B E L I Z E

We took off from Boston at 7am and by the end of the day were sitting on the porch of our stilted cabin in Caye Caulker enjoying the ocean view and a Belikin. Caye Caulker is a small island about a 50 min water taxi ride from Belize City. It sits on the edge of the world’s second largest barrier reef. It’s a pretty laid back island with only 1 or 2 cars (mainly just golf carts), sand streets, and an early to be early to rise rhythm since it got dark at 5:30pm (no day light savings in Belize).

Sunrise (5:30am) the first morning in Caye Caulker

It stormed for a while in the morning, but cleared in time to go snorkeling (well, cleared until it started storming again, but we were in the water at that point, so not much difference)

Out on the reef

The rain returns

Beans and rice! (not served in Mexico, though many think it is)

Sunrise the morning we left the island

After leaving Caye Caulker, we took the water taxi back to Belize City and then from the bus station caught a bus to Orange Walk. From Orange Walk, we caught another bus to Sarteneja, a small fishing town on the coast. We are spoiled with buses in Mexico, they are generally really nice and somewhat roomy. Belize however, uses old school buses that have not been updated for non-elementary school sized people. We're not really sure what happened, but while we were waiting to leave for Sarteneja, a man who was trying to run off the back of the bus was aprehended by police and placed in the back of the cop car. That started a series of slow events on our way to Sarteneja. First there was the driving rain that made it impossible to see and turned the dirt road into a river of mud. Then we had to stop to refuel....at a bar. Some guy started pouring jugs of gas into the bus while our bus driver headed inside for a few beers. 15 min later we were on our way again, slipping and sliding the rest of the way to Sarteneja.

1 random picture of Belize City

Sarteneja is a sleepy little fishing town. There's really not much going on in the town, but just up the road is a natural protected area. We arrived in the afternoon to clouds of mosquitos, quickly set up our tent and then ran to the ocean to swim (the only place without mosquitos). The plan had been to spend the next morning doing to the nature reserve, but we found out that the only buses out of Sarteneja leave at 4:30am, 5am, 5:30am, 6am, and 6:30am, so we ended up having to take the 6:30am bus out. Since it is a fishing village, the bus schedule is designed to get the fisherman from town down to Belize City and their fishing boats. After standing for the 2 hour ride, we arrived back in Orange Walk and caught a bus up to Corozal Town for a last meal of beans and rice before crossing back over into Mexico.