The Wandering Couple

They call it a water taxi. I'd say it is more like a water bus since the boat holds over 20 people and they strap the bikes to the front of it. Whatever you want to call it, this was our transportation to Caye Caulker, a 30-minute ride south of San Pedro. Caye Caulker has a sleepy, laid back feeling. There are no paved roads, little traffic, a tiny amount of tourists, and a few iguanas sunning themselves. We walked through the town to the end of the road and a beach bar called the Lazy Lizard . It is located next to The Split that separates the two parts of the island. To cross it, you either need a boat or swim. There are no pesky bridges to walk across. Back in town, we met the shop owner of Chocolates who is a supporter of the Manatee. She informed us how cruise ship lines want to develop other Cayes, which in turn will shrink the natural habitat for manatee. We talked for a while and then wished her much success in her fight to save the manatee.  I spot a sign for a street ...

Diane shares a few tips when traveling to Belize. Next:  Betting on Pooh

The Corona del Mar Hotel is a pleasant place to stay on Ambergris Caye. We reserved a penthouse room with a fabulous ocean view. The staff makes you feel right at home. Adie , the head housekeeper, always made sure our room was spotless. When we first noticed some "funky stuff" discoloring the wall, she came in and scrubbed it spotless. Frank, the handyman, always greeted us with a big smile and said, "it's another beautiful day in paradise." He is a good guy and shares pictures of his family and the home he built. Frank's house does not have electricity or as he calls it "current." He's been waiting years for the government to run power down a side street to his home. Locals like Frank and Adie make your visit enjoyable. That's why we like to stay in smaller hotels. Paradise comes with a price. While the days are beautiful, a demon lurks in the night. We were awoken on the first night to floodlights pouring into our room and the endles...

The sun is starting to set over the palm trees and realize that I haven't shared with you the lessons learned back in the jungle. So using my best imitation of the Travel Channel and a little bit of filmmaking style from Dirty Jobs, here is my advice when going into the jungles of Belize. Next: Paradise Lost

Grab your fins because we're going snorkeling today at the second largest barrier reef in the world. We pack our snorkeling gear and walk up the beach to the tour guide shop, Sea-Rious. Jeffrey, our captain and guide, introduces himself to us and the seven other people on the boat. We are heading North to the Mexican Rocks and Tres Cocos. Both of us have snorkeled before in such places as St Croix, Cozumel, and Hawaii. So we were no rookies. OK, maybe a little rusty from the lack of practice. Nevertheless, we slip on the fins, pull on our masks, and fall over the side of the boat. The barrier reef is spectacular. There are massive coral formations. A colorful and diverse population of fish. Parrotfish. Angelfish. Grouper. Yellow Fin Tuna. Many more than I could identify. My favorite is an itty bitty blackfish with glowing blue dots. At Tres Cocos, we come upon a huge manta ray. The ray is about five feet across. It swims towards us. Then starts working itself into the sand. Jeffr...

The palm trees and sea air can sure put you in a laid back mood. I don't feel much like writing today. So why not make a video! Before coming on the trip, I purchased a $160 Flip Ultra video camera. It's small, fits in your pocket, and takes videos that are fine for the web. Today is a bike riding day and here is the video. Next: Fins to the Left

San Pedro Town is located near the second largest barrier reef in the world. The Belize Barrier Reef is only half a mile off the shore and you can actually see it from the beach. Pretty darn cool. The town has a completely different feel to it than San Ignacio. It's much more touristy with street vendors, time-share salesman and trinket shops. The downtown streets are filled with golf carts. Lots of them. Whites ones. Pink ones. (To tell you truth, I am not sure if there is even a golf course on the island.) This and bicycles are the main form of transportation for locals. We did a spot the most unique Coke delivery truck, a John Deer tractor. Our hotel is a 15-minute walk south of downtown. We learned quickly that the best way to get to and from town is along the beach, not the road. Diane took a minute to review a street map to find a lunch spot. I moved into the shade to get a drink of water. While minding my own business, a man on a bike approached. He asked me if I wanted to...

I woke to the sound of Diane bustling around the room. The clock says it's only 5 a.m. Oh, how I want to stay in bed longer. There would be no loafing around this morning. We had to be in the Grand Plaza for sunrise. Grab our 10 a.m. van ride back to San Ignacio. Eat some lunch. Take another van ride all the way to Belize City. (No chicken buses this time.) Catch a 4 p.m. flight to Ambergris Caye. Then a hail a cab for a ride to our hotel south of San Pedro. The skies were blue as the sun rose over Temple 1. There were howler monkeys in the trees above. They paid no attention to us as we sat to enjoy the moment. We met a friendly woman in her forties traveling alone. She was happy to have someone to talk with. We hiked over to Temple 4.  We came upon a critter called a Coati. This furry, four-legged animal with a bushy, striped tail was busy investigating the scaffolding and workers' tools. It spotted something below and disappeared down the side of the temple. We took our time...

