Belize | Catfished
Why Belize?
After months of waiting, the time had finally come to escape the winter in New York! We chose Belize as our destination due to the great weather and warm waters, which are not cold like some other islands in the Caribbean at this time of year. It was also the only country with the least amount of layover time and stops during that weekend. Also, I’ve had Belize on my bucket list for ages.
You are not going to Abu Dhabi or Singapore, you are going to an undeveloped country, where the beauty relies on nature, weather, and eating great food, so leave your sequin dresses and high heels at home and go with an open mind.
Of course, staying in the city was not an option, so I went deeper in research and found out about these cool cayes you can stay at, Caye Caulker and Caye Ambergris. Although we stayed at Caye Ambergris because some articles described it as the best and more glamorous, we later realized that we would have preferred Caye Caulker. The town was colorful, clean, and had a more accessible and vibrant atmosphere. At Ambergris Caye you need to be moving around in a taxi or a golf cart if you don’t stay in the center of the town which eeee no thanks. At Caye Caulker the hotels are also cheaper.
Caye Caulker
Cash is king here, and if you bring Belizean dollars even better. The experience overall was nice, we encountered some issues and several surprises therefore I am going to give you the juice in this post.
Transportation
The cost of a taxi ride from Belize City to the boat taxi station is USD 30, and the journey typically takes around 15 minutes. There are two types of boats available for transportation to the cays: an express boat and a regular boat. On our trip, we opted to take the regular option (Caribbean Sprinter LTD), which cost us USD 50 for a round-trip to Ambergris Caye. The boat ride to Ambergris Caye typically takes around 2 hours, but it can be a bit scary for some people. On our tour, we decided to take the express taxi service for a round-trip ticket of USD 39 from Ambergris to Caulker (www.belizewatertaxi.com).
At Ambergris Caye, golf carts are the primary mode of transportation, which you can rent for a price range of USD 25 for 4 hours to USD 75 a day. However, we decided not to rent them because an employee from our hotel offered us his taxi service. We paid USD 10 for each ride during the day and USD 20 after 10 PM. This service proved to be more convenient for us than renting a golf cart.
Food and Lifestyle
The food was amazing, they excel in seafood especially grilled, and the drinking water is incredibly fresh and light it doesn’t matter if is from a bottle or from whatever the hotel and restaurants were giving it.
These are some of the places we ate at:
The hotel. It was the best one.
The Hidden Treasure. This was a recommendation from a person staying at the hotel, the food was good and the restaurant offers a shuttle service to pick up and drop off diners at the hotels (brilliant).
Sip and Dip, this restaurant is located at the Caulker Caye, it was ok, the service was horrible and the food average but if you want to hear loud music and have a drink / eat inside the beach this is the place for you.
Maxie was a spot recommended by locals to party but it is a restaurant as well. The food was ok but the ambiance, drinks, and music were nice.
Sunset is like the IT spot to party and look around. The place is a rooftop with an incredibly mixed crowd, between locals and tourists. The vibe was cool.
If you are almost exclusively a wine drinker like me buckle up because the “thing” there is cocktails, especially rum-based ones (DUH) and beer. They have wine of course but stick to the above. Piña Coladas are delicious everywhere.
Activities
Initially, we booked two tours but we canceled one because it was in Belize City, and after experiencing how far and expensive it was to go back to the city to then go back to the Caye we decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.
We did a 7 stops snorkeling tour ending at the Hol Chan Marine Reserve departing from Caye Caulker. The Belizian waters are a feast to the eyes, omg my favorite hue was in full display throughout the trip even during a not-too-sunny day.
Get ready to be welcomed by sharks lol, you are going to see a lot of them swimming freely next to you. My favorite part of the trip was seeing the shipwreck almost at the end of the trip, it felt surreal.
The last part of the tour was the stop at the marine reserve which I would really suggest you go with a life jacket, we had a horrible incident that almost ended in multiple tragedies, the tour guide took us too close to the channel at the reserve and next thing you know we are getting swept away by the waves, it got so bad that marine rangers had to rescue us. By God’s grace, I decided to bring a lifejacket with me to that last jump to snorkel because I was too tired already, I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t brought it with me, because let me tell you something no matter hard I swam I wasn’t moving forward, the waves kept pulling me back as they were getting bigger and more aggressive. Having that lifejacket underneath my torso helped me stay afloat to rest and catch my breath, sheesh what a moment! My crazy friend saw me struggling and instead of staying at her safe spot, she swam towards me to calm me down and help me out since my hysteria was rapidly increasing (she also had a lifejacket, well only the two of us jumped with one). On her way to me, she saw one of the girls from our group drowning, so she dragged her out and then proceeded to go my way. Once inside the tour boat, the girl started crying terrified after this incident saying that she thought she was a pretty decent swimmer and thanking my friend for basically saving her. After a while, the other of the group came to the boat saying how they were having a hard time swimming and staying afloat because the current was just too strong and that group didn’t even get swept away by the waves go figure.
The Weather
The weather was amazing, we went the second week of January, and it was the greatest break from New York’s arctic Jan weather.
I don’t know if it is because I’ve been in NY for too long but I felt like the sunsets and sunrises in Belize were 3 days long and I loved it! Something else I noticed is that the mornings are super cloudy almost like it is going to rain, but no, around 12:30 PM the sun starts showing up, I guess that is the reason why Belize activities start after 10:00 AM.
The Hotel
Here is where the catfishing part comes in, the hotel was very pretty BUT they advertised themselves as a waterfront hotel and that is why we paid 3 times the price one could pay on most hotels on both cays. Arriving there and being told that to go to the beach we had to take a 15-minute boat ride to the hotel’s private beach and that we had to pay extra for the boat service and towels made us very angry, yes I know uuu a private beach sounds so cool and fancy, but that is not what we planned and paid for, we wanted to hang out at the beach as long we wanted at any time without the limitations of a boat schedule.
The hotel also advertised itself as an “Adults Only” hotel and not it was not. This was not some kind of mistake I made while booking, I did research and looked for a while before deciding to book at the Mahogany, including reading several reviews from different hotels, the ones from this one were “the best” and referred to as a hotel within a walking distance to the beach, I guess that they are just buying the reviews, which is a thing nowadays.