Caribbean Holiday - Part 3 - Belize City, Belize

 You betta Belize it!

-All  the corny people who have been to Belize (include me)

The morning of the 20th was particularly exciting.  One of the major reasons we chose this cruise was because it ported in Belize, currently our top choice for a future tropical home.  John and I have researched  Belize extensively, but had yet to set foot on it's shores, so it was about time we did.

Baron Bliss Lighthouse 1885

We chose an excursion  through the cruise line which included a tour of Belize City, off-roading through the jungle, a hike through a small cave, and a boat ride down the river.  Unfortunately the first day of our cruise we were informed that the excursion was canceled, so we quickly re-booked a kayaking tour at Bacab Eco Park.

The morning of, we watched the ship's location channel as Carnival Magic snaked it's way through the shallow coastal water ways and around Belize's barrier islands.  Without a deep-water port, the cruise ship has to have passengers tendered ashore.  We followed the cruise ship's schedule and waited for our tour group to go ashore. We waited anxiously hours after the first tenders began transporting for our number to be called and many others bypassed us (as they called out numbers they called this cruise ship bingo).  Once ashore we waited on the dock in the sun and heat for other passengers bound for Bacab to join us.

Crossing the Belize River...guarders really that close.

The day half over, we were herded along to board the large charter bus.  While boarding a man offered us bags of Cashews.  How much you ask?  Too much, but since we are tourist in a hurry, we paid it and loved every little morsel of creamy nuttiness as we drove across the city toward our destination listening to the guide spew national and local facts all-the-while giving the group a Belize Creole lesson (which is different than the French Creole we are familiar with in the states).

The large bus lumbered through the narrow streets and at one point plowed it's own way over a pile of gravel as it navigated  around a construction zone, aka five guys hand laying a cement square of road.  As we crossed the BelCan bridge, a gift from Canada to Belize, it became apparent why the windows don't open on the bus...an open window wouldn't fit on that bridge, yikes.  Finally the large city-style bus bumped awkwardly down the dirt road leading to Bacab.

Bacab Eco Park is an oasis of natural beauty at the edge of the city.   We walked along a palmetto pathway which lay through the palmetto forest with fronds spanning over us blocking out the sun.  We were led to a large palapa restaurant bordering a Lilly-pad pond where we set in our canoes.  

We were guided down a narrow meandering stream once used by the indigenous Mayans for transportation, food, and laundry. We could see the evidence of their activities in the eroded stone shelves carved by eons of hands arduously scrubbing the dirt from loved one's garments.  The stream opened up into a sunny brackish lagoon frequented by alligators, snakes, tapirs and the like.  One group was fortunate enough to spot a young gator sunning himself, but we missed out.

The word was given we would head back and the race was on.  John and I fought hard but came in second place...I think they got a head start. We might have been in third if John wasn't a fast thinker and ran our competitors into a bank so we could make a fast escape.  Hehe.

Pond where we set-in... Palapa restaurant behind.

Back at the Palapa, we filled our tummies with a traditional Belizean meal of roasted chicken spiced with Recado Rojo, Roasted Plantains, Rice and Beans stewed in coconut milk, Potato Salad made with salad cream (it's an English thing I'm told), and of course Marie Sharp's Habanero Sauce for the brave.  John and I washed it down with Belekin beer and a One Barrel Rum and Coke.  Delicious!!

Lunch was followed by a brief walk through the jungle to admire the large flowers...

This grouping is about an arm's length.

...cool plants....

I love how these were climbing the trees.

... lizards....

Don't eat these ones, only the green ones!!

...birds and many fluttering butterflies (of which I'm not quick enough with a camera to catch), then a cool dip in the large pool.  A short water slide was quickly an attraction for all ages as it shot riders into the pool at surprising speeds, John and I rode it twice.   After a few hours of sun and water, we made our way back to the bus for another drive along the river, through the city, and back to port.

At the port, Tourism Village (that is really the name, creative isn't it), we had a mere 30 minutes until boarding our boat.   We rushed to find a few keepsake treasures loosing eachother in the process and feeling a bit frustrated, but then we noticed the line for the tender boats was quite long.  We slowed our pace, shopped a little more, and entered the tender line once it shortened to nearly gone, taking the last tender across the beautiful light cyan waters as the sun set on another beautiful day in the Caribbean.

The trip to Belize was exciting and memorable.  There were no surprises-as far as what we expected from the country of Belize-but as first time cruisers, we found some things we would have done differently: 1) Take the first "self-tour" tender ashore to make the most of our day.  2) As we did in Roatán, book an outing separately from the cruise line or possibly accept one of the offerings on the dock to avoid the large crowds.  3) Make sure we left enough time to find some of that One Barrel Rum....mmmm.

Aboard ship we gazed at the setting sun and bid goodbye to beautiful Belize.  The ship slipped along the Central American coast, north toward Cozumel, Mexico.

(to be continued)