize City was going to reenter the United States somewhere before departing back south to Belize. It would have added hours onto the plane ride and hundreds of dollars. The flight from Mexico City to Chetumal needed to be an early flight, with a little bit of layover before taking a boat into Belize, so that’s the route we chose. I was not promised anything glamourous about Chetumal on TripAdvisor or any other blog, but I figured I can make my own fun anywhere, and my spirit for adventure would keep me inspired and optimistic.
Chetumal to San Pedro
The day started off with complete dysfunction and total chaos at the ticketing counter at the Mexico City Airport. Firstly, no less than 7 uber drivers canceled on us from the historical district of Mexico City. It was 4:00 in the morning, and we were surrounded by illogical one-way streets. It set the stage for the anxiety and frustrations to come. We arrived at the airport in the dark, at 5:00am and stood in line for 4 hours. Every half hour or so, a panic would set in that people in line were going to miss their flight, and so they would pull groups of people to the front of the line, thus setting the stage for the next round of panicking 30 minutes later. This was the exact fashion which we were finally ushered to the front of the line and then ran to our gate. Once we landed an hour later, we were introduced to Chetumal.
This tiny, tiny city only has two or three taxi drivers. And it was pouring when we arrived. We figured out where the departure point for our later boat ride was and then, well, we slogged around in the rain, ended up finding a bar with a thatch roof being invaded by stray dogs and we sadly drank beer with no Wi-Fi for like…7 fucking hours. We were soaked to the bone, dragging our carry-on luggage around the uneven sidewalks and puddles. Multiple places were closed. I did tear one of my flip flops and have to purchase new ones. People were nice to us, but no one spoke English, google translate couldn’t be called upon. If I could do it again, I would have happily paid the hundreds of dollars more to redirect through Houston and be sitting on a cramped airplane seat. That would have been heaven.
They did try to get us to pay the Mexican Tourism tax twice.
We finally get on the boat to Caye Caulker and I’m ready to put the rest of this behind us. But there was a little more to come. It was beautiful out on the water, it wasn’t too turbulent, but it was just an open boat crowded with about 30 people on it. I tucked in somewhere that I could be covered. I was soaking wet, slathered in sunscreen, dirty, and I didn’t want to get a sunburn on top of that. Red Head Problems.
Once we got to San Pedro some people who took their jobs very seriously got us through customs. There were drug sniffing dogs and the whole nine yards.
How can I explain what happened next? It could have been a dinner break? I’m not sure. We were told that the boat would depart from San Pedro to Caye Caulker in 90 minutes. Also, we could not leave the very tiny customs area to venture into the city of San Pedro. There was no Wi-Fi, and the snack stand was out of stock of beer. There were children around, that seemed to be the children of the employees. They were chatting about school and homework and sharing a dinner meal. How am I supposed to glare at them and display my annoyance? That seemed wrong. But again, we waited for no apparent reason, with no Wi-Fi for another 90 minutes, then we departed to Caye Caulker.
And now we are onto greener pastures, and turquoise blue waters
When we finally arrived in Caye Caulker we wearily departed the boat and started heading towards our hotel in the dark. Several locals gathered around the boat and offered to help us. “No” we said brusquely and continued to move past. “Let me get your bags,” someone with a golf cart called. “I’ll take you to your hotel.” “No” we insisted and continued on. When someone offered to give us directions to our hotel, we learned our first lesson on Caye Caulker.
And that was, that the people there were happy to see us. They wanted us to feel welcome on the island. They wanted us to know that the magical world of Belize and Caye Caulker would start here at the dock. They were not trying to make a dollar by guiding us to our hotel, they just wanted to make sure that we knew the way. There was such a striking contrast between the hustling that goes on when you exit international airports or enter out into a taxi zone or a subway—but this was not that. We ended up apologizing for the misunderstanding, and allowed someone to point out our hotel, and thanked them. The entire island is so small that it was about a 3-minute walk to the Rainbow Hotel.
