Belize!!

Daniel and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary last month on the 11th. We decided to take a trip to Belize and WOW!! It did not disappoint! (There were, actually, some very disappointing things about the trip but not to overshadow the greatness of the majority of it.)

Lot of flights... Orlando to Miami to Belize City to San Pedro!

We flew into Belize city which is on the coast in the center of the country. Then we caught a little 12 passenger puddle jumper over to the island of Ambergris Caye. The island is.... less than desirable I'd have to say. I took a few pics as we were landing and you find unfinished structures that have turned into junkyards all over the place. But our resort was a little slice of heaven and the water was beautiful (even if it smelled rotten... which it did).

View from our room.

We opted to not take a taxi into the town of San Pedro for dinner, thinking we could find a cheaper option if we started walking in that direction and maybe caught a cab already on it's way. Well not more than 50 yards from our hotel a sweet Belizean lady on her golf cart offered us a ride! Everyone drives golf carts on the island and she was so nice!

The first night we ate at El Fogon and it was amazing!! Delicious salbutes and this coconut cheese cake which wasn't really a cheesecake at all... we went back the second for the dessert! No AC though and I was eaten alive by mosquitoes! 

After dinner we walked around and rented a golf cart of our own for the next 4 days... well worth it! Loved seeing Belizean women carry things on top of their heads!

Most of our pictures are of our food... sorry about that. But there wasn't much we tried that wasn't super delicious!

Golf carts for daaaaaaaays.....

Our first full day we popped around the island and went to "Secret Beach" which wasn't so secret and wasn't very nice at all. I've decided I'm a beach snob and Ambergris Caye doesn't make the cut!!

We got in 1 good workout session!! 

The night of our anniversary we dined waterside and it was beautiful!

The next day we decided to get off the island, fly back to the mainland, and do something fun! This was the view from the dock at 5:45 am as we waited for our water taxi. The taxi brought us back into the city where we grab a yummy breakfast and then hopped back on a little plane to Belize City. Once there Caddy, our tour guide (we were the only ones on the tour so it was private and personal and amazing!) picked us up and drove us about 1.5 hours east toward Guatemala to a Mayan Ruin called Cahal Pech. 

Cahal Pech was pretty cool. 

We had some time after Cahal Pech and Caddy took us to a Belizean farmers market among several villages where everyone from the villages shop (we were the only Americans there). This place was so cool. Beautiful produce of every color, fresh spices and some seriously authentic amazing food for so so cheap. 

Yummy fryjacks and sabutes with a pickled cabbage hot sauce you could find everywhere. 

The real tragedy of the trip is that we weren't able to take our phones/cameras on the best part... the Cave Tubing!!! From the Farmer's Market we went zip lining (which was really cool and really awesome!!) and then we hiked about 30 minutes to the caves where we sat on a big inner tube and floated for about 30 minutes through a legit cave. It was beautiful. A sink hole right in the middle with light and vegetation. Stalactites, stalagmites. All really really awesome. And not one picture. Darn. 

So we had time before our flight back to drive around Belize City which was fun. They have no stop lights anywhere. And this is their electrical situation. Note the wire running right into the side of the wall....

Where the cruise ships come!

Dinner that night we were on the hunt for a dish that had been highly recommended by Caddy... unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it... it started with a P. Anyhow, this is the lady!! We found them and they were tasty!!

Next day was beach side breakfast and a day on the water!!

We went snorkeling to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Really cool. We saw sharks, stingrays, an octopus, moray eels, beautiful fish including a porcupine puffer fish, and other cool things. We also hit what they called "Shark Ray Alley" and we got to swim with a dozen nurse sharks of varying sizes (up to at least 8 feet) and sting rays as our captain chummed the water. It was pretty cool. 

Plenty of time to relax on our back porch.

Our final breakfast before flying home! Belize has the best orange juice, watermelon juice and soursop juice (bet you've never heard of that one!) I've ever had!

Lucky me got to co-pilot our flight back!!!