Belize – Trip Report – PART THREE
DAY SEVEN:
Monday
Whewww we were all a little hungover this day. Too much fun! We went for breakfast at Cafe y Amor – it was busy, but the food was good. I had a sloppy delicious fried egg sandwich with cheese, bacon, and other greasy stuff to ease the hangover. Also, coffee. This cost me 16 BZ. After sleeping the morning away, 3 of us decided to go snorkelling in the afternoon. We did the half day, 3-stop tour with Carlos from Hicaco Tours. It was a great trip – we went to Shark Ray Alley, Coral Gardens and “the Channel” and saw tons of sharks, rays, and eels (yikes)! We got fresh fruit on the boat. Cost was 70 BZ.
Petting a stingray! And then I underwater giggled and choked on water. Because maturity.
We ate dinner at this amazing italian place – Pasta Per Caso – handmade fresh pasta with only 2 items to choose from each night (changes depending on ingredients available for the day). The owner and his wife were awesome, and the pasta. Wow, so good. I had Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino (garlic, oil, and pepper flakes), while my boyfriend had Orecchiette with tomatoes and pancetta. Both were amazing. We also tried the garlic bread, wine, and the rum cake dessert. This is a tiny spot but if there’s no room the owner will tell you what time to come back – do it. So good. Dinner was around 30 BZ each.
Walked around once more, checked out a reggae duo at the pizza place (beers – 4 BZ) and spent the evening relaxing.
Total Cost: 175 BZ (includes breakfast, snorkelling 1/2 day, dinner, drinks, hotel ~ $87.50 USD)
DAY EIGHT:
Tuesday
We had an awful breakfast at a place whose name escapes me right now – it was close to the Paradise place, kitty-corner to it really. The server was forgetful and kind of rude, the food was wrong and took FOREVER. It was cheap but we wouldn’t go back here, 10 BZ.
Since my boyfriend missed out on the snorkelling the day before, we decided to go snorkelling. Our friends went scuba-diving and liked it a lot. We went with Carlos and Francisco from Hicaco for a 4 hour trip with lunch. The spots we stopped were Shark Ray Alley, Hol Chan Marine, and Coral Gardens (a different part than yesterday’s tour). It cost 110 BZ and the lunch was pretty mediocre, but we saw a lot of turtles, sharks, fish, rays, etc. I would do the half day trip over this one. My bf got burnt because we forgot to use sunscreen. Whoops. Still a fun trip, and we were really glad we did it.
Nurse Shark and Green Turtle
Had delicious food (lobster nachos, sushi) at Caribbean Colors Art Cafe, as well as good coffee, for 20 BZ each.
Dinner at Habeneros was delightful. I had the Thai Snapper (44 BZ) – the peanut sauce was awesome. We all shared a couple pitchers of sangria too (20 BZ per).
Total Cost: 249 BZ (includes breakfast, snorkelling with “lunch”, actual lunch, dinner, drinks, hotel ~ $124 USD))
DAY NINE:
Wednesday
Boo, last day here! We ate at Caribbean Colors again – I had the lobster scramble bagel (and stole some of my bfs breakfast nachos) and coffee. It was 16 BZ. The bagel was so big that I had half of it wrapped up and ate it on the boat later. Good portion sizes there for sure.
Last look at the island
We took the water taxi back to Belize City around 1:30 and a cab to the airport for $40 BZ total (10 BZ each and easy to catch one right outside the ferry terminal). We ate lunch at the airport – they didn’t take credit cards so we had to take out more cash. $20 BZ for lunch with one beer.
Total Cost: 46 BZ (includes breakfast, cab to airport, and lunch ~ $23 USD)
TOTAL: 1764 BZ (so $882 USD)
FLIGHTS: $490 CAD (at the time USD and CAD were pretty close)
EXTRAS: $200 BZ (bottles of rum, hot sauce, souvenirs)
GRAND TOTAL: $1,472 USD per person
You could definitely spend a lot less than us if you stayed in hostels, didn’t splurge on nice meals, buy fewer souvenirs, don’t drink a lot, and didn’t take all the tours that we did. We expected to spend $1500 so we were pretty happy with this overall cost.
All in all it was a fantastic trip and we all had an excellent time. I was very happy that my friends and boyfriend all had a great time since none of them had been to Central America before and weren’t sure what to expect.
You better Belize we’ll be back (sorry, I had to).
Belize – Trip Report – PART TWO
Find Part One: Here, and Part Three: Here. Continue reading →
Belize – Trip Report – PART ONE
Waterfront on Caye Caulker. Image Credit W. Auxillou
We booked our flights after finding a deal on yycdeals.com (a Calgary specific flight deal site) but you can keep your eyes open for deals year round. Our flights were $490 USD each, round trip, with layovers in Houston. Most of the amounts in this post are in Belize currency: $1 US = $2 Belize (BZ).
The Little Country That Could [Overwhelm Me]
This post is a Guest Post I wrote for Caryn @ A Day in The Life – she’s away volunteering in Africa and has a series on travel with guest bloggers for the whole month – check it out here!
When I was volunteering in the Republic of Georgia, I stayed with a host family in a tiny village three hours away from the big city. In fact, the closest next “town” was over an hour away and lays right smack on the Azerbaijan/Georgian border.
On Stalking Strangers
I woke up early on my second day in Mexico City. If you’ve traveled alone, maybe you remember the first day you woke up in a strange place by yourself – it’s a weird feeling. My plan for the day involved the Turibus (a hop-on, hop-off tour around the city for $7 kinda thing) and Chilaquiles (corn tortillas with green sauce and scrambled eggs – so good).
After breakfast, I hopped on the Turibus and put on the requisite headphones to listen to the tour. A few stops in, two young guys got on the bus and I noticed that they were speaking English. As an extrovert, I was already feeling a bit lonely and lost so when they got off at one of the tourist stops, I shamelessly followed them off the bus. I wandered around looking at the fountain until one of the guys asked me to take their picture, and offered to take mine. Continue reading →
First Impressions
The day I left for Mexico was a nerve-wracking day. I had already been away from home for almost 2 months – visiting my dad in Vegas. I had packed my backpack, plus a suitcase and a carry-on. The suitcase was staying behind with my dad; he was planning on visiting me once I got a little more settled.
I don’t remember what time of day I left, I just remember sitting in the airport, watching the clock, checking and double checking that I had my passport, money, cards, the name of the hotel and my rough plans written in my horribly illegible writing – really, it’s bad enough that I should seriously consider being a doctor.
Continue reading →