Nothing like a good home-cooked meal and a cold Gallo beer after a long day's adventure. My lack of speaking Spanish really showed when it came time to pay. The owner didn't speak any English and like an idiot, I didn't have quetzal currency in my pocket ,  only US and Belize dollars. I went to the back of the restaurant to figure things out. It was a dark area with no electricity. The entire family was sitting around an open cooking pit. They looked at me like I had just landed from Mars. As both of us bumbled through trying to communicate, a local driver came up to assist. Luckily he spoke both languages and got everything cleared up. Note to self: Learn more of the local language before traveling to a foreign country. We were staying the night at the Jungle Lodge . The room was the best accommodations so far on the trip. Large room with nice furnishings. Quiet location. We even had netting that went around the bed. A generator runs the entire lodge with power from 6 to 9...

Tikal is a spectacular jungle site of a Mayan civilization in Guatemala. The Maya started to build the city around 500 B.C. Then around 900 A.D. the people left and the jungle took it back. For over 1000 year, the city was lost. We read a great deal about Tikal. None of it captures the amazing feeling you get standing in the Grand Plaza. The plaza has four structures with the distinct ones being the Mascarones Temple (Temple 2) and the Temple of the Big Jaguar (Temple 1). In the later was buried the ruler, Al Cacao, around 700 AD. He was discovered wearing over 200 pounds of jade! We were allowed to climb to the top of Temple 2. The park built a staircase to get to the top. Those Mayans love to build short, steep steps. We climbed up almost 124 feet to the top. There you had a sweeping view of the Grand Plaza below. Our guide told us that the plaza alone took over 1000 years to build. I should mention that Tikal is surrounded by jungle. We needed to hike through dense foliage to se...

Bordering crossing between Belize and Guatemala Today we head to Tikal, a Maya ruins in the jungles of Guatemala. The hotel arranged for transportation and Anna was our escort. She would make sure we get safely through customs. We decided to book a guided tour because I speak almost no useful Spanish. I can only say things like "hola, bueno, and dos cervesa por favor." Diane had a year of Spanish in college. While she doesn't remember much, it would come in handy later in our trip. We realized booking the tour was a wise decision the moment we arrived at the border. The border is extremely hectic with a cast of nefarious looking characters. Money vendors. Beggars. Cab drivers. Pickpockets. I watched as one little boy tried to reach out and grab Diane's purse. He looked at me and I simply wagged my finger at him. He turned and vanished into the crowd. We were greeted by our tour guide, Elias, a friendly man in his mid 40's. All of us piled in the van for the ride t...

Why would you nickname a Maya ruin The Place of Ticks? Tt was a cow pasture when first archaeologists discovered it in the 1950's. The cows and everything else were infected with thousands of ticks. Nowadays there are not so many ticks and today there were no other visitors. We had the ruins to ourselves. Cahal Pech dates back to 900 BC. While it is smaller, the place is still extremely interesting. Climbing down the steps of a temple, I spotted a couple of large rat like creatures. A friendly, ex-park ranger walked up to us and explained that these were Gibnuts. They grow up to two feet and weigh around 20 pounds. This animal is a prized culinary dish in Belize. We were told that the Queen of England had Gibnut for dinner when she visited. Chalk this one up for bizarre foods. The ex-park ranger now runs a small gift show on the premises. He proudly told us that he had planted some of the trees in the ruins. We walked with him over to his shop and met his sons.  This woul...

It's kind of tough to top yesterday's ATM adventure. Yet today's travels would take us over a raging river on a hand-cranked ferry. An encounter with armed soldiers. And a climb to the top of the tallest Maya structure in Belize. There would be no looking back for us on this trip. A cold front moved in overnight bringing rain. By cold, I mean the temps dipped down into the high 60's. The staff at the open-air restaurant were bundled up in sweaters and long pants. You could easily spot us as a tourists because we had on shorts and acted as if it were the middle of summer. We hired a local cab driver, Melvin, for half the day to take us to Xanantunich. He drove us west for a few miles to a ferry crossing. This was a turn of the century device that was operated manually by a hand-crank. There were no fancy motors, just good old elbow grease. The rickety ferry looked like it could barely hold one car, let alone us.  Now for the bad news. The rains turned the river into a r...

Eating termites. Swinging from vines. Exploring a sacrificial cave. Sounds like a scene from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. And that is exactly what it felt like. This was our adventure into the ancient Mayan cave of fear called the Actun Tunichil Muknal. The guide Juan Carlos and driver picked us up at our hotel in a beat up Chevy van. The rig looked like it had seen a lot of hard road. It wouldn't be long before we learned for ourselves why it looked that way. Juan stopped in town to pick up a young couple that would be joining us, Ryan and Susan. The van then rolled down the two-lane highway till it reached a dirt road turn off. From there, we drove over a washboard dirt road through a valley surrounded by jungle. This part of the ride definitely would test the fillings in your teeth. Pot holes the sizes of craters. Creeks flowing over the road. Yet as I prayed my capped teeth wouldn't fall out, I noticed something unique outside the window. There were families washing t...

Take a nice resort like Cahal Pech Village Resort in San Ignacio, add a cheesy video producer, mash together, and this is the kind of weird stuff that shows up on YouTube ... Next: The Cave of Fear

What's a fun way to start your day in Belize?  Go cave tubing. I should explain that cave tubing is floating on inner tubes down a river and through long, dark caves in the middle of the jungle. Our adventure took place deep in the underground world of Jaguar Paw .  Our guides name was Edgar. He was a friendly guy with a wealth of knowledge about the local ecosystem. He took us over to pick up our inner tubes. There were tubes as far as the eye could see. He said during the busy season, the cruise ship passengers would use up every single tube. The cool thing about traveling in the offseason is that there aren't many tourists. Diane and I were the only ones with Edgar. I grabbed the biggest tube, slung it over my shoulder, and proceeded to follow our guide through the jungle. We made stops along the way to learn more about the plants and life in the jungle. Edgar's keen eye spotted a tarantula in its hole. He picked up a thin stick, put some saliva on the end, and poked it ...

The two-hour ride to San Ignacio took us through the capital, Belmopan, where we stopped to drop off and pick up new riders. (No chickens got on.)  The moment the bus doors opened, several vendors stormed the bus selling food. They had sandwiches, plantins, chips, candy, and soda pop. A few minutes later, the bus rumbled on to our destination. San Ignacio is a small town in western Belize, only a few miles from the Guatemala border. The first thing I noticed is this must be the place where cabs go to die. Smashed. Beat up. Shattered windshields. Seats with no padding. Sticky doors. There would be no comfortable rides in this town. We read to always ask the price before getting into a cab. That way there aren't any surprises. That was a good tip. The cabi and I settled on $5BZ to take us to our hotel, Cahal Pech Village Resort . The resort is located on the hills overlooking the city. We were staying in a charming, thatched roof cabana with a screened in porch and hammock. ...

A couple of boys join me to look at the tapir.  To tell you the truth, I am not a big fan of zoos. Never really like to see creatures caged up. This zoo was a little different. The animals are in their natural habitat and the humans are fenced off from them. The bus dropped us off in front of a dirt road with a sign to the zoo. We started our trek not knowing how far we had to go. It wasn't too long before we reached the entrance, plunked down our $16BZ each and entered. The wildlife includes tapirs, howler monkeys, black panthers, jaguar, and a harpy eagle to name a few. We were warned to watch out for the Tapirs because they like to pee on visitors. We luckily didn't get sprayed.  The zoo has entertaining signs that are hand painted and talk about the animals. We came across a nine-month-old jaguar named Junior that was playing with a large purple ball. He was like a giant kitten with really, really big claws. As we walked through the zoo, I noticed a few little blood sp...

Public transportation is an interesting way to get a feel for a country, especially when your wife is the only person with blonde hair on the bus. But I've gotten ahead of myself.  Belize is slightly larger than Massachusetts. It's a melting pot of Creoles, Mestizos, Garifuna, Maya, East Indians, and very few Caucasians. The country gained independence from Britain in 1981. (Damn, those Brits don't know when to let go.) We felt the ride would be a good introduction to the country and its people. We woke early to the sounds of birds. Ate a little breakfast at the Smokey Mermaid. Then caught a cab ride over to the bus station. You cannot miss the building because it is painted entirely in yellow with red and green trim. Now picture two fair-skinned Americans with luggage getting out of a cab and they're the only tourists at the station. Trying to look confident, we strode into the terminal. A man directed us to the bus and we nabbed the last two seats.  The bus has an emp...

Welcome to Belize City Our airplane touched down on a tiny airstrip in Belize City. We stepped out of the plane and were greeted with a heavy downpour of rain. We would have been soaked to the bones, if not for the umbrellas handed to us at the bottom of the stairs. I considered the rain a good sign due to the fact that every time we've traveled and it rained on the first day, the weather would be fabulous for the rest of the trip. It took us no time at all to zip through customs. Then we hailed a cab and were whisked off to our hotel, The Great House. Belize City is a rough town. There is a great deal of crime and poverty. We read there are certain areas you just don't go in. Our accommodation, The Great House, was in the Fort George section of town and considered a safe area. The reason we selected the hotel was due to a review on the Travel Channel. Plus we didn't feel like riding the Chicken Bus for three hours to San Ignacio after such a long airplane ride. The room w...

We've created this travel blog for you to learn about things to do and see in Belize. We'll take you on a Chicken Bus ride across Belize. Journey deep into an ancient Maya sacrificial cave called the Actun Tunichil Muknal. Take a side trip to the lost city of Tikal in Guatemala. Then plunge into sharked filled waters of the second largest barrier reef in the world. This is not your average, run-of-the-mill vacation. Hope you enjoy it. We start our adventure in the most dangerous city in Belize: Belize City