Caye Caulker

On August 16th the rest of us hopped off the shuttle van in Belize’s tiny capital, Belmopan, and connected a chicken bus, a taxi, and a ferry enroute to our last stop, Caye Caulker (PHOTO 1: our side by side hotels, PHOTO 2: island lingo, PHOTO 3: cool cactusish flowers by the local bank).

In this laid back little island town we enjoyed a little bit of everything. Some eating highlights were cakes from the cake mon (PHOTO 4), our favorite meal out at Wish Willy, not really a restaurant, just someone’s backyard (PHOTO 5: lobster, shrimp, and barracuda) and a wonderful meal we fixed for each other in our apartment (PHOTO 6: digging into rice, beans, avocado, mango, and fresh barracuda steaks). The steaks in the previous photo were caught by the brothers in PHOTO 7 who took Eric and Mike to a local caye for flyfishing.

Kathy, Eli, and Tyler (PHOTO 8) tried scuba diving for the 1st time and were treated to a rare sighting of manatees. I did a 2 tank dive in the Hol Chan Reserve and during my surface interval between dives was treated to half an hour of snorkeling time in shallow water with several beautiful turtles (PHOTO 9).

On our last full day Eric, Adam, Mike, and I spent the day snorkeling from a sail boat (PHOTO 10: Bob Marley playing in the background). PHOTOS 11, 12, 13 and 14 show some of my favorite large objects below the waves (eel, ray, nurse shark, Adam).

On Thursday, August 20th, Eric and Kathy's family caught the 7:30 am ferry to the mainland and flew out before noon. I did a little shopping (including an essential Bob Marley CD), and we finished off the rice, beans, and fish in a final perfect lunch with Mariah and Greg before catching a flight to the international airport. Mariah and Greg will head home Saturday and I've added photos from their final week to the previous post.

Our visit to Belize had come to an end (PHOTO 15: Caye Caulker from the air). We loved this trip and already treasure the memories of the adventures and cultural experiences we shared.