Activity Summary
Monday 8th May - Day 249 (continued)
Travel to Caye Caulker / Belize (Water Jets International)
San Pedro border control
Go Slow - Nicola’s new motto in life
The Split - Lazy Lizard bar
Dinner & drinks at the Pelican sunset bar
Tuesday 9th May - Day 250
Half day snorkelling tour (Caveman)
Manatee spotting (West side of the island)
Tarpon fishing spot
Coral reef spot 1
Coral reef spot 2
Shark and ray alley
Lunch at Chef Juans
Sunset at the Split
Dinner at Maggie’s Sunset Kitchen
Wednesday 10th May - Day 251
Scuba diving introduction & refresher course with Blue Wave Divers
30 minute lesson
Dive 1: skills session at 4m
Dive 2: diving session at 4-6m
Dive 3: diving session at 10-12m
Snorkelling at shark & ray alley
Lunch at Chef Juans
Chilled at Sip n Dip bar
Dinner at Dee & Ds
Thursday 11th May - Day 252
Breakfast at Errolyn's House Of Fryjacks
Travel to San Ignacio via Belize City
Summary
Caye Caulker
The Caribbean island life was thoroughly enjoyed after so long in predominantly land locked Mexican cities/towns and having more than 2 days here really allowed us to relax. The island had such a chilled vibe where nothing was rushed, walking was easy and everything felt safe and low stress.
Caye Caulker itself had great snorkelling and diving experiences and plenty of places to eat and drink but outside of this there could be argued there isn’t much to do. The beach & bar life was fun for the 3 days. Clearly we had visited in low season because there really didn’t feel like a whole lot of people out and about.
The food was amazing. Fish was on all menus which was fresh and reasonably priced (for an island). Most food was bbq’d and Luke was in heaven. It all added up sadly and was one of the most expensive places for food we had been, especially as tipping culture seemed to make its way into everything we did (thank you US tourists) but we decided to treat this as a holiday from holiday.
The roads are like dirt tracks where someone was actively employed to water the streets to stop dust getting too loosy goosy and there were a number of locals also just casually watering their front road.
What was pretty unusual was the money situation. US$1 = BZ$2 and remains at this fixed rate so was readily interchangeable when paying in cash. A lot of places accepted cards but the Atlantic bank in Belize did not charge for cash withdrawals which was a nice breath of fresh air (conversely Heritage bank does so avoid here).
Transport
Caye Caulker
Chetumal hotel -> [walk] -> Water Jets International pier -> [pass through Mexican customs - speedboat] -> San Pedro (Belize) -> [Belize customs - speedboat] -> Caye Caulker (Belize)
For a lot of reading about this journey, none of the advice was at all clear. So a summary is:
Book tickets for the speedboat more than 24 hours in advance
Get to Chetumal the day before - not worth the ADO morning bus stress
3 forms to fill out at the pier - bring a pen or make friends
Mexican border control is dead easy - passport is stamped and money declaration form taken
Belize border control in San Pedro is equally easy - passport is stamped and the 2 remaining customs forms are taken
Absolutely no money changes hands
San Ignacio
Caye Caulker hotel -> [walk] -> Belize Express pier -> [ferry taxi] -> Belize City -> [minivan] -> San Ignacio & accomodation
To make everything as easy as possible we booked a package that would get us from Caye Caulker straight to San Ignacio without any risk of missed connections or having to think too much about it. The E-Z boy tour company sorted this all out for BZ$73ea.
We heard it could have been cheaper to book the ferry at the pier directly and then a shuttle at the other end but for the price, we couldn’t be bothered to risk it.
In Belize City we were directed to the ‘Indian guy’ at the Atlantis tour shop front and then were easily directed to the bus, when it eventually arrived, and dropped off at our hotel.
Accommodation
Caye Caulker - Caye Caulker Plaza Hotel
Number of nights - 3
Price per night per person - £20
The hotel was pretty decent. The location meant there was no sound coming from any bars, it was right next to the banks and close enough to absolutely everything.
The rooms were large, had two king size beds, airconned and comfortable. Nicola hated the process to book and reconfirm details but it all worked out in the end.
