Unbelizeable

Just got back from a trip to Ambergris Caye, Belize. It was awesome! The highlights were snorkeling, great food, beautiful resort, super nice people, and everyone gets around on a golf cart. The low points were the oppressive heat (I was sweating in places I didn’t know could sweat), the sand fleas at Secret Beach (more on that later) and the sargassum – nasty smelling seaweed.

Belize isn’t your quintessential Caribbean island (it is in Central America anyways) with a beautiful downtown, fancy shops, and crystal clear blue water. It is still a developing country (not even founded until 1981) with dilapidated infrastructure and very poor people. But if you want to visit a country before it explodes with tourism and still maintains its unique characteristics, now is your chance. This country will look completely different in 5-10 years.

We stayed 5 nights at the Alaia Resort, one of Marriott’s Autograph Collection properties. It was fabulous. We spent a lot of time at the pool and the swim-up bar! During our stay we went snorkeling twice, Adam went offshore fishing and we went to Secret Beach.

Once you got into San Pedro, the main town, things were a little less picturesque.

If you want to see the crystal clear blue water and bar hop along the oceanfront, then you have to visit Secret Beach. It was a 45 minute golf cart ride from our resort but totally worth it. We sat in the shade under a palapa drinking cocktails and then we got in the water. Harmless, right? Wrong! We got attacked by sand fleas. Getting bit by a sand flea is like a tick boring into you and you have to pick the sand flea off of your skin. Gross, that was definitely not a highlight. Unfortunately, we were only able to stay in the water for about 5 minutes due to the sand fleas.

The highlight of the trip for me was the snorkeling. We enjoyed it so much we went twice. First, we snorkeled Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley. The next trip we did was Mexico Rocks. Yes, I said sharks…we swam with nurse sharks. The coral reefs were so beautiful and we got to see so many fish.

Adam went offshore fishing and caught snapper and a barracuda. The hotel made ceviche with the snapper and blackened the barracuda for us to eat. Everything was so fresh and delicious! That is me posing with hot sauce in the photo below. Their hot sauce was legit!

We ate at some really good restaurants. My favorites were Maxie’s for the shrimp sandwich and Elvie’s for the blackened shrimp. We also went to the Garage, Hidden Treasure, and the Jungle Bar. Unfortunately, we missed lobster and conch season.

One of the coolest places we stopped by was the Truck Stop. It is a bunch of shipping containers turned into restaurants featuring pizza, asian fusion and latin fusion cuisine. They also had a pier, beer garden, bar and pool.

Time flew by and we were sad to leave Belize. But on to the next adventure…

But first, I have to show off my favorite dress I wore. Priorities.