The Rainbow Hotel
I booked this hotel after someone suggested we come to Caye Caulker for the sole purpose of staying here. I had a little bit of a trip up on hotels.com. I booked the hotel and stated very clearly that I wanted to pay when I arrived at the hotel. Shortly after my reservation, I was charged for the full amount. I went back and forth with hotels.com. They said I could cancel my reservation to get my money back. I said I didn’t want to cancel the reservation, I just wanted to pay when I arrived. The option was still available as I played with my hotels.com app on my phone. Hotels.com said it was the policy of the hotel to take payment at the time of the reservation. I ended up getting a $100 credit from hotels.com and I accepted that.
The Dry Season
Apparently, the wet season coincides with the season of decreased tourism in Belize. It lasts from Late Spring to Mid-Autumn. In our efforts to combine our Mexico City Grand Prix with something more fabulous as Belize we ended up in Caye Caulker around November 1st, 2018. It rained—heavily at times, and one of the coolest aspects of the Rainbow Hotel was still closed for the season, to be opening the very next week of course. The island was not very crowded, which can be good and bad, but I would have been fine waiting a bit longer to get reservations. I hope to come back again during December or January (my birthday month) because this is definitely a repeatable trip type of place.
Snorkeling Tour
I almost learned how to dive in anticipation of this trip. I was staring off at the incredible photographs of the Big Blue Hole and I wanted that to be the highlight of the trip. But I never learned how to dive, and it turns out that wasn’t as limiting as I had anticipated. They advertised it as a full day snorkeling trip, but with a 1030 start time, that seemed like a pretty sweet spot to have a leisurely morning before rushing off into our adventures.
We went with Ragamuffin Tours to Snorkel to Hol Chan reserve. Why? Because we just kept walking by, and everyone was so friendly and happy to help us. No one was hurried or trying to close the sale. When we said we still wanted to consider some other trip they didn’t change their tune at all. “Go Slow!” as we departed.
It turns out that the ocean for miles and miles around the islands is about level, and only about 10 feet deep. The water is clear, and you can always see underneath you to the bottom of the sea. Our first stop was the sketchiest of them all—and I haven’t even started talking about the sharks. The sky was gray, it was raining sharply, and the water was not still. I’m glad I’d had a few runs of snorkeling at Catalina, but every time I initially put the mask over my face, I do get mild anxiety. I swam quite a way away from the boat, I enjoyed the scenery, but I wasn’t wearing a wetsuit, which could have offered a little buoyancy. I only had a weird lifejacket, and I was doing my best to go limp and lay horizontal on the surface, trying not to resist the churning water so that I could just relax and be one with the water. Anyways…It was nice to get back on the boat!
Next stop was Shark Alley. This was really cool. As soon as the boat stopped the sharks straight up started rushing the boat. I think they feed the sharks, and this is like, a pavlovian response. But there was something about the sharks that made them seem—cute. Like something Pixar would have drawn up. They had kinda squishy faces, they were kinda pink colored, and seemed like they were smiling. After the initial rush of the boat they quickly lost interest in us, and if you hadn’t jumped off the boat right away to get into the thick of it with them you might have missed it. The water was calmer at this point, and after we finished it was time for lunch.
I forget what they fed us, but we had to order it the day before.
Then the rum started flowing. The third stop was the Coral Gardens. I don’t remember as much about this stop, maybe I felt I’d seen similarly beautiful corals before, and we did not see any manatee, I would have remembered that. I think the water was calmer at this stop, more relaxing, but after lunch, and such a long day, I was ready to be heading home.
When we approached Caye Caulker again it was from the West side of the island. The sun was setting, ceviche was being served, and it was truly breath taking. I think every evening in Caye Caulker I was delighted by the most incredible sunsets of my life, and then again, the next evening would bring something new.
RandOM Yoga at the Namaste Cafe
By the third day, we had completely absorbed our new island lifestyle and we started our day by “Going Slow.” By that I mean that we went to RandOM Yoga, above the Namaste Cafe. For an hour we were guided through a peaceful flow. There were expert yogis and newcomers alike. At the end of the class we were guided through a visualization exercise by a guest speaker. We were basically doing yoga on the third floor of an island tree house. How can you beat that? When the class was completed, we paid by donation. It was perfect! Downstairs at the Namaste cafe we enjoyed organic coffee and discovered that the owners are also authors of children’s books. I bought my little nephew a copy of “Caye Boy: Barefoot Adventures of an Island Child” and Jessica was sweet enough to even write a little note inside.
