Beaches in Belize [Caye Caulker / San Pedro]
When I asked Jenny to go on a trip with me again in 2019, her first response was, "When are we going?" Although Jenny and I don't see each other that often these days, she remains the perfect travel partner. We pretty much learned how to travel "independently" together, and have created our own seamless travel style that's fast-paced, highly mobile, and full of elaborate activities and delicious food. You could even say we... run on autopilot (had to squeeze in an aviation pun!).
I'd never even heard of Belize before this trip. We chose a destination by looking for good flight deals, and Belize caught our attention when we saw information on the Great Blue Hole. It became our mission to witness that aerial view with our own eyes. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Let's go to the beach-each, let's go get a wave
As soon as we landed in Belize, we zipped over to the port for a 45-minute boat ride to Caye Caulker. I was shocked by how AMERICAN all the tourists were. I guess it's a super-accessible Caribbean destination from some parts of the south.
For our first meal, we found a place by the beach that served "mild" jerk chicken (still far too spicy for me) and ceviche with lobster, shrimp, fish, and conch (my first time trying conch! It was surprisingly... sweet?). This was the life.
We checked into the hotel and enjoyed a BEAUTIFUL SUNSET by the Split featuring partiers and mosquitoes. There were so many stars in the sky with water surrounding us. I also loved the slightly rustic charm of it all; it didn't feel touristy or full of manicured resorts (at least not in the heart of Caye Caulker).
Interestingly, all the store owners in Caye Caulker seemed to be Chinese! The implication of that being... that they LIVE there? Many of them had children running around too, so they must've been attending school. I had no idea the Chinese diaspora stretched so wide. Naturally, I couldn't resist buying bubble tea and key lime pie ice cream. The bubble tea was interesting because you could pretty much ask the store owner to blend up any fruits you pleased, so I had strawberry-passionfruit-orange bubble tea. It was the bomb.
To cap off the night, we chilled in these hammocks. While truly just a limitation of iPhone photography at the time, I kind of like this shot of Jenny, mid-laughter as we joked around and had real talks. Uh oh, am I becoming Gen Z with a penchant for "real" and "candid" shots?
San Pedro Interlude
As we were booking, we were conflicted whether to stay in Caye Caulker or San Pedro, the bigger waterfront town in Belize. Ultimately, I am SO glad we stayed in Caye Caulker—it was a lot less developed and felt more authentic. BUT we still had to make our way to San Pedro for our Great Blue Hole tour(!!).
We arrived a bit early though, so we started off the day by renting a golf cart and driving ourselves to a place called the Secret Beach. There were a bunch of potholes along the way, but I am happy to serve as a passenger princess beside the highly competent Jenny.
We were amazingly the only ones when we arrived at Maruda Beach Klub (sic.), which was shocking because of how great it was. There was both great service and marketing, with free washrooms, beach chairs, floaties, beach access, and freshwater showers. It was worth the price of snacks and drinks for sure. PLUS, the water was so clear, warm, and shallow! Even the music was bumping. We timed things perfectly, because we got there before the crowds and left right as people began to arrive.
...Ok this seems to be the only pic I have, but I SWEAR it was empty when we arrived.
Alas, we couldn't spend all day here because of our Great Blue Hole tour (are you sick of me referencing this yet?), so we took our golf cart back, drinks in tow. Those drinks started spilling EVERYWHERE from the pot holes, smh. Along the way, we also decided to be good Samaritans and pick up some hitchhikers looking for a ride into town.
THE HOLE!!
Next, it was time for our Great Blue Hole flyover tour with Maya Island Air! The weather was perfect, and the hole truly lives up to all the pictures. It was definitely on the pricey side, so I appreciate how Jenny prioritizes experiences like these for the lifetime mems. Plus, it was just us and another gal on the plane, so I got to sit in the cockpit beside the pilot! Thank you, Jenny, for letting me take the prime seat.
Apparently, a celebrity (Leo, I think?) owns this island!
We saw shipwrecks, the hole (ofc), and a delineation between the reef and the rest of the ocean. I was struck by how much lighter blue the reefs were relative to the rest of the water. Did you know Belize is home to the second largest barrier reef in the world? Or so they claim—I imagine no one really contests a claim for #2, and the Great Barrier Reef obviously takes the top spot.
In case you didn't know, the Great Blue Hole is a giant sinkhole. It is super deep and dead inside. Since it's kind of far removed from the shore, the only ways to view it are by seaplane (like us) or by taking a dive trip there. However, I've only heard bad things about the dive trip because it's literally just a big blue hole with no aquatic life or anything in there (other than some dead bodies, I think?). As someone who was so recently traumatized by the dive experience at the Cham Islands in Vietnam, I was all too happy to view the hole by air instead.
