Located to the south of Mexico and bordering Guatemala, Belize is an independent country of the commonwealth. On the east of the country is the Caribbean Sea as well as the Belize Barrier Reef which is the second largest barrier reef in the world, second to Australia’s Great Barrier. We have been here for eight days so far and have one more night before heading to Mexico.

We arrived in Belize City on a flight from Costa Rica with a short layover in El Salvador. We stayed one night in Belize City before catching a boat to Caye Caulker. Belize has over 200 Cayes with Caye Caulker being known as the more rustic, backpacker friendly spot.

Caye Caulker

Eating

The day we arrived was the weekend of the annual Lobster Festival. This gave the island an awesome vibe with many more locals than there were tourists, over from the mainland for the weekend. The Main Street was lined with street vendors selling their freshly caught lobster, whole, curried, on skewers, in nachos and in ceviche. We indulged in lobster for lunch on both Saturday and Sunday. A whole grilled lobster with garlic butter cost us $15USD which was the most expensive item on any of the menus.

Chilling

It poured with rain during lobster fest which was fine as it cooled the temperature down. The third day was sunny so we caught a boat to the north of Caye Caulker for a day at a beach club. Hurricane Hattie literally tore Caye Caulker in two in 1961 with the island now having a north and south section. The boat to Kokos is free as long as you spend $15USD at the bar and restaurant which made for a great day out.

Snorkelling

With more perfect weather the following day we booked a snorkelling trip to the Belize Barrier Reef. This was an amazing day out swimming with green and loggerhead turtles, stingrays, nurse sharks, as well as a huge array of tropical fish and coral. We swam to a sunken barge, had lunch on Ambergris Caye and went searching for manatees at the end of the day (we didn’t see any). The crew took pictures for us the whole day which was a great bonus!

Ambergris Caye (having the same seaweed problem as Mexico)

More chilling

On our last afternoon we had some sunset drinks (rum and cranberry is a winner) down at another beach club. The owner of the club feeds the local pelicans in the afternoon to stop them diving for fishermans bait and injuring themselves. A massive stingray and a green moray eel came after to clean up the scraps.

Our next stop was to a small town called Orange Walk (where we currently are) for two nights. It has been nice seeing a local style village where we had some great Mexican/Belize food.

Tomorrow we catch a bus to Bacalar in Mexico 🇲🇽 where we will spend three weeks travelling up the East coat.

Belize has been absolute paradise and it makes us want to visit some of the other Caribbean islands!