Arriving in Belize was by far the most friendly and easiest country we have arrived in so far. We were greeted by George, our taxi driver, with a huge white smile contrasted by his lovely dark skin. Every other word was mon, ya mon.
He drove us swiflty to the boat dock in Belize City where we set sail to Caye Caulker, about a 45 minute boat ride. The day was unusually beautiful, the water was crystal clear, not even blue, clear mon! As soon as we got off the boat we noticed a sign on the ground "Caye Caulker - Go Slow". We checked into our lovely one bedroom house overlooking the soccer field and headed to the best beach/bar ever. It has picnic tables in the water and cheap drinks . . . nice mon.
We swam, drank rum punch, swam, drank rum puch, you get the picture right? Not a bad day mon. We snorkled and saw nurse sharks, Portugese Manawhars and many tropical fish.
Caye Caulker is a tiny island , only 8km long and about 50 yards wide. There are no cars, only golf carts and the streets consist of white sand and nobody wears shoes. We kept seeing the same smiling faces each day and made many friends. One of these friends was named Ras, who lives on the most amazing boat ever, he invited us up for a mango and a chat. We also met a man named Kenny who rescues animals on the island and has a vet come to him once a month to spay and neuter his new pets. This man must have about 35 cats and three dogs. We bought some big bags of dog and cat food and would visit Kenny and his animals each day we were on Caye Caulker.
Most of our days were spent diving off picturesque docks and drinking coconut rum and cokes. Mmmmmm. It tasted like the beach, minus the sand of course. We celebrated our one year wedding anniversary-yay!- at the beach bar and were treated to freestlyles about love from the locals, mon. Hahahaha, it's true! We had a yummy romantic dinner at Agave and then headed back to our cute little house . . .The last day was by far the best. The rain had stopped and we decided to book a full day snorkeling trip on the second biggest reef in the world. The first place we snorkled was called "Shark and Ray Alley". Quite a fitting name I must say, mon. As soon as we dropped anchor nurse sharks and giant manta rays were circling our boat. We hopped right into the water and came face to face with some of the most beautiful marine life we've ever seen. Nine foot nurse sharks, manta rays about eight feet wide, huge colorful coral reefs and we even saw a few sea turles! It was one of the highlights of our trip by far, mon. We then went over to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye for lunch, not quite the isla bonita Madonna sang about. But it was cool enough, I think we were spoiled by the beauty of Caye Caulker.
We slept good that night and knew we had quite a journey ahead of us in the morning. Now it's off to San Ignacio, Belize to go caving and see some Mayan artifacts.
-B