After the flyover tour, we still had a bit of time to kill before our boat back to Caye Caulker. We walked around the town where we got harassed by sooo many catcallers and hustlers. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but... yeah, I was glad to stay in wholesome Caye Caulker instead. I was surprised by how pink the town was, and how many Scotiabank chains they had! I knew Scotia was quite prominent in South America (thanks to my 1st-year Queen's mentor, Camila Merlano), but I didn't realize that was true in the Caribbean, too.
We stopped at a place called "dandE's" for frozen custard. I didn't realize this was a chain from Philadelphia, so I found it super novel when they flipped the cup upside-down to prove that the frozen "concrete" was indeed frozen-solid. I ordered black cherry and cheesecake, which pretty much tasted the same as a DQ blizzard (excited to share my next Caribbean DQ story from the Bahamas, although that update probably won't hit the blog for another few years at this rate, lol). We also tried climbing a coconut tree (unsuccessfully), and I bought 50¢ popcorn off the side of the road. It was slightly stale with a hint of lime, but popcorn is still the best.
Back to Caye Caulker
Upon arriving back in Caye Caulker after a windy boat ride, we went to a bar with amazing lemony barbecue lobster. Everyone was abuzz by Super Bowl Sunday; the American influence is really noticeable.
The next morning, I got an HK-style bubble waffle (luv the Chinese store owners always and forever). Unfortunately, it was a bit hard and not as eggy as the ones I grew up on at Pacific Mall. For this day, we had booked something called a "Caveman Snorkeling Tour"!
This day was a total highlight. Stops included the following:
- • Hol Chan: There were soooo many fish here. We spotted eagle rays which look like they might've inspired Louis Vuitton bags! And big green sea turtles!
- • Turtle Garden: A fisherman came in and created a man-made conch garden with thousands of conch shells over the years. Here, we saw a 35-year-old loggerhead turtle who grew up with the fisherman and supposedly missed him now that he's gone. :(
- • Shark Ray Alley: Here, we fed the sharks sardines so that they'd swarm the boat. Sure enough, TONS of 8ft nurse sharks and a couple sting rays came right up to us. It was cool seeing a giant ray with two striped fish on its back—now that's symbiosis in action.
Das me in the top left corner! - • Coral Gardens: Here, we saw another 25-year-old green sea turtle and snorkeled around on our own.
- • Shipwreck: This place was relatively less interesting. There wasn't much aquatic life, but it was decently cool. We searched for manatees but had no luck.
- • Manmade seahorse reserve: This stop was shocking because I had no idea how small seahorses were!! The yellow ones were my favourite, since the brown and black ones got camouflaged with the pier and the barnacles.
- • Flying tarpoons: Total highlight of the day. We fed them sardines. I got a little too close and a bit bloody, but it was worthwhile.
By the numbers, we saw: one type of shark, three types of rays, seahorses, and millions of different types of fish. My favourite was the yellowtail damselfish, which was small and black with blue spots. Cute!! Would 100% recommend doing this if you ever visit Belize.
After all that, the day still wasn't over. We found a shack called Steve's Grill which had amazingly fresh grilled lobster and something called a "fisherman's mix" grilled in tinfoil. I got another strawberry-passionfruit-orange bubble tea from Hi-Tea. And then we stopped for papusas and burritos from a street vendor. It was insanely popular, and with good reason. The street vendor remarked that if we went to a resort, we'd just get resort food. But by staying with the locals, we got to try the REAL local food. ☺️ With our burritos in tow, we watched some high school kids shoot some hoops. Otherwise, Caye Caulker was pretty dead on a Monday night, which was totally fine considering how pooped we were from snorkeling around all day.
For our last morning in Caye Caulker, we got lunch by the Split at a place called the Lazy Lizard. The food wasn't spectacular, but it had super chill vibes and a lot of Pitbull music (I know that seems in sharp contrast to the "chill vibes," but trust me on this one.). There were also a ton of American tourists getting very sunburnt—dare I say, as red as the lobsters we'd been eating?
Crispy wings ft. crispy Americans
Our weeklong trip in Belize was the perfect respite from brutal Canadian winter weather. Jenny and I had actually hung out quite a bit over the past month leading up to this, since I was staffed on a case near her house in Finch (where she was living at the time). Unlike Asia, which got long, hot, and stressful at times, this trip was super smooth sailing. And guess what? It's not even over yet! After a few days by the sea, we set our sights on the jungle, aka San Ignacio.