Wish Willy’s
This is like a giant backyard, where Willy cooks you barbecued food. The menu is pretty loose, and the atmosphere is casual. Willy feeds you soul food and you go home satisfied.
Paridiso Restaurant
We had breakfast here more than once. You have more than one option: Something light to start the day, or something heavy to kill the hangover. On the last day we determined that a customer that we kept seeing frequently was actually the owner. She definitely has something to be proud of in terms of the quality of the food and the kindness of her employees.
Roys Blue Water Grill
This was the first dinner we had on the island. Honestly, you need to order the lobster. You can have lobster anywhere on the island, good quality, large size, served anyway you want it. But the first meal needs to be lobster. Eat lobster until you are sick of it! We were sitting next to and chatting with a couple who had just purchased property on the other half of Caye Caulker across the split. They were designing their house. It was during that conversation that I decided that I wanted to buy property over there too, and live here forever, but maybe that was just the exhaustion, and booze, and delicious lobster talking.
The Lazy Lizard
This is a really cool bar. Its bright green and yellow and red, it’s covered with graffiti, it comes right up to the split, and all the young and beautiful people hang out here. There’s a pool, live music, everything you could ask for.
The Sports Bar
This place really is wild. The second night on the island a group of people got asked to move a few yards down the sidewalk so the bar could avoid any liability from the young man and the tattoo artist who had come to some sort of business agreement in between the fifth and the sixth drink. There’s dancing, and karaoke and carrying on. All the drinks have dirty names like “The Panty Ripper” and the “Filthy Sailor.” I got wasted and sang “Benny and the Jets.” No, I am not posting that video 🙂
The Cuban Bar
We ended up here a few times. Strong rum and good paella. This was the last place we set our bags down as we waited to move on to our next location.
Hanna Stables
As soon as I read about this place on TripAdvisor, I knew that there would be no other accommodations necessary for me. A horse stable, active organic farm, and a tour company, offering all-inclusive accommodations. Yes Please.
Here again though, we ran into trouble with our timing. Because while the property, room, and guided tours were everything that was advertised, well… we were literally the only guests staying on the property. I had read about the 16 rooms, and the community dinners, and well, some of that was missing for me.
I also want to point out that we spent day 9-12 here. And that we were much more relaxed than when we left Mexico, but we were coming down from the high that was Caye Caulker, and we were heading back into a rainy, gray, humid, jungle, where the bugs were expected, and the sweaty nights were getting more tedious, and the lumpy mattress was torturing me a lot more than if I had been bright eyed and bushy tailed on day one.
We started our day getting picked up by a very lovely, friendly, gentleman. He drove us from the docks of Belize City over to San Ignacio. This was a car ride that took several hours but was actually as enjoyable as it could have been. The man said that he drives people back and forth from Hanna Stables all the time, so maybe if you go there you can say hi to him and tell him how much we appreciated passing the time with him.
On the way into San Ignacio we stopped at the Belize Zoo.
The Belize Zoo
We all had something to eat and separated for a while. As we toured the zoo, a self-guided type of deal we saw a hundred different animals. Well, at least more than 10. I guess you could say that I’m an animal enthusiast. And just as an introvert needs alone time to recharge their batteries, I just need animals.
We saw many Tapirs, the national animal of Belize, as well as monkeys, crocodiles, deer, wild cats, large birds, snakes, and before we knew it, we had met back up with our driver. It turns out he’s been to this zoo a lot, and he had all these tips about “This cat is usually laying down in this side of the enclosure,” and “I often see this one over here” we were there for a long time, and took tons of pictures. With the monotony of the drive officially interrupted, we were ready to continue the rest of the way to San Ignacio.
