This is a very picture heavy post so grab a cuppa…

In my 2nd or 4th year of uni, my friend and I watched a Simon Reeve documentary about The America’s. In one episode, he was in Belize at a manatee sanctuary. In that moment, I said I wanted to go to Belize one day and I wanted to see the manatees… But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Our journey from Playa del Carmen to Belize started with a 5am drive to the Mexican border. Here we had a quick pit stop in the most bizarre loo I have ever experienced. (No door, no flush, no running water… Just vibes). After we crossed, we jumped into another bus and headed to Belize city. We caught the boat and finally arrived in Caye Caulker.

As soon as we stepped off that boat, I could just tell the vibes were immaculate. There are basically no cars, everyone gets around via golf buggy, bike or on foot, (and everything is walkable). The roads are just sand roads, all the buildings are full of life & colour and the people are a melting pot of different cultures. It really had the island feel that I’m so used to in Nevis. We dropped our stuff off at our hostel/hotel, rented some bikes and went for an explore of the island.

Although referred to as one island, Caye Caulker is actually two. After a hurricane in 1961, the island was split into two leaving a little strip of water between the north and south island. We were staying on the south part of the island but we did visit Koko King beach on the north side, which is a 5/10min boat ride across the unreal blue waters. Our time in Caye Caulker was filled with eating and drinking… which I will never be mad about. We had breakfast at Ice and Beans, dinner at Maggie’s and a wiggle in the Sports Bar, (can’t say I recommend this in all honesty but, surprisingly, the out-out spots were lacking).

But the highlight of Caye Caulker, (and probably the entire trip for me), was the day snorkelling in the Hol Chan Marine reserve…

I saw A GODDAMN MANATEE, (a West Indian manatee to be precise), two turtles, stingrays, loads of colourful fish, eels and swam with nurse sharks. We threw it down with the captains on the boat who were unbelievably lit. We drank rum punch in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and sailed back to Caye Caulker, full of literal joy. 

We did our trip with Ragga Sailing Adventures with Captain Shane, Mush, Daniel and Jamie and I cannot recommend them enough. They knew literally everything. Any question you had, they could answer. They knew where to look for and find the creatures we wanted to see. They had great music taste and kept us fed and watered the whole day. I don’t mean to be dramatic but I literally think this could have been the best day of all my born days.

After 3 days of riding bikes, aimless wandering, lazy breakfasts, swimming, sun bathing, watching basketball and riding around in a golf buggy with some absolute randoms in the dead of night in the pouring rain, it was time to leave. We were headed to San Ignacio.

It took about 4 hours in total to get to San Ignacio and there was an unspoken shared sense among the group that we all just needed to chill, so after our orientation walk, most people went out to do their own thing. I went to the market, bought a mango and took myself the river. I really just dipped my toes and ate my mango but it was so peaceful. I took the moment to reflect like, ‘I am really living my best life right now’. 

San Ignacio is very close to the Guatemalan border, (literally about 20 minutes away), so there were a lot of Hispanohablantes and people of Mayan descent which was very different to Caye Caulker which was far more Caribbean in feel. I definitely felt like I was already in Guatemala in San Ignacio and it was super interesting to see the difference within the same country. San Ignacio isn’t particularly touristy although there is a fair amount to do there in terms of archaeological sites, caves, (which I’ll come to), and seeing iguanas. 

The evening we arrived, we went to the San Antonio Women’s Pottery co-operative for a demonstration and dinner. The co-op was founded in 2001, as a way to try and preserve the traditional customs of Mayan culture. They use ancient Maya techniques in their pottery like building shapes through the coil method. We each got a piece of clay to make into something using the coil method we were shown. I can confirm: it was hard as hell. Some people ended up with masterpieces and others, (read: me), ended up with something barely alright after about 75 attempts. It was definitely good fun to give it a go though.

After a dinner, which included chaya, (Central American spinach), roasted plantain and sorrel which I was surprised by, (I genuinely kept forgetting we were still in Belize), we headed back to the hostel to rest up for the next day.

Whilst the majority of the group went cave tubing, I chose to go to Actun Tunichil Muknal, (or ATM Cave for short). It’s the largest cave in Belize and it has been ranked the number 1 sacred cave in the world by National Geographic. We drove for about 1hr from San Ignacio to the rainforest to being the tour. You have to walk about 30 mins and wade through the ‘Roaring River’ three times before you actually get to the cave. As soon as you arrive to the mouth of the cave, you desperately wish you were allowed to have a camera with you to capture how stunning it is. Cameras aren’t allowed because some dip-shit tourist dropped theirs on one of the skulls in the cave, leaving a fat hole in its forehead. To avoid more tourist destruction, cameras were banned. To enter, you have to swim across clear blue water, with little fish darting around. At this point I had no idea what to expect. The cave is pitch black and the only light is the little your headlamp provides. I was definitely nervous about being in a confined space with literally no light, but it really wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. There were a few moments where I questioned if my body would fit through a space, or where I had to turn sideways with cave wall grazing the back of my head and nose in neck high water.

Entering the cave the beauty did not end. Looking around the cave walls and rocks were literally sparkling. There were stalactites glistening from the ceiling everywhere, spiders the size of my entire hand and sleeping bats. The caves were mostly used by Mayan priests as a portal to the underworld, mainly between 700-900AD. Its primary function was to perform rituals, offerings, blood lettings and human sacrifices. The remains of all this can still be seen, and the archaeologists have left everything exactly where they were found. There are pots still completely intact and human remains in the main ‘room’ of the cave. When I’d heard about the human remains, I was expecting a few bones here and there, maybe a skull. I was not prepared for an entire, fully intact skeleton of a man in a dancing pose. It’s believed that those that were sacrificed were from the nobility due to the beauty modifications on the skulls. For example, Mayan nobility would have their teeth shaved to a point and a board put on their heads as babies to make their headshape flat and eyes crossed. It makes sense that a person of the nobility would please the Gods more and, to be fair, I can’t imagine they’d be able to get someone into the cave unwillingly.

We returned back to where we left the car, showered, had lunch and headed back. This was our last night in Belize as in the morning, we headed to Guatemala where we spent the rest, and majority, of our trip.