Diary
[Continued]
The boat ride wasn’t too bad. A little uncomfortable as a result of the fairly small size of the boat and having the reassuring crack of the hull every now and again from hitting larger waves but Nicola was fine the whole time. The worst parts were the numb asses from uncomfortable plastic chairs and the number of cockroaches running around the boat which naturally made a load of people freak out. One guy did manage to squish one on the back of Luke’s chair which did quell the mini freak out from behind.
The boat's first stop was San Pedro island where everyone departed the boat, passed through an incredibly easy Belize border check, stamped our passports and essentially just did a loop from the exit point of the boat, around through the two border booths and right back to where we started. Soon after that all our luggage was put straight back onto the boat and we were off again.
The second part of the boat ride was quicker to Caye Caulker and a number of people had gotten off at San Pedro but this didn’t change much of the comfort levels on the boat.
At Caye Caulker we departed, took in our first taste of the Caribbean island life on our travels and walked over to our hotel. The island is not big at all so walking around was super easy. There were of course other methods to get around such as bicycles or the more chaotic mode of transport in a buggy more akin to golf carts. It seemed that only locals (fair enough) and fat lazy tourists were the ones riding around in these vehicles while we were here and none of them were great drivers.
It was just past the middle of the day when we arrived so it was pretty warm at this point and having been travelling since 7.30am there wasn’t a whole lot of give on patience levels. At the Plaza hotel Nicola was put through the ringer again in requiring to fill out another form with all the same booking details that she had given when she booked online and again when told she needed to fill out a form repeating all this information a few days earlier. She wasn’t a happy bunny then and she was fuming when required to do it all again, the tipping point being the payment required on arrival despite them saying it was required to be taken from her card beforehand or the booking would all be cancelled. This hotel basically threatened to cancel on us in 3 different ways and each was completely unnecessary and empty - they weren’t going to get a good review from her.
We were at least able to check in early.
First on the priority list was food so we rushed somewhat out of the door without any solid plan and without any internet (Luke’s O2 contract and travel bolt on doesn’t allow him free or £6/day access in Belize) we were a bit stuck. In the end we settled on Swing’s Restaurant which was pretty decent food; Nicola’s veg curry and Luke’s fried snapper burger was alright but at roughly $20 (£8) a head, we would have to get used to splashing more cash on food here. It was however great to not eat any corn products for a meal.
We spent some time doing some admin, getting cash & buying breakfast items which were mad expensive (~£6 for yoghurt and cereal) from the supermarket but a lot cheaper than eating out.
Armed with swimming and chilling related items we made our way down through the north side of the island via a load of snorkel & diving companies to book activities for the next few days. Once realising the set fee for a half day snorkelling tour and full day tour was more or less fixed at US$45 and US$90 on the island we settled on Caveman tours as it was one of the best rated and the guy who worked there was pretty hilarious. The motto for the island is ‘Go Slow’ and this guy full on encompassed this with sarcasm that would rival the English. This motto is pretty much the opposite of how Nicola operates and is something Luke is going to encompass into his life going forward - mans finding himself people firing off cliches like a sniper using bullshit for ammunition.
We also dipped into some diving shops, initially speaking to Black Durgon dives who were incredible with the sell on the beginner and refresher dives we were going to do, but on reading reviews concluded they weren’t the safest company to go with. Blue Wave Divers were one of the better rated and also cheaper but the pitch they had one the dive sale was absolutely atrocious. They could not have employed a receptionist who gave less of a shit, and when pressed on what the dives actually involved she gave no information that was remotely useful. At this point we turned around and said no thank you but in the end caved into the Google review and booked the next morning. US$140 each - diving is not a cheap activity at all.
Of course as we decided to heat towards the beachfront the clouds started rolling out but there was enough sun to keep us warm for a few hours. The main beach and lounge area seemed to be a place called the Split, a channel between the populated South Island and resorty / wilderness north island that was created when hurricane Haiti rolled through in the 60s. At the Split is one main bar called the Lazy Lizard that has a sandy beach element, decking and bar stools with a table submerged in the water in a channel between the two decking areas.
We had a few drinks (quite expensive again so we limited these so early in the afternoon), met up with Steve and Lee and chilled in the water bar area with the comfort of the shaded table. It was all nice and chill, ended up speaking to an Aussie called Max who had a great story of being detained for 2 hours at the American border in an airport as they berated him with scare tactics and more or less accused him of being a druggy/ drug smuggler and too poor to travel without a job because it seemed the concept of travelling and staying in hostels was for scroungers who just want to stay in the USA illegally. His reaction was priceless and had to fight the urge to deal with the stressful situation with sarcasm and humour that probably would have just left him in so much more shit. Makes Luke’s crossings look tame - these fuckers are on some mad power trip and really don’t understand that people don’t want to live in their country.
