Its February again so it's time to go South. Its been Belize for four straight years, recently Caye Caulker for 3 times. I looked around for something as a change but couldn’t find anything that excited me. I looked at Roatan and Costa Rica but finally decided San Pedro would be a change so we headed for Ambergris Caye.
The decision about where to stay is important. In town is pretty active. South of town is accessible and nice. North of town can present some transportation challenges. I decided life might be easier south of town rather than the north. Whatever we needed we could find down there. That proved to be true. We got a two bedroom suite at Banana Beach.
The
flights down were uneventful and we arrived in Belize at around 12:30. We got
to
Banana Beach at around 2:00. Check-in was a breeze and the suite was nice
with a good view. The pina-coladas weren’t bad either. We went ahead and had
dinner at El Divinio at the hotel since nothing else was close. The grouper was
very good. We worked with Monkey Business Travel at the hotel to set up a snorkeling trip
to
Bacalar Chico on Monday.
Sunday was deemed an exploring day. We went for an early
morning walk down past Victoria House before breakfast at El
Divinio.
Breakfast was included in
the price and was very good. Victoria House is impressive to see.
There's a few pictures in the Around Ambergris album. We spent the rest of the morning walking up the
beach and wandering around town. Jean from Trip Advisor suggested we go to BC’s
for the BBQ. The food was great and we met some nice people. I finally got to
hear
Dennis Wolf sing Gringo in Belize, too. We walked back to the hotel to
work off all the food and Belikins.
Monday
we took a snorkeling trip to Bacalar Chico. Its a 20 mile boat ride
without good cushions. We went past
Cayo Espanto to see all those $1700 per night places and headed to El Iguano
a small island full of birds including young Roseate Spoonbills. They were a
splash of pink in the mangroves. It would have been nice to have a better
camera with me. The trip continued to San Juan, the park headquarters. Its an
old Mayan spot but has been heavily excavated at this point. We got a brief
history of the place and had a great lunch. Lunch is done and still no
snorkeling.
We
went to
Altun Ha and the
Community Baboon Sanctuary on Tuesday. We wanted to go by boat but
Monkey Business set it up as a flight to Belize City and a guide from there. I
decided later that was fine because it would have been another real long boat
ride. The problem they had was finding enough people to fill the boat. We went to Altun
Ha first to avoid the cruise shippers. It’s a nice ruin and is larger than
I expected. We were a party of 3 with a guide. When we got back to
the parking lot, there were two large busses. By the time we got back to
back to the road, we passed 6 more busses. Their experiences were going to be
a lot different than ours.
From there it was off to the Baboon Sanctuary. (Baboon
being a British reference for howler monkey.) We didn’t get near one but could
see them. There was
a territorial dispute going on and they fight by howling. It was loud.
Actually it was probably cooler than normal. We stopped at an unusual place for
lunch. It was in Burrell Boom I think. A lady was set up in a rickety shelter
selling beans, rice and chicken. It made a good lunch in a place I wouldn’t
have stopped on my own. Nothing like an authentic Belizean lunch.
We had an informal tour of Belize City on the way back. Parts of it is more interesting than I expected. The newer section by the water is kind of impressive. The cost of the tour, including flights, was $150 which didn't seem to bad for all it included. We made it back in time for dinner at Sunset Grill, even though we missed sunset. Dinner was good but not significantly better than El Divinio.
We
couldn’t go to Belize without stopping in
Caye Caulker for a day. We talked to Carlos Ayala for a while. We stopped
and met some of our daughter Moment’s friends. There were several selling their
crafts and arts at the new stands. The Lazy Lizard has been fixed up some. The
picnic tables in the water looked nice. A couple of guys were enjoying the
diving board. It looked like they had also reduced the beach area in an effort
to shore it up. We saw a new coffee shop over the water and a new restaurant
where the sports bar used to be. Rasta Pasta has moved but their location isn’t
as good.
There are new condos completed and new ones underway. There seemed to be a large condo or hotel going in by Chan's. They haven’t changed to look of the island too much, yet. One thing different was that the Chinese restaurant near Oceanside was gone. Its building has become a part of the Crystal grocery store. I don’t know if they moved elsewhere or not.
It was so hot on Caulker that we simply wilted. We were told later that is was 102. I wanted to walk around more but it turned out than none of us had anything left. We caught the water taxi and headed back. We didn’t feel like working too hard to get dinner and I talked everyone into getting a burger. It turns out to be a good trick on Ambergris. All we could find close by was a 12 oz burger at Banana Beach. It was good but way too big.
Thursday we decided to just relax. We knew some of the
folks from the internet were meeting at the Tackle Box. We wandered up to say
hi. We met Jean,
Bruce, Ron, Faith, Jay and two nice folks from Las Vegas whose name I can’t
recall. It was fun meeting some of the other folks. I think Sue
might have decided Josh is her new favorite bartender. We walked around
town but more than one Belikin makes that dangerous. The golf carts were swarming round.
If you rent a golf cart, note that some of the streets are one-way but there
aren't signs. Thursday was also Valentines Day. The Blue Water Grill didn’t have anything
open so we wandered down the beach. We stopped at the Banyan Bay restaurant to
get reservations. They have a very nice setting out on the water. They also
had the most overpriced buffet I’ve ever had. It was good but not as special as
the price.
Friday
we let Monkey Business set up a snorkeling trip. From Ambergris Caye most of
the trips have only two stops. They go to
Hol
Chan and Shark Ray Alley but not the Coral Gardens. We went with Alphonse
and had a good time. He spent a lot of time making sure people’s equipment fit
and was working correctly. From a pure snorkeling standpoint, this was better
than Bacalar Chico. For what its worth, the all day trips from Caye Caulker hit
all three places with a stop for lunch in San Pedro. Not a big deal but is
different. Dinner was at Fido’s (Fee-dohs) Sandbox below Victoria House. Not cheap but
good Fish in Coconut Curry. Nice setting too. At this point, we were all worn out from the busy
week but had to pack and get ready to go home
Our flight from Belize was to Houston. The first thing we heard was tornados and horrible weather in east Texas, specifically Houston. Great! Actually the flight wasn’t too bad. I think the weather was further north than they expected. Now we had a 3.5 hour wait to work through. Or so we thought.
We were flying one of Continental Express’ 50 passenger Embraer 145 jets to Dulles. Our plane came in very late from Palm Springs. I think it was a little over an hour late. Next they unloaded a different plane first and we had to wait. Finally we boarded and pulled away from the gate. That’s when the storm hit. Another hour and a half on the little jet. The plane is very uncomfortable and the extra time wasn’t appreciated. If you fly one, your carry-on probably won't fit. There simply isn't much room. We finally got home 3.5 hours late but we did get home.
All in all, it was a very nice week. The weather was good and the people were nice. I’d do it again but Ambergris Caye may not be my first choice. You can see some of my thoughts on why in my Final Thoughts