Belize trip

In order to avoid another Christmas in Guatemala (last year’s tamale overdose and consequent stomach pains haunt me to this day), I convinced my parents to leave the cold Bay Area to travel down to tropical Belize. It was a hard sell, but luckily for me, my parents agreed to sacrifice the Berkeley clouds for some Belizian sun. On December 23^rd I left Guatemal via El Salvador to Belize (TACA has no direct flights, I imagine if there were direct flights they would take 20 minutes, but I guess there is not enough of a market). Apparently Guatemala and Belize have a somewhat uncomfortable relationship because when Belize declared independence from the United Kingdom, Guatemala claimed it had territorial rights…not too clear why since Belize used to be British Honduras…

Belize is the one country in Central America where English is the official language, but Spanish and Creole and some Mayan languages are spoken as well by most of the population. Belize relies heavily on tourism, I do not recall the number but it is a ridiculous amount of the annual GDP, and every year thanks to cruise ships it gets around 900,000 visitors (3x the amount of the population, which is around 300,00). Belize is therefore really focused on environmental protection and eco-tourism since that is the bread and butter of their economy. The following three blog posts are a montage of images from my week in Belize. While I was there for only a short period of time, there was a lot of see, so maybe I went overboard a bit with documentation, but I hope you enjoy anyways.

On boat with dad leaving Belize City harbor

Caye Caulker and Caye Ambergris are two of the northern Cayes (Cayes are islands all along the coast of Belize and Caye Ambergris is super touristic and apparently the most expensive place in all of Belize). To get to the islands, there are shuttle boats that take about an hour to reach the islands.

On Caye Caulker, population 1,000 + and 5km long, there are just golf carts and bikes to get around. The island is really easy to get around on foot, it has three main streets that go the length of the island and then streets that got maybe three blocks across the island.

Thanks to tourism, Belize also has the highest HIV prevalence in all of Central America with some 2.4% infection rate. I found two AIDS signs on the island, which again only has 1,000 residents or so. It is great that the government is making an effort to combat HIV/AIDS, this sign was on the main street and another sign was on a beach in Spanish.

With mom on main street

On our first full day on the island, my mom and I went kayaking around the northern end of the Caye and saw a really cool Rasta boat.

On day two of our trip, we went on a boat trip to Hol Chan, Shark Ray Alley and Coral Gardens – all parts of the coral reef near the island. Unfortunately, Caye Caulker does not have any beaches really appropriate for getting in the water – lots of rocks, shallow and weedy – so day trips on boats are necessary to go out and see the coral reefs. Hol Chan is a Nature reserve between Caye Caulker and Caye Ambergris where Mayans carved a channel for boats to get through the coral reef. The coral there is not in the best shape since tons of people go there to visit, and we were told that the worst offenders are Germans who do not listen to instructions about not touching the coral. The ocean colors on the way out were spectacular.

Ocean and sky

After Hol Chan, we went to another stop where nurse sharks feed, so I swam with sharks and sting rays!

The birds wanted in on the fish

With dad on the boat

Back on land obligatory jumping shot

Walking along the beach on Caye Caulker

Family - Mirit = Three Markowitzim

Hibiscus Flower

Bonding with mom's feet

Enjoying the sun