The bar was a cool place to chill at, pretty comfortable minus the little kid chasing the various fishes that were hiding under the table and whom had little concept of personal space for our group. There was a youngish 20 year old hiding around the table area also whose shoulders had been demolished by the sun and what looked like chunks etched out of his skin from where it had blistered from burn. Absolutely savage - wear sunscreen kids because this will probably fuck him over a lot going forward.
We called it quits when it started getting colder as the sun went down and the lack of a happy hour at this bar and Steve diving the next day meant no large drinking sessions were started. We went back to the room to clean up and over to have dinner & drinks at the Pelican sunset bar.
We ended up spending a good hour just the two of us as Nicola couldn’t see Steve and Lee sitting around the corner when she went looking for them at the bar. After chowing down on our very tasty grilled shrimp skewers with veg and potato, when Luke proclaimed ‘surely we haven’t been stood up’ Nicola ended up finding them so we were reunited for a couple of drinks before calling it a night.
We got up a bit earlier than required for our tour at 10am to go and sort out diving for the next day. Despite getting the same lame sell from Blue Wave Divers we couldn’t be bothered to find another elsewhere and sucked it up.
Luke had to sort some urgent flat sale documents so sat at a bar with WIFI for a while trying to get to the bottom of this before checking in to the Caveman office. We were the only ones there on the half day tour and true to the guys word, sent us out on a private boat with two guys looking after us, Al and Lincoln, for the morning. We would always prefer having others on the boat with us but in the end it meant we had a whole lot of freedom in the water which might have been restricted otherwise.
The first spot was to try and see one of the Manatee’s that apparently frequent the choppier West side of the island. Sadly we were not so lucky in our wildlife hunt and Luke would go the entire Caye Caulker trip sadly without seeing one.
On the same side of the island is a popular spot to see Tarpon, a massive fish that have grown accustomed to being fed sardines from the side of boats so they flock and jump out of the air for them. Unfortunately not a great thing to do in preserving natural habits but it was incredibly cool, terrifying and somewhat painful having a monster 1-2m fish jump out at our hands.
The risk to our fingers when feeding the large birds overhead was probably more scary.
Our first snorkelling spot was a fairly shallow area that had very clear blue waters and plenty of different types of coral in the water. There really wasn’t a vast quantity of fish but there was a good variety. We went snorkelling out into the deeper areas of the water where the sea grass lay and in turn had made the water a much darker shade of blue. We really didn’t venture very far into this area but rather skirted around the outside of the sand and grass cut off ultimately because we were scared. No manatees sadly.
The second coral reef spot was much like the first in terms of what was around but a lot more extensive and this time we had a guided snorkel around. Probably for the first time ever we were told what all the corals and fish we saw were which was incredibly interesting, the largest fish (that ended up following us) being a group of yellow snappers. Again the variety of corals were pretty cool.
The last stop was the infamous shark and ray alley, renowned for the masses of nurse sharks and manta rays swimming in the very shallow waters. Again the boats do not champion overly ethical practices in their execution of these tours and whip up the nurse sharks into a bit of a feeding frenzy at the side of the boat. This does allow us to get incredibly close to and touch both the slippery rays and the sandpaper like sharks while having them all around us but it would arguably be cooler just to see a few of them floating around or just chilling. Nurse sharks are the only sharks that sleep stationary apparently, so they’re pretty easy to find.
The tour was good fun, we got some decent melon and pineapple which is always nice and we love snorkelling so would have happily been out all day if we could. For the extra 2 hours and 2 dive sites we couldn’t really justify the doubled price tag and with the diving the next day our budget for Belize would well and truly be crippled beyond recovery. We ended up tipping BZ$20 between the two because it felt like a private tour that only ran because they were being nice. Usually we don’t tip on such expensive excursions for obvious reasons.
