CAYE CAULKER, BELIZE

My first international stop was the tiny Central American country of Belize and I happened to arrive on Christmas Eve. Like the rest of the region, Belize is primarily Roman Catholic and my cab driver assured me they take Christmas very seriously here. I always thought Los Angeles was a very non-Christmassy place to be during the holidays, but compared to Belize, Los Angeles feels like Bethlehem. Aside from a few strings of colored lights here and there, I saw almost no signs of Christmas on the island of Caye Caulker. Strangely enough, there seems to be a strong association between the Yule spirit and explosives here because the children were setting off firecrackers everywhere all day.



I only spent a day and a half on the island, but it was so action packed that it felt like 1.6 days. Early in the morning I wanted to rent a bike so I found a woman who rents them along with golf carts and a few other things. She said it was $2 per hour or $7.50 for the whole day. I asked if I had to leave a deposit or credit card and she seemed puzzled, then said I only had to pay first, then please return the bike when I was done. Fair enough. The bike was well built for a large child or small adult, but I managed anyway and had traversed every road in town a couple times within the first hour, but I just kept cruising to make sure I got my four dollars worth.

The highlight of the day was certainly my first-ever snorkeling expedition. I booked a 3-hour afternoon trip from one of the dozen or so shacks along the main strip offering them. Aside from simply doing nothing at all, snorkeling and scuba diving seem to be the primary reasons for going to Caye Caulker. The cost of the activity was only $27.50 U.S. including equipment rental and even fresh fruit to snack on.

Six other Americans and I were boated out about a mile to the barrier reef and during the first hour our guide pointed out nearly as many exotic fish as my friends have in their family room fish tank (it is a hell of a tank though, so don’t think I wasn’t equally impressed with the real thing!). This part was actually a bit tedious though, as it consisted mainly of the local guide diving down in front of us then pointing to some random fish with a car antenna-type device, after which we would all resurface and listen to him over-pronounce the fish’s name, then he’d say it again before diving down and repeating the process every 30 seconds or so.



We then got back aboard the motorboat and were driven to another area where the guide dumped some chum in the water so all the local sharks (about 4 to 6 feet long) and stingrays (about 3 to 4 feet wide) would gather into a feeding frenzy for us. We snorkeled among them for a while, but when the chum was all gone the sharks bid us farewell. The stingrays must not be quite as bright because they hung around for another 15 minutes or so and were even a bit playful with us, although two girls in our group chose not to get out of the boat during this stop. I felt we should have voted one of those girls off the island, but then I was reminded we weren’t on a reality show.

Our third and final stop was another part of the reef, which was extremely dense with coral and every other imaginable undersea life (no mermaids, unfortunately). It’s almost as if there is a whole other eco-system down there. By the way, I had just finished my 4th beer at a nearby beach bar seconds before arriving for the trip, and it was surprising how difficult it was to relieve myself in the sea at first, probably because we were a co-ed group swimming closely together. Luckily, it eventually it became second nature.

The rest of my short time there was pretty uneventful. The island is very pleasant, but the beaches are lousy since they are all covered in trees and slimy underwater plants. The town has an unmistakable Jamaican feel and reggae was playing everywhere almost non-stop. I ate a couple of times at a place called Rasta Pasta, which lived up to my expectations.

Early the next morning, I took the 7 a.m. water taxi back to Belize City to wait for the 9:30 a.m. bus to Flores, Guatemala.