16-day trip to ☞ Guatemala and Belize in November 2011. After Guatemala leg of our trip we went by local minibus to the border, crossed on foot, quickly and without paying any fees, then took taxi to San Ignacio. Belize part of our trip was much more relaxed than Guatemala, also because we stayed only in 2 places.
Itinerary
Melchor de Mencos border crossing ➜ (colectivo/taxi) ➜ San Ignacio – Cahal Pech ➜ (bus tour) ➜ ATM Cave ➜ (bus tour) ➜ Caracol ➜ (local bus) ➜ Xanantunich and Tropical Wings Nature Center ➜ (bus/boat) ➜ Caye Caulker via Belize City ➜ (boat) ➜ Belize City ➜ Chicago
Belize continental
Belize is relaxed but more expensive. It’s still easy to find cheap hotels and food, but what adds to expense is the tours: you have to take them to see almost anything and they are really pricey, while in Guatemala it’s relatively easy to see things on your own. In San Ignacio we stayed in Tropicool Hotel cabins – nice, clean, quiet and just in the middle of town. They also have very inexpensive rooms with shared bathroom which looked nice and clean, but we opted for more comfort. First afternoon we walked to Cahal Pech and wondered around the ruins (this is where the flies got me for the first time).
Visit to ATM Cave was the highlight of our trip. Although some companies seemed to get better reviews, we chose Mayawalk Tours since they get to the cave before anybody else. It turned out to be great choice – the tour was awesome. The guide was great, very knowledgeable, didn’t rushed us, made sure everyone was comfortable and took extra care of a lady who did not swim and had some trouble climbing the rocks. The whole tour was great, from walk in the jungle and river crossing, swimming to the cave, scrambling through the rocks, seeing rock formations, to the dry chamber with fascinating Maya artifacts and calcified skeleton (and we were first there and had space for ourselves!) and listening to very interesting explanations from our guide. Amazing trip. Our lunch was also very good.
Next day we hesitated between cave tubing and Caracol, and chose the ruins. Tour was good, but in retrospect I would pick either cave tubing or better yet a tour to Lamanai from Belize City or Caye Caulker. Drive to Caracol was long and on very bumpy road, through pine forest destroyed by insects several years ago, just starting to regenerate and looking sad. On the way back we stopped to see a large cave and Rio On pools. Caracol was the only ruins we visited with a guide, and although he was good and left us time, I prefer unguided exploration. It was nice to hear full story about the site though. To go to Caracol, everybody had to join convoy with military escort leaving town at set time.
Last morning we went on a chicken bus to Xanantunich and were there almost alone, with toucans and other birds, and liked it a lot. We crossed the street to see butterflies at Tropical Wings Nature Center (The Trek Stop) and although it’s a small nursery, it was great to see colorful butterflies, eggs, pupae, larvae, and the plants they eat. We came back to get the luggage and jump on another chicken bus to Belize City, and water taxi to Caye Caulker.
Caye Caulker
We stayed in Maxhapan cabins on Caye Caulker – expensive for our budget, but very pretty, comfortable, clean, with A/C (not really needed), bikes and very nice owner. It was very relaxing to stay there for 4 nights. We took wonderful Hol Chan/Shark alley snorkeling trip with Tsunami, watched so many colorful fish, dozen sharks and huge sting rays – amazing. I really wanted to see manatees and Turneffe Atol, but there were not enough people to easily organize a tour. We got on a manatee tour, but combined with (and run by) another company and it was disappointing. We actually didn’t know we were going with another company until we were on the boat. We saw only one manatee (later learned from Tsunami that there were more in the second resting hole), did not visit St. Gorge Island and snorkeled on our own very briefly at 2 places since the guide didn’t even got into water (it was cloudy and quite cold). Next day they had enough people for Turneffe, but due to some organization glitch and not sure weather we did not go. Instead I went on night snorkeling and it was a blast, the guide was great, everything was different, I’ve seen lots of lobsters, sea urchins, shrimps and the highlight was an octopus. Probably it was better than Turneffe since Turnefffe would be more similar to other reef day snorkeling. Doing it again, I would go fishing instead of manatee tour (or rather instead of a tour with uncertain tour company that I did not choose). Next time we have to try diving!
