It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything and the reason is I just recently returned from an amazing trip to Belize.The trip had been a few years in the making but my husband and I finally made the time to go and it was well worth it.
Belize is a great and easy country to travel to. It’s a two and a half hour flight from Houston, English is the primary language and the conversion rate is pretty straight forward, $1 U.S. = $2 Belizean.We divided our trip in two spending half our time in the jungle exploring Mayan ruins and half our time snorkeling the Belize Barrier Reef, the second largest in the world.
Tikal, the Mayan Ruin located in Guatemala was certainly a site to see. The massive ruins span over a vast amount of jungle and are accessible to climb and explore. The highlight of that trip was seeing none other than world acclaimed physicist, Stephen Hawking. Our entire tour group was left speechless. Apparently he visits often, but we felt so lucky to have even caught a glimpse of him. My nephew would argue that the highlight was when my husband stepped in monkey poo but that’s neither here nor there.The Lamanai Ruins located on the bank of the Belize River was truly awesome! I highly recommend traveling by boat to get there. You are exposed to all kinds of wildlife. I even got to feed a banana to a spider monkey! Go with a guide. They are so great at explaining the history of the ruins and are more knowledgeable than any book could ever be.
To begin the second leg of our trip we hopped on a plane to the coast starting off in Placencia then over to Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye. We found out once we got to Placencia that had we come two weeks later we would have had the opportunity to swim with whale sharks. What an amazing experience that would have been! (Now it just gives us another reason to go back!)
The cayes are a great jumping off point for snorkeling or diving some of the best places in the world including the Blue Hole. On our trips we swam amongst sharks, rays, sea turtles, eels and tons and tons of different fish. Dolphins kept our boat company as we bounced across the waves of the Caribbean. What a sight that was!
Overall we had a blast. We got the best of both worlds, trekking through the jungle and relaxing on the beach. The people are friendly, the ocean is warm and the memories are priceless.