For all of you who think about traveling Central America, make sure you do not miss out on Belize! It is one of a kind and the best of trips i’ve had in quite some time. This time for the first time i had a travel companion, my friend Sabrina.
National Monument of Belize
we (female ages 27 and 29) traveled by ourselves. First and foremost i have to emphasize that throughout the whole trip we both felt extremely safe and comfortable not always a given when females travel alone and especially not in Central America. No safety issues whatsoever!
We started our trip by a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Cancun. I would advise anyone NOT to fly with Iberia… and i will NEVER again. A couple days before we left they changed the flight plan and made an impromtu stop in Lisboa/Portugal on the way to pick up more passengers. This put our arrival time 3hrs behind what we had planned on.
We arrived in Cancun and made it out of the airport in about 45 mins. The bus to Playa del Carmen had already left and so we had to go to Cancun town before getting on a bus to Tulum. We reached Tulum late at night, grabbed a cab and headed for our hotel. The staff at Cabanas Copal in Tulum was nice enough to wait up for us (til we got there around midnight) and showed us to our cute lil cabana right at the ocean. It was a steal at 30USD a night and we didn’t mind sharing the bathrooms. Everything was well maintained and very clean!
The next three days we toured Tulum ruins, Coba and swam in a cenote. We loved it! The weather was ok, it rained in the mornings for a lil while but in the afternoon we enjoyed our beachtime with sunset and perfect water! Also, Cabanas Copal provided us with free wireless internet access so it was easy checking emails and staying somewhat in touch with our families back home … which they were quite thankful for i think! lol
On the fourth day we hopped on the bus to Chetumal and from there kept going all the way to San Ignacio. Everything was so easy. No problems at the border, no problems when we got to Belize City. Our bus to SI was right there and ready to go The bus ride was good with music and cheap as hell (4US per person from BZE City to SI).
We arrived in SI at 7.30pm and got a room at Hi-Et’s Guesthouse. Clean and simple lodging, the owner is nice and very helpful should you have questions!
We ate a Hannah’s (Ko-ox hannaa) and LOOOOOOVED it! Great food, honestly i could have eaten up and down the menue! We actually ate there every day. We ended our day at a local bar “Faya Wata” and got in touch with other travelers over there.
Next day was spent exploring SI, walking up the hill to Cahal Pech and walking the Maya Medicine Trail and Iguana Project with our guide Eddy. It was awesome and i am glad we did it! Playing with the lizards was very cool!
We also set up our Tikal Tour with MayaWalk Tours.
This is in Tikal, Guatemala
The next day we took the tour to Tikal and all was well. The crowd we traveled with (8ppl) was mostly ppl our age and conversations were strung up quickly. MayaWalk took us to the border and picked us up there in the evening again (thanks Jimmy)! The ppl were extremely friendly.
We decided to book transport to Belize City with them the next day since it was 4 of us (two ppl from our tikal trip were on the way to CC as well) and MayaWalk would stop at Belize Zoo on the way for us and wait until we’re done in there and then take us straight to the watertaxi terminal. The Zoo was worth the stop! Awesome animals and we even got to go into the jaguar cage and play with Junior and feed him. great experience.
In the afternoon we took the watertaxi and got to Caye Caulker. Tina’s was booked and we walked down south along the shore to Tropical Paradise Hotel. We decided to stay there. Everything was spotless clean and very nice. The Manager (Terri) was great help as well. We spent one day exploring the island barefoot (sandy roads) and on tuesday departed on the 3day sailing trip with Raggamuffin Tours! THAT was the best decision ever! The trip is so worth it’s money. We were stuffed with the best of food for three days, provided with all the equipment and did three snorkel stops every day. Our international crowd on the boat got along well and we all had a blast! The staff was great and made sure we had the best of times. My friend and i decided to take the same boat back to CC (over night) and i loved the waves, the breeze and sunrise! We came back to CC just in time for Lobster Fest! Lobster Fest weekend was a blast as well. We wandered from party to party til the early mornings!
On sunday we took a trip out to the Blue Hole with Frenchie’s Dive shop! It was great! Snorkeled with reef sharks at the blue hole and saw all kinds of other ocean creatures at Half Moon Caye and Long Caye! Totally worth the money again!
The rest of the week we did trips to Hol Chan, Shark Ray Alley, Corral Garden, St. George’s Caye and the north part of CC. We bbq’ed with local friends (mostly from Raggamuffin) pretty much every day and enjoyed island life!
At the end of the week we left CC and went to Orange Walk to meet up with friends of mine. My friend took us to La Milpa and we stayed at their lovely cabanas for one night. We walked the jungle and went birding early in the morning, drove out to Chan Chich Lodge for a drink and saw plenty of wildlife on the way.
We spent sunday and monday in Orange Walk and did a Lamanai River Tour on monday.. the guide was not the greatest (monotone voice, heavy accent) and i was reminded of the worst of school trips to some museum… but i still enjoyed Lamanai. We saw spider monkeys on the way as well a crocodiles and many birds and the ruins were spectacular. We tried soursap icecream back in Orange Walk and ate at Lamanai River Restaurant (very good but pricey)
Tuesday we left Belize to get back to Mexico. We made our way back to Playa Del Carmen and were “shocked” how touristy it is we were not used to that anymore having been in Belize for quite a while. We spent the last night on Cozumel and had fun walking around town for a bit.
The next morning it rained and we made our way to the airport! It had been a great time (great is actually not even strong enough a word to describe it adequately) in Belize!
One word of advice for others though: DO NOT stay at Mara’s Place on Caye Caulker (next to the split). We did for one night and encountered bed bugs! She promised the next day we could move to a diff room but then left us a note that she had no other room and sorry for the inconvenience. We had to argue around with her for about 30mins until she refunded our money and let us move out. We then had to wash all our clothes and bags in order not to track the flees/beg bugs to the next hotel. It worked out for us but i could have done without the experience.
Also, i would advise those who throw a screaming fit over a cockroach in the bathroom not to go to Belize.. those critters tend to show up we named ours… all of them! We had Lola in SI, we had Jimmy at La Milpa and Rose in Orange Walk.
Other than that… we had a blast and i am ready to go back there as soon as i can!
Happy trails!
