Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Adventures in the Caribbean: Belize

Visiting Belize on a cruise ship is quite unique.  This is because they are so protective of the reef, that cruise ships have to anchor something like 8 miles from shore, and all passengers get tendered in.  This makes disembarking somewhat tricky. 


Since we had an excursion booked we were higher priority than some other passengers, so we didn't have to wait long before we were aboard our tender and pulling away from the Carnival Glory.


Belize was barely visible as we left the ship, but about fifteen or twenty minutes later we were pulling into the harbour.


There's a tourist market at the port, with souvenir shops, restaurants, and so on.  We were hurried onto a school bus-style bus, however, to head inland almost immediately.


We had an enthusiastic young tour guide who is a biology student at Belize's only university, and he herded us onto the bus and we were off in no time.  We had what was basically an incidental tour of Belize City, because we had to pass through it anyway on our way inland.  

Our destination was a jungle cave and river system just a little west of Belize's capital of Belmopan, roughly 80 kilometers southeast of Belize City.  We were in Belize City for ten minutes or so--it really isn't very big, and there doesn't seem to be too much to see.  I was surprised at how poor it seemed.  In spots it reminded me of some of the neighborhoods we had passed through a year ago in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

We were on the highway about an hour or so, if I remember right, and then we turned off onto a much bumpier road for a ways.  Belize had had heavy rain the day before, and there had been flooding, which was quite evident once we got off the main highway.  Among other things, the flooding meant some other tours had been canceled, and so more people were doing our excursion than had originally been planned.  

At some point between the highway and the park our guide got a phone call telling him that the park was too busy for us right then, so he had to improvise.  Rather than continue on, he had the bus turn around and go for lunch first.  This was no trouble for us, as we were quite hungry, but it was only about 11:00.

Our bus pulled into a compound with several buildings, including an open air dining hall.  There we were served plates of chicken and rice and beans and coleslaw, which was really quite delicious, and I went back for seconds.


We also were able to drink Belize's famous beer, Belikin.


The dining hall was next to a creek, which I believe was one of the ones that had flooded.


From lunch we headed back up the road to the park, where we stopped at a place to change and lock up our stuff.  The park was so busy that all the lockers were full, but this was actually alright, because then our bus driver simply agreed to watch our stuff and we didn't have to pay for a locker.

From the change room we were loaded into smaller buses and driven about five minutes further up into the jungle, on a road the larger bus would not have been able to navigate.  At the top we were fitted with a life jacket and helmet with a lamp.  Meanwhile an elderly Mayan medicine man was there and showed us various edible plants, some of which had medicinal properties.  He gave me some various leaves and shoots and nuts to eat, some of which were better than others.  

Eventually we had a group ready to go and a new guide led us up a path, along cliffs and through the jungle.  We saw small caves in the cliffs on our right, and the jungle below to the left.  Sadly we didn't see any animals, but we did hear some birds, and our guide showed us some more edible plants and other interesting vegetation.  

We ended up inside a much larger cave than any we had seen so far.  Really this cave was almost a tunnel from one side of the mountain to the other, and that's exactly what the local jaguar uses the cave for--hence it's called "Jaguar cave."  It was pretty cool, certainly the largest cave I had ever been in.  We saw the jaguar's tracks, as well as some artifacts from indigenous peoples.

On the other side of the cave we met up with a small river, and we walked along it for a 100 meters or so before coming to a staging area where we were to be given our tubes.  Frustratingly this was where we began to suffer for having so many people doing this excursion, because they had run out of tubes, and we were stuck waiting for a long time.  
After twenty minutes or so, we were finally able to get into the water, and even the long wait couldn't damage how enjoyable that was.  The water was wonderfully fresh and refreshing, and it was tremendously relaxing to lounge in the tube and float through the jungle.

I think we were on the river for 5-10 minutes before we entered a cave--this one even larger than Jaguar cave.  It was incredible.  It became pitch dark very quickly, but we turned on our head lamps and this allowed some visibility.  

Unfortunately, in the middle of this amazing experience, at some point I tried shifting position in my tube and ended up flipping head first into the water. Actually this was quite lovely at first, but my prescription glasses were on my face when I went into the water--and not on when I came out.  

The water was flowing somewhat quickly, and of course it was extremely dark, and long story short the glasses were long gone.  There was little to be done except get back on the tube and continue the voyage.

Thankfully I am not especially blind without my glasses, so I was still able to enjoy the rest of the excursion.

We were in the cave about fifteen minutes, and as we came out it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen: absolutely gorgeous with the sun coming through the trees, the scene almost glowed as we exited the cave.

Our guide told us we could take off our helmets and swim the rest of the way down the river to the dock where we would leave the river.  Andrea and I took him up on that and jumped in, swimming the 50 meters or so to the pier.

Back ashore, we made our way back down to the bus, and then back to Belize City, and to the port. 


We were significantly late getting back, but that is the plus of doing a Carnival excursion when you're on a Carnival cruise--they will wait for you.  I managed to rush off the bus and buy and mail a postcard, as well as get our passports stamped, before we got on to the last tender back to the Carnival Glory.


We headed out soon after getting on board, further south towards Honduras.

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