We were absolutely starving so after a quick stop at the hotel we went for lunch at a place called Chef Juans. It was rated really well and it didn’t disappoint. It was a simple hut with some outdoor furniture covered by a roof with ordering and food pick up at the counter so almost like a Belizean take on a Wetherspoons style food service. But for standard Caye Caulker prices the food quantity was top and tasty. Luke’s Jerk chicken, potato salad & chips went down a treat and Nicola had the best fried fish, rice and beans & coleslaw of the stay on the island.
We had the rest of the afternoon unplanned so we started on a short walk around the south side of the island plus a couple of dips into the shops. Nicola commented that there used to be a ton of street vendors back when she visited 5 years ago but none of these seem to have survived COVID. The island itself had felt almost empty from tourism, which while nice for us lame ducks, probably wasn’t great for a lot of the empty restaurants and bars on the island.
Our walk around did get manage to get us a two drug offers in the space of 1 minute, one guy walking through with a big rucksack while another went one step further in striking up a conversation saying ‘Nicola is the boss’ and on reply to Luke’s refusal of weed asking ‘why he didn’t smoke’ and whether he drank beer. Luke politely said there’s a whole host of bars down the road when refusing the offer of a drink in the dealer's house, citing we were happy to just have a walk around. Nothing overly alarming but the guy didn’t seem totally sane throughout the conversation.
Our walk only lasted another 5 minutes before we gave up because it was too warm. In the hotel room we carried on with some Belize research, booked Guatemala flights to Costa Rica and also our car hire.
We met up with Steve & Lee to watch the sunset at the Split before heading to eat at Maggie’s Sunset Kitchen. Luke was loving the bbq style grilled food and the chicken kebab, plantain, rice & beans didn't disappoint. Apparently Nicola was happy with her shrimp ceviche & nachos.
Everyone was tired so we called it an early night. Nicola was so tired she asked Luke to turn the light off at 9pm - we had lost an hour somewhere so it was reasonable that she did get confused but that about sums up the level of party atmosphere we bring to others on this trip.
Our meet time with Blue Wave was at 8.45am so naturally we were there on time, filled out some forms and ended up waiting for our guide to join us. The go slow attitude creates a ‘Belizean time’ that comes with a whole load of unquantifiable attributes bar they never run early.
We kicked off the introduction dive (for Luke) & refresher course (for Nicola) with our instructor Sunny and a 30 minute lesson. Nicola had heard all this before as part of her padi and knew all the skills from her diving experiences but Luke had never been taken through any of these details before on his prior intro dives in Australia and Sri Lanka.
Purely for Luke’s benefit going forward should he wish to remember how to dive and do all the things he was told again, rather than having any interesting elements worth reading, the set up involved:
Safety talk & hand signals - ok using thumb and forefinger to show this, cut throat for no oxygen, thumbs showing direction to move in the water, waving to show distress
Set up buoyancy control device
Check the oxygen canister - slowly turn the valve open to release oxygen, cup it and breathe in and smell. If it tastes bitter or smells of anything the air is bad.
Attach canister to BA - line up o ring with the back of the BA, strap around the oxygen tank, strap down one hand with below start of flat tank.
Attach valves - respirators hanging down the right side, tuck spare in right breastplate, pressure gauge in left pocket, release oxygen slowly & hold gauge, check pressures.
When finished: depressurise to carry canister set up equipment
Skills: recover respirator (sweep and grab method), purge water using button and blowing methods, half fill mask & clear, fill mask and clear, arm bar your dying friend and then save them.
With our instruction session done we boarded the boat and scooted off to our first dive site. It was a shallow site with a max depth of about 4m so we could practise the skills we talked about. Luke was the first to roll off the boat into the water and had no problems with weight that allowed him to peacefully sink to the bottom of the ocean floor and remain fully zen. Nicola was not so quick to get settled as her natural buoyancy was grossly underestimated by Sunny and as Nicola ditched and recovered her regulator, began floating off to the surface as if riding a hot air balloon. This was quickly sorted but was quite funny to watch.
Both of us had no problems with the skills. Luke had to be walked through the ‘armbarring your dying friend and then save them’ manoeuvre twice because he clearly wasn’t cut throat enough in denying Nicola oxygen the first time she asked - typical beta in the relationship.
Skills in tow (for Luke at least) we then ventured away from the boat and had a nice little poodle around the coral reefs in the area. As it was much shallower and the wind wasn’t churning up the water much in the area the water was pretty clear and had pretty good visibility throughout the dive. The fish & coral were much the same as what we saw when snorkelling but being able to swim right next to them for a long time and truly appreciate them was super cool.
