We flew into Belize City from Panama City and stayed a night at the Ramada Hotel. The next day we put our big bags in storage at the hotel and hit the road with a small backpack each.

There is not much to see in Belize City, we wondered around town in the afternoon, as it got dark it had a seedy feel about it, so we walked on back to our hotel. As we were returning to Belize City to catch up with our friends Paul and Steffi we headed straight for the famous ATM caves the next morning, about a two hour drive inland.

Lois our guide from KaWiil Belize Tours was exceptionally skilled and knowledgable about Mayan culture, the history of the caves, and secret passages/tunnels in the cave. He was one of the firsts guides to start tours in the caves and pointed out to us a number of things that had changed since tourism was allowed. One of the changes are no cameras are allowed in the caves because some muppet dropped his camera on a human skull, damaging the 1200 year old artefact.

It was an amazing day with a mix of adventure, fun, history, and culture. Not having a camera actually added to the experience as you paid more attention to your surroundings rather than taking photos. At $100USD the trip is expensive but we think it is well worth it for the experience.  A tasty lunch was provided by Luis (well Luis’s wife). After lunch he kindly dropped us off at the border to Guatemala, so we could continue our journey.

One thing we noticed about Belize, it was a novelty hearing English spoken again after 10 months in Spanish speaking countries.  Belize has a completely different feel to the rest of Central America, there is a definite carribean/creole feel to it. The locals speak a very colourful English and we really had to concentrate to understand!

As New Zealanders we were excited to discover a town called Hokey Pokey. Hokey Pokey is a popular ice cream flavour back home.  In Belize Hokey Pokey is the town where we got the water taxi to a coastal fishing village called Placencia. Placencia is a popular holiday spot for both tourists and locals.

When we arrived off the boat we went looking for accommodation. Unbeknown to us the Placencia Lobster Festival was on and the whole town was completely booked out. After walking around in the heat of the day for three hours searching for accommodation we finally found a place about 30 minutes north of town called The Singing Sands Inn. It was a lovely relaxing place to stay, and had a pool! We could get the public bus from outside the hotel back down to Placencia to explore the town and enjoy the lobster festival .

We returned to Belize City to meet up with good friends from Dunedin who were going to be traveling with us for the next 2 weeks. We met Paul and Steffi (Paulie the Blade, and Captain Roddick) off the plane and had them in their “touring outfit” in no time. After a day wandering around Belize City we bolted for Caye Caulker – a small island on the second largest coral reef system in the world.

This was more like it! Caye Caulker has sand roads, lots of accommodation, bars, restaurants, tour operators, and a super laid back reggae island feel. North of the island is busy, and has lots happening. South of the island is more laid back and where the locals live. We stayed in the north to be amongst it.

We had booked months ago to go on the three day island hopping Raggamuffin Tour on a sailing boat. This is supposed to be the thing to do in Belize, and we had heard from many independent travellers that this was the highlight of their trip. Unfortunately for us they didn’t have enough clients to run the trip. We were gutted as we had been looking forward to this for 4 months!

We met Jacob (The Spearfishing Shack), who was going to be the boat captain for the three day trip and general all round nice guy. He was gutted for us that the trip had been cancelled, but could fit us in for a personalised snorkelling, spearfishing, and manatee viewing day trip in two days time. Then he had to return to the mainland for the birth of his second child.

The next day Paul and Steffie and I went on a snorkelling tour to the blue hole and other Cayes (islands). It was a 2hr speed run out to the blue hole, where we snorkelled along the reef at the edge. We had two more snorkels throughout the day and stopped on a island for lunch. The coral and fish life here was exceptional. There were all kinds of reef fish, massive barracuda, turtles, eagle rays, conch and very colourful corals. After a 2hr ride back to Caye Caulker we were throughly knackered from all the sun and water, but still had a big grin on!.

Meanwhile Jeanette had been back to Belize City to pick up our luggage in storage at the Ramada and shifted us to different accommodation on the island. When we got back from our snorkelling trip she was chilling in a hammock.

We think we found the best place to stay at Caye Caulker – the lovely Sea n Sun Guesthouse (www.seaandsunguesthouse.com). Evelyn is the lady in charge and she is a real gem. Short in stature, with the heart of a lion and the attitude of a tiger. She has a radiant smile and we had some great laughs with her. This small boutique guest-house is clean, funky, affordable and well run, defiantly stay here! They also have bikes and kayaks you can use for free.

For our next snorkelling/manatee trip we met Jacob early at the Ragamuffin dock and got kitted out with snorkelling gear, then jumped into his boat. We were the first boat on the water and saw the tail of the manatee as he disappeared out to sea. Never mind we would return later in the day when all the other boats had gone and try again.

Time for some spearfishing! I have 20 years spearfishing experience and after a few local pointers from Jacob, I was off sniffing about. Paul had never done any spearfishing before so Jacob spent the time with him showing him what to do.

Steffi and Jeanette were stoked to be checking out the amazing coral formations and fish life. Spearfishing in tropical coral gardens with 40m – 50m visibility is quite tricky! The fish can see you coming and have tonnes of coral to hide in. We got some fish, and really enjoyed hunting in crystal water wearing only board shorts!

After a few hours swimming about at different locations we made our way back to the area where the manatee hang out. True to form Jacob had found a manatee and we all jumped in as it swam about for a couple of minutes then moved off. These are amazing animals, and we feel fortunate to have seen them.

After two big days on and in the water we were all a bit shattered, but party J had us all dressed up and out to enjoy the Lobster Festival celebrations in Caye Caulker. Yes we managed to hit another Lobster Festival – what are the chances? Luckily this time we had accommodation.

We walked about town enjoying the festive atmosphere and watched the Caye Caulker  Beauty Pageant before retiring to Evelyns place for some well earned sleep.

We hung out in Caye Caulker for another day and cycled around the island sampling the Caribbean culture and Caye Caulker vibes. There were some classic characters on the island, like the “Taste Belize” cake man below.

The next morning we packed our bags onto the ferry for the four hour boat ride to Chetumal in Mexico.

Some hot tips for Belize.

• Do the ATM caves – expensive but worth it. Lois is your man for a small personalised trip.
• There is a small park on the waterfront in Belize City, across the road from Tropicana Casino. The BTL park has cheap and varied food stalls with puposas, tacos, hamburgers, fried chicken, ice-cream and fruit smoothies. Lots of locals eat here. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Don’t spend more than 24hrs in Belize city – there really is not much to see there.
• Stay with Evelyn at Sea n Sun Guesthouse in Caye Caulker – she is a gem and you won’t regret it!
• The creole curry at Maggies Sunset Kitchen( just down the road from Sea n Sun) is SMOKING good!
• If you can’t do the three day Ragamuffin tour then book a trip with Jacob – The Spearfishing Shack. Super nice guy who grew up on the island and knows the local coral reefs like its his back yard – which it is!
• Do a snorkelling/diving trip out to the coral reefs. It is outstanding and some of the best snorkelling we have ever done (we have snorkelled heaps of places in the world).