Caye Caulker
Trip Start
Nov 20, 2006
1
5
9
Trip End
Jan 22, 2007
7 days in,
Belize
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
So I am on the plane thinking...where am I going to go in Belize? After a reading the travel guide I decided that a few days in the sun on Caye Caulker would suit me so here I am. I caught a water taxi from Belize City to Caye Caulker and have spent three nights here kicking back and recovering. I hired some snorkel gear yesterday and snorkelled the northern part of the island seeing lots of fish hiding under the mangroves
01 The swing bridge, Belize City
. This morning I went for a gentle kayak for an hour and I seem to have got through that OK. The sun is out, the palm trees are swaying and the water is about 30 degrees. The beers are icy cold, everyone is friendly and the sounds of Bob Marley are drifting in the breeze. This island is so laid back that you could stay here for days and days. After three nights resting up on Caye Caulker it was time to make my way to the Mexican border town of Chetumal so I caught the 7am water taxi to Belize City, then walked a few blocks to the bus station and jumped on the 9am bus to Chetumal.
Belize 2nd time
After finally making it to the border my friend James and I parked the Jeep outside the Police station on the Mexican side of the border with Belize as our rental agreement wouldn't allow us to take the car out of Mexico. We crossed the border ok and jumped in a cab to the Belize town of Corozal. We bought our ferry tickets from our taxi driver, checked into the hotel the went for a walk around town and grabbed some Chinese take away. Up at 6am the next day we boarded the fast ferry for the 2 hour ride to the town of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. We checked into the hotel, explored the town, visited some dive shops and went up the beach to a resort to use their sun lounges and hammocks for the rest of the afternoon.
As the sun was going down we headed home and dropped in at a dive shop to enquire about night diving the following evening. The said they were actually doing a night dive in 15 minutes time and if we wanted to come along they would throw in the dive gear for free
02 The view from my hotel balcony, Caye Caulker
. So after a quick dash back to the hotel to get changed, we were quickly into the wetsuits and heading out to sea on the dive boat as the Caribbean sun was setting. The dive was through fairly shallow water (3m - 12m) at a marine reserve inside the reef. It was my first night dive so the first few minutes in the water were a little nervy but then it was time to hunt out the marine life. We saw a couple of giant crabs, delicious looking huge lobster, various coral, and a parrot fish and grouper that were both at least a metre long. A two metre long moray eel topped of some great sights. Unfortunately the dive was a bit amateurish as the two groups from our boat got mixed up together so there were about 12 divers all bumping into each other, the sand and the coral. There were also a couple of people with really large dive cameras that spoilt things a bit. All in all we were happy that we dived in Belize but after our Cavern dive in Mexico, it was a bit of a let down so we decided not to do another dive. The next day we just chilled out on the beach at the resort again and had a few quite beers which was nice and relaxing then we went out for a few noisy beers, bar hopping through the town. San Pedro is quite similar to Caye Caulker but is a bit more developed and has lots more people and traffic getting about. On our third day at San Pedro we caught a small plane back to Corozal, a taxi back to the Mexican boarder and were soon driving back up the Yutican peninsula.
