Caye Caulker — San Pedro, Belize
After our big night out, we had a relatively gentle start and left the hotel at 9am. Our new tour leader Nancy, walked us to the bus station to get on the coach which would take us to Chetumal, the border town to Belize. It was a 6 hour journey to get there but the coach was comfortable and showed films, which was fine for me as they were in Spanish but not for everyone else. We arrived in Chetumal and got taxis to the border crossing and the boat dock. After an hour or so hanging around there, then having our bags sniffed by army sniffer dogs (they sniffed every single item that went on the boat) we set off on the ferry to the island of San Pedro where we got off, cleared immigration and customs (by which I mean, walked along the pier to an office, got passports stamped and then walked back along the pier to the boat) and then got back on the boat to go to Caye Caulker. It was dark by the time we arrived but as soon as we got there, I knew I was going to love it. We walked from the pier to our hotel along the dirt track roads that form the main roads on the island. The only things on the road were people standing around talking, walking, cycling or in golf buggies. That and dogs, lots of stray dogs. The hotel, very bizarrely named Chinatown, was revolting. It stank of mothballs and was over a Chinese supermarket. We dumped our stuff and headed out to dinner at Rainbow restaurant which was right on the water… mind you pretty much everything is on the water on Caye Caulker. Its only about a mile long and at the narrow parts you can see sea on boths sides when you are walking down the street. The 3 main streets are aptly named Front, Middle and Back. The motto is Go Slow and it really is the most laidback place I have ever been to. There is a very big Rastafarian influence so reggae music is heard mostly and there are rastas along the street touting their wares, usually handmade jewellery and shells. The next morning we went down to the docks for our snorkelling cruise out to the reef, which is the second largest reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I very cleverly managed to step out of the office (hut) and turned on my ankle twisting it quite badly so I was icing that up for the first couple of hours of the boat trip. First stop was Shark and Ray alley which was amazing and as the name promised, full of rays and sharks. They were nurse sharks so there was actually more danger from the rays than the sharks. Our very chatty skipper got in the water with us and picked up both a Manta Ray and a shark for us to stroke which was very cool. Next stop was right on the reef where we saw all kinds of marine life and coral. It was really beautiful and made me desperate to get a tank on go diving properly. There was another stop but we were warned that this wasn’t as good as the other two stops so I stayed on the boat sunbathing and keeping my foot up, which by that time had ballooned. We headed back to the island and went for a fantastic dinner at a place called Wish Willies. We ate masses of meat, fish, lobster etc for about £12 each. We then went to I & I which is the most popular bar on the island and went home when we were kicked out at 11pm. Another early night!