Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ahhh Blissful Belize

This summer had quite a few interesting and uplifting notes, among those and certainly not the least of which was my 10 year anniversary to the fabulous Tiffany. We always try to take a trip as a gift to each other rather than purchase another trinket that we may or may not truly appreciate. This year we went to Belize. Wow


Tiffany was somewhat worried about the scheduling since we sandwiched the week away in between the return from China one week and leaving for Kenya 2 weeks later. It worked out fine though.

I really did Love Belize. We rented a condo on Ambergris Caye, a 20 minute plane ride hop from Belize City on the mainland. It was great, from the plane ride down a mere 2 1/2 hours to the easy customs and the best part was, no crowds. That is one good thing about travel the first week in Sept. There are usually fewer crowds.
`
The grounds where we stay ed were somewhat secluded yet an easy 5 minute walk to town or the grocery store, the humidity however was over the top a couple of days. We had a second floor condo facing the ocean (pictured left), the breezes from the ocean were nice in the evenings and walking up the beach to the various eateries was also a bonus. When we got there Friday, there were maybe 5 other people staying in the condos by mid week there was maybe 2, then a couple arrive before we left, that was it....now that's a vacation.


I'd have to say that Belize or more specifically Ambergris Caye and San Pedro is all about
The Water.
The water is magnificent, Belize works hard to keep it that way but you may have never seen water quite as clear as this. The water temperature was excellent and the visibility was amazing. Due in no small part to the presence of the second largest barrier reef in the world about 1 1/2 miles off shore, the waters were generally very calm.

So we did the expected tourist stuff, snorkeling with the sharks and mantas ( pretty cool), We did the fishing thing as well. Lets see, I caught Nada, zip zilch but Tiffany caught a decent sized Barracuda (pictured).


We also did the zip line thing through the rain forest on the mainland with tubing down the river inside the caves *also pretty cool if your not claustrophobic or afraid of bats (both on Tiffany's top ten don't likes) she was extremely brave throughout.

Luckily there were no crowds, we were told there could be waits of up to an hour on the zip lines and with the humidity that would have been brutal.

It was very laid back on the Caye, the locals were in a down mode and were not really expecting things to get going again for about two months, it was the beginning of their vacation time, many restaurants were closing for remodeling or just closing till the tourists started coming back sometime in mid November. It's not cheap in San Pedro, groceries are expensive, as you might expect on an island and restaurants are expensive for what they are. But we managed, cooked a few meals in the condo and all in all it was great time.

For our anniversary dinner we took a night-time water taxi ride of about 20/30 min. to a resort that is really only available by water taxi, it was very laid back, quite and the wait staff were nice enough so it was very relaxing evening. The Food? ok they tell me its not about the food, but who are we kidding, unfortunately I'm all about the food. Don't go to Belize for the food, its about average to below average and overpriced but we did have a couple of great burger joints that we frequented so that was good, still all and all go for the water not the "upscale" eateries.


Would I go back - you bet, but there is so much more of the world yet to be seen together it might take us a few years to get back there. The water alone makes it worth traveling back to, especially since we saw only a very small part of the reef. Thanks to the guys at Paradise, it is aptly named and they did a great job in making life easy for us.

Thanks Tiffany for 10 years of wonderful marriage and I can't wait to see what the next 10 bring and the 10 after that and the 10 after that and the 10 after that and the 10 after that.........

As for Belize, common guys ya know it by now.......

It is what it is

No comments: