Belize is a tiny country, but it has as many as 450 small islands. After crossing the border from Mexico and spending our first night in Sarteneja, that’s exactly where we headed – from 15 December 2023, first to Ambergris Caye and then to Caye Caulker, where a coral reef, snorkelling with sharks and feeding stingrays right by the shore were waiting for us.
Ambergris Caye – Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”
“La Isla Bonita”, or Ambergris Caye, is the very island Madonna sang about. On it we visited San Pedro – the only town on the island, with a few beaches. This is where snorkelling and diving trips set off from, because the second-largest coral reef in the world runs right past here. For us, San Pedro was a stopover between Sarteneja and the second Belizean island – Caye Caulker.
It was in San Pedro that we had the only less pleasant moment of our whole stay in Belize – a march with all our luggage, in full sun, to a hotel a long way from the centre. Apart from that, the island left us with nothing but good memories.
Snorkelling on the coral reef
We went snorkelling from Caye Caulker. It was our second trip like this – the same coral reef also stretches along the coast of Mexico, where we had snorkelled earlier off the island of Cozumel. Comparing the two, the Belizean one was definitely more amazing, although more expensive (90 USD). We saw more, and the company ran the trip much more professionally.
Here the reef is within sight, and sometimes literally within arm’s reach – no diving needed. Loads of fish species, and among them nurse sharks. Yes, they were lured with food, but seeing so many of them up close was something else – it was the part of the trip we had been looking forward to most. We also fed tarpons, which jumped for the sardines we held out, and we saw a shipwreck.
Caye Caulker – “go slow”
The motto of Ambergris Caye is “be kind”, and that of Caye Caulker “go slow”. It turned out to be treacherous: once we arrived we couldn’t tear ourselves away and stayed a bit longer, so afterwards we had to hurry to see the rest of the places we had planned before Christmas. Because of that, we skipped some of Belize’s attractions.
The island is small, but it has an amazing atmosphere and is a paradise for lovers of the underwater world. Every day at a set time you can go to the stingray feeding – the rays swim right up to the shore. There are lots of pelicans and other birds, and the locals are friendly and helpful. We spent four days here, sleeping in our tent on the grounds of a hostel – the cheapest option on the island (20 BZD / about €9 for a tent for two), when others started at 30 USD per person.
Belize in a nutshell
- Our stay in Belize lasted from 14 to 20 December 2023 (we were on the islands from 15 December).
- Weather on the islands over Christmas: max. about 26°C and quite a lot of wind.
- When leaving the country we paid a departure fee – 40 BZD / about €18. Then we headed on to Flores in Guatemala.
- The official language is English.
- The country has only about 450,000 inhabitants, and its area is just under 23,000 km².
- Prices and amounts are as of December 2023 (the time of our visit).
