My husband and I visted the country of Belize for the first time over New Years. Overall, I give it high marks. We stayed on the small island of Ambergris Caye for 5 nights, which is about a 15 minute flight from Belize City and is located right off the barrier reef. For those of you who know nothing about Belize, it's a small country that used to be part of British Honduras and is protected by the second largest barrier reef in the world. Ambergris itself was very small and was kind of a mix of Caribbean attitude but Mexican influences, particularly in the food and drinks. The small town of San Pedro was easily walkable in about 30 minutes but still had plenty of restaurants and bar options.
We also spent one day touring the mainland to visit some Mayan ruins on the border of Guatamala and to do a jungle zipline. The zipline was a blast and I would do it again but I won't lie - I'm scared of heights so I was about to pee my pants at every platform. I was pretty terrified for the first 3 runs but then I got over it. Unfortunately, however, we also got monsoon rains for a full two days of our trip which ended up cancelling our plans to snorkel the reef. Kind of a bummer but we ended up watching college bowl games at a small ex-pat bar that we found a block away from our hotel so Steve was happy.
So, would I go back? Yes but I wouldn't say that I'm in a huge rush to do so. While Belize is interesting and we found the people to be friendly, it definitely lacked the beauty of the Virgin Islands. Also, the cayes of Belize are very similar to the Florida Keys as they are small coral islands with no real beaches to speak of unless you stay at resorts far north of town, which is very isolating and requires a boat to get to town for dinner and activities. For my money, the Virgin Islands still wins the vacation lottery hands-down. We will, as always, be making our 10-day trip to St. Thomas and the BVI this April and it can't come soon enough. That trip alone is what keeps me sane year over year (well, sort of sane).
A few pics from Belize:
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| Breakfast in Belize |
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| Mojito at the Palapa Bar |
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| Me looking like a huge dork on Zipline |
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| Steve looking like a bigger dork on zipline |