We were shown our room and settled in to take a shower. It was hot an oppressively humid. I hung some things out on our porch to dry them out, but they just collected even more condensation. The hazy sky never quite turned blue, just turquoise shades of gray and white, there was just so much moisture in the air. The visibility wasn’t great, but if it had been, we would be able to see into Guatemala. Our host also pointed out some things to me. “In the morning,” he told me, “A toucan will come to our property. You will find it first in this tree, shortly afterward it will move to that tree, and then it will depart.”
The next morning, I watched that spectacle with wonder.
The ATM Cave
Okay, I’ll spell it out for you one time, I’m talking about Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave. And there is a lot of hype surrounding this cave. It was an ancient holy place where increasingly brazen and upsetting human sacrifices were taking place more than 1000 years ago. And yes, a lot of the hype is warranted. In fact, I would tell you that if you only do one thing on the mainland of Belize it should be this, it shouldn’t be missed! It should cause you to want to visit Belize, it is that cool, but it was also described to me as one of the most Incredible things I would ever achieve in all my life of traveling, and it didn’t quite meet that level of hype, but it was still cool. So, let’s talk about it.
There are a few private companies that offer this tour and Hanna Stables arranged everything for us to spend our day with Maya Walk Tours. Our guides were out of this world, they were knowledgeable down to the position we would set our feet down within cave. We wore helmets with lights on them, and we trusted them with our bodies and our minds. There were some portions of the cave where the guide would tell us to squat down half way, slide our back along a smooth rock, tuck our elbows up near our neck and turn our head to the left in order to slide through the narrowest of passages. They knew where the water was 2 feet deep on the right edge of this room, and 5 feet deep on the left. They warned us when there was an unexpected tall bolder that would bust up our shins. They knew this cave backwards and forwards, and as we stumbled through the dark, and blindly contorted our bodies through this narrow and dark cave, I felt confident that I would be okay.
This was the second of three trips through Mayan civilization on this trip, and with every new guide I learned more and more about their culture, their missteps, and the terrible tragedies that befell them as droughts upended their way of life in the 800’s to 1100’s AD. The guides of course filled us in on the details along the way, and my recollections do not do this justice. The first signs of sacrifices were early in the cave. Pottery mostly, and as we got deeper and deeper into the cave, I could feel the bravery of these historical peoples, trekking deeper and deeper into this foreboding cave, trying to appease an angry god by entering the underworld and bringing more and more elaborate offerings. They didn’t have the guides telling them not to step here or there. They were just carrying these items on faith or skill, or repetition (yikes), and sometimes the items were children.
There are skeletons of children, and even babies in the caves. Some are infants, some were toddlers, a few had approached school aged. Our guide told us that they were probably alive and unbound when they were abandoned. Something tormented about their crying and suffering drawing attention from the rain god. They Mayan’s believed that this cave was an entrance into hell.
The crown jewel of the cave is the Crystal Maiden. She is said to have been 18 years old when she died, her broken vertebrae lend to theories of particular violence. Our guide told us that that it was probably an adolescent boy. He probably volunteered, they say now, he was probably very proud to do everything he could to offer something to the gods. The idea was to stop the oppressive lack of water and famine that was unrelentingly unraveling their culture. He was probably disemboweled and left there before he had succumbed to death, and now because of the mineral environment within the cave the minerals covering his skeleton sparkle. These human sacrifices were late attempts to up the ante about 1000-1200 years ago. And the drought didn’t end, and the Mayan eventually had to abandon their cities to seek more fertile ground.
We were not allowed to take pictures within the cave. First, because it was wet, dark, and perilous, but also because there have been so many abuses. There was literally an instance of someone dropping a camera on a skull while trying to take a close up. Therefore, we were only provided stock photos from our experiences.
It’s an hour walk to through the jungle to get to the mouth of the cave, and I was happy for the rum they served us at lunch after such a somber morning. It was an absolute must do, but David and I are huge fans of caves, and if the history of the sacrifices and the skeletons weren’t present, it would have been WAY less interesting. I ended up wearing cheap knock off Merrill shoes, they managed the trip, but I haven’t had the opportunity to wear them again.
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