When our time was up on our first dive we got back on the boat, Luke super stoked and happy with the whole experience.
The second dive site was termed the ‘fun dive’. Here we descended to between 10-12m and had 45 minutes diving around (supposedly but it felt super short). It had got a lot choppier on the surface and Nicola had to get in the water first to avoid churning up her seasickness - sadly this meant Luke missed the opportunity to get the photo and video op of his dive. Bfs of instagram problems are real.
Again the dive was a lot of fun, despite visibility being a little poor because of the weather.
We had a quick stop over to snorkel at the shark & ray alley where we did see an Eagle Ray which was really cool. But we didn’t stay long here as the current was savage and snorkelling with just a mask without respirator was challenging.
Once pulled into the dock we had the usual sign off from tour guides about tips and we had zero intention of paying one after the amount of money we’d forked out on these dives. This would have been fine had Nicola not needed to wait around and get her refresher dive sign off, so we just sat there for 5 minutes as Sunny started packing things away without talking to us at all. Eventually he gave the required information to Nicola but the whole interaction was super awkward and Luke walked away feeling as if we were the worst people in the world. We then rain checked ourselves and in the end were like ‘fuck him’.
We had a quick shower and went back to our fave lunch spot at Chef Juans. That potato salad slayed, the double carb quelled the hunger pang and it was just enjoyment all round.
It was pretty windy and cloudy so we didn’t have many options for us to chill and relax away the afternoon. We decided on Sip n Dip bar, grabbed some soft drinks and chilled on our phones for a little while as we had WIFI.
After neglecting each other for what seemed like an appropriate amount of time we decided to mix up our location and moved from the nice cushioned seating and into the sea on some of the submerged tables. It was pretty icy in the water with the wind and all of the tables were taken so we had decided to call it quits and retreat back to the comfort of the inside bar until an American couple hola’d and said we could join them. We got chatting to McKenna and Jake from South Carolina who were in Belize on holiday using their precious 10 day allowance. They were great crack, happily drinking cocktails and loving life. We got into some great deep chats about politics in both the UK and the USA - Luke’s only wish was that there was a 4th seat at the table so he wouldn’t have to remain submerged and cold in the sea. We would have really enjoyed meeting up with them later but in typical us fashion, we were absolutely pooped after eating and bailed.
It also turned out there were a number of assumed jellyfish floating around. Luke got stung early on in the water session and was complaining about it for a while but this was absolutely nothing compared to Nicola. Her upper thighs were absolutely ravaged and remained pock marked for an age afterwards.
We managed to catch up with Steve and Lee as they left the sunset spot at the Split and we all went for dinner at Dee & Ds. We were later joined by Jenny & Calum who were also travelling down through Central America in a very similar route to us. We did confirm with Steve that Sunny was a bit of a bastard, who had laughed as he annihilated the people on Steve’s boat when he went diving as a result of his reckless driving.
The service was pretty terrible and food for us wasn’t great, our snappers being boney as hell. The owner did apologise for the service which was a result of 2 no shows - Luke knows that feeling all too well from his Spoons days but we were all chill about it.
We were all super tired so again called it an early night. Luke gave Steve his iPad for an interview he had the next morning, feeling now at this point we are friends and could be trusted. He passed the friendship test when he returned it back the next morning.
On the suggestion of Lee we stopped off at Errolyn's House Of Fryjacks for a traditional Belizean breakfast.
The fryjacks were so good (and pretty affordable) that Luke went back for seconds. The spicy onion sauce was lit - he’s been playing a very risky game with the copious amounts of hot sauce that has accompanied all his meals and has been fortunate enough to not have issues with any activities planned. Marie Sharps habanero sauce has been the go to here and slaps.
We stocked up on a few cakes from the bakery to see us through to San Ignacio. They were of alright quality only.
Our E-Z boy tours travel package to San Ignacio started with check in at the Belize Express ferry terminal at 10am for 10.30am departure. Literally 2 minutes after we had exchanged our paper tickets for formal passes the queue exploded which was a bit fortunate and meant we could wait in the sweatbox departure ‘lounge’ for about 30 minutes before boarding and setting off 20 minutes late. We were assured that the bus on the other side wouldn’t leave without us.
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