Caye Caulker - You better Belize it

It’s not an easy task getting from Bacalar to Caye Caulker so we get up earlier and set off. And it went something like this, walk to bus station, bus to Chetumal, taxi to New Market Bus Station, bus to Belize City including border crossing, taxi to water boat terminal, boat to Caye Caulker, walk to hotel. All in all it took about seven hours. But it’s all worth it when I spot this heavenly sight…

No more tacos, limes and chillies.

As soon as we hit the Belize border everything feels easier, the official language is English and it’s the last English speaking country we will be in for the next 8 months so we are really appreciating the ease of communication. However the quality of the buses and roads has reduced somewhat.

Caye Caulker

Off the coast of Belize lies the small island of Caye Caulker. Its laid back Caribbean atmosphere is just what we are looking for. Its small enough to walk the entire island, there’s palm trees, it’s hot and the sun is shining. We ditch the hostels and take up residence in a nice hotel, although with some bargaining we got the price reduced.

Eating Lobster

The most famous dish in Belize is the fresh lobster, we are both lobster virgins and it’s too good an opportunity to miss. Caye Caulker is probably one of the cheapest places on earth to eat lobster and we have arrived in the middle of lobster season.

For about $10 we get a fresh whole lobster with sides, 3 rum punches and cake for afterwards. We have no idea how to eat the creature brought to us, but give it our best shot.

It tastes delicious, how the lobster felt during the whole process we will never know.

Snorkelling the Barrier Reef and Shark Ray Alley

Running along the Belize coast is the meso-american barrier reef, the second largest in the world. You can see the reef about 1 mile off the coast of Caye Caulker, identifiable by mid ocean waves breaking as they hit the reef. Being so close we have no choice but to take a boat and snorkelling.

We snorkel the reef but it’s too deep to take the camera. We don’t intend on losing it. The coral is dotted with lots of multi coloured fish and our guide takes us around pointing our various different species.

The highlight of the trip is the stop off at Shark Ray Alley where we get to swim with nurse sharks and sting rays. These gentle creatures dance around us as we snorkel trying to capture a shot of them in action.

We end the day slightly more sunburnt than we would have liked. But we can’t complain too much, we have another evening of drinking rum and watching the sunset to enjoy.

In total we ended up spending 5 nights in Caye Caulker and we could have easily stayed more. There isn’t a lot to do which was perfect for us after over 2 months of travelling. We both really appreciated a stay in a nice hotel with a pool where we could recharge our batteries for our next stop, the action packed town of San Ignacio.