It was officially time for my first border crossing; Mexico to Belize. I was heading to an Island off Belize City called Caye Caulker which is where 95% of travellers go that visit Belize. Belize is a carribean style country where the official language is actually English… broken Caribbean English I was soon to find out that was incredibly hard to understand. The general consensus I had read and heard from other travellers is that Belize as a whole doesn’t have a lot to offer and can even be quite dangerous to travel to in certain areas, but the island of Caye Caulker is an absolute must. The smart traveller website says to ‘exercise a high degree of caution’ in Belize which is the same for most Central and South American Countries but Belize City itself has a ‘reconsider your need to travel’ warning attached.
Caye Caulker was one of the places I had to book quite far in advance as it had limited availability on the Island and even in Bacalar I had heard stories of other travellers who were skipping it because there was absolutely no availability at all. The cheaper and longer route to get there is to get a 6 hour shuttle to Belize City from Bacalar and then the 45ish minute ferry from Belize City to Caye Caulker. I opted for the slightly more expensive but much quicker and easier route. At 6am I took a 40 minute shuttle to the coastal town of Chetumel where I took an Uber to the dock. From there I got the watertaxi option which goes straight from Chetumel, Mexico to Caye Caulker, Belize with a brief immigration stop off on the island of San Pedro, Belize. It was a fairly smooth and painless experience and I even managed to avoid paying the 700 peso leaving Mexico fee. I’m not sure how they just didn’t ask me. The water taxi boat made the Rottnest Ferries look like super yachts but all in all I can’t complain and arrived on Caye Caulker for midday.
The Caribbean food here is right up my alley and has been a welcomed change from all the tacos I’ve been eating. Grilled jerk chicken, pork chops rice and beans has been my diet for the last few days. I apparently missed the lobster season by 2 days which was unfortunate. I signed myself up for a snorkelling tour for the next morning and chilled at the Hostel bar. There were loads of familiar faces from Bacalar already there which was nice.
The snorkelling tour I signed up with was called E-ZY Boy tours and it was a full day trip out on the boat. This was one of my highlights of the trip so far. 12 of us and went out and the tour included 3 snorkel spots way out from the island, lunch and bottomless rum punch. I saw turtles, stingrays, manta rays, nurse sharks, and plenty of fish to name a few. It was easily the best snorkelling I have ever done. Dolphins started following us on the way back and we deleted rum punch in the sun. What a day.
With sand in my bed and a foggy memory it was time to back it up again as today was Sunday Funday. Sunday Funday is a massive day on the island every sunday and the event is run by the hostel I’m staying at, Bellas Backpackers. It is a world famous party in the region that I had heard about a lot before booking my trip. I purposely made sure I was here on a Sunday for it when I booked. For $40 US the party starts at 2pm in the backyard of Bellas where you can drink endless rum punch, tequila shots and fireball as part of your ticket. People chat and play drinking games and it’s really fun. At 5pm all these boats come and collect you from Bellas and take you out on the water where the party continues in the water. After sunset, you are taken back to Bellas to continue the festivities. A great party that lives up to its reputation.
The motto on the island of Caye Caulker is ‘go slow’ and I redefined the meaning of go slow on Monday. I sat in a hammock for the best part of half a day, ate some jerk chicken and then went back to the hammock. I went for a little walk in the afternoon as to not feel like a complete slug and that was it for Monday.
Caye Caulker is a special place.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/PVCz8JKPvbpGEbxcA