After several years of traveling to Costa Rica in January, this year we went to Belize instead to visit our friends who retired there a few years ago. Belize is a small Central American country that borders Mexico on the Caribbean coast. As a former British colony, Belize is a rare English-speaking country in this predominately Spanish-speaking region. Our flight landed in the capital, Belize City, on Monday night at 6pm and we were picked up by our driver, Alex, to take us north to Greg & Barb's house in Consejo Shores. Except for the roadway illuminated by our headlights, it was mostly dark outside our windows for most of the 2 hour drive through the countryside. After we reached the large town of Corozal, we still had a twenty minute drive along a dirt road to reach their small village. After a long travel day, it was great to finally see Greg & Barbs' smiling faces. When they purchased their house, it included a separate unit upstairs with its own kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom that is perfect for guests like us. After unpacking, we all hung out and ate the Indian food that Greg & Barb had picked up earlier in Corozal. It was really good!
We had our first view of our surroundings Tuesday morning as we woke up early and walked out to Greg & Barb's dock on Chetumal Bay. The huge bay is shared by Belize and Mexico on the southern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula and contains the deepest blue hole in the world, more than 100 meters deeper than the Dragon Hole (301 meters) in the South China Sea. Northward, Mexico on the far shore was beyond the horizon, but we could see the point of the Sarteneja Peninsula directly across the water from the dock. Beyond the peninsula, the bay curves and travels down the coast of Belize, separated from the Caribbean Sea by Ambergris Caye. After they moved here, Greg & Barb repaired the old dock, widening the end and adding a thatched hut with deck furniture, swim ladder and sound system. It was very relaxing, drinking coffee, listening to the sound of birds and lapping water. A heavy rain storm blew through as we ate breakfast at 2020 Cafe in the village but the sun came out quickly afterward and we decided to go kayaking. We stopped twice along the shore to walk among the Mangroves and look for ancient pottery shards at the Mayan Dump. We ended up paddling 3.24 miles on our journey beyond Bird Island and back.
After our kayaking, Tori and I changed to practice our AcroYoga. Ever since I saw Barb's pictures of her dock on Facebook, I knew it would be a beautiful backdrop for a few Acro poses. Tori brought some Santa Hat's for us to take Christmas Card photos for next year and we performed a few of our more practiced washing machines flows. (I didn't want to drop Tori over the side into the bay! Ha!) The video below is the Nunchucks Washing Machine, one of our favorites. Afterwards, it was great to sit on the dock and watch the sunset with our friends. For dinner, we ate the rest of the delicious Indian Food from the night before and played the card game, Uno Flip, in their covered patio until it was time for bed.
While the previous day had a mixture of sun, clouds and rain, Wednesday was overcast the whole day of our 11th Wedding Anniversary. It was chillier than expected, with even Belize feeling the side effects of the Gulf Coast Blizzard hitting the United States, bringing record-breaking snowfall across the Deep South, from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. In the morning, we hung out on the dock, drinking hot coffee and wrapped in blankets against the cool breeze. After Greg made tasty breakfast burritos, he and Barb gave us a tour of Consejo Shores, driving around the small village and to the border control pier by the Casa Blanca Hotel. Barb told us that a convenient ferryboat used to run between Consejo and the nearby Mexican city of Chetumal before the pandemic but now they need to drive the long way around, an hour and a half to reach the city through the main border crossing. In the middle of Consejo Shores is a former resort hotel that was taken over by a stem cell research company before they deserted it in the middle of the night, leaving all their lab equipment behind. Driving back, we stopped and explored the overgrown resort. It was spooky walking through the abandoned buildings, trees and bushes crowding out all the open spaces. The hotel pool was half-filled with murky water and a large vulture startled us, launching into the air from the nearby vegetation with a loud hooting cry. In the last building, we found the old laboratory with all their log books lying open on the counters. It felt like we were playing inside "The Last of Us" game. I have a funny video of Greg pretending to be an infected clicker.
After our adventure, Greg & Barb's next door neighbor, DeeDee, joined us as we all drove south to the town of Corozal for dinner. First, we stopped at the bayside bar, Corozo Blue's, for drinks. Tori and I tried a Rum Punch before ordering a Belikin Beer, the local beer of Belize. You can see the name everywhere you go in the country! The name Belikin comes from a Maya term for the Belize River, literally meaning “road to the east.” (Belizean Quirk - All beer bottles are served with napkins tightly wrapped around the opened top.) We hung out for about two hours, chatting and exploring the bar's gardens. For dinner, we had reservations at Cielo Restaurant next door. Tori had the Tortilla Soup and Caesar Salad while I had the Filet Mignon. I tasted Tori's soup and it was so delicious that Greg suggested we order two more soups "to go" for dinner later in the week. At the end of dinner, our server brought us ice cream to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
While we had a tasty dinner, I started to feel nauseous on the drive back to Consejo Shores. I spent the night throwing up and I found out that Greg had a bad night as well. Since Barb, DeeDee and Tori were totally fine, we figured that Greg and I must have gotten a touch of food poisoning from the side salads that only we ate. I felt much better in the morning, but I still had a headache and no interest in any food. At 10am, we had scheduled appointments with a Belizean masseur who came to the house. The massage was excellent and he really worked my tight hamstrings. Feeling much improved, Tori and I went for a water walk. Half the distance was wading alongside the mangroves and the other half was walking down the wide sandy beach to the pier at Consejo Landing. It was only a little more than half a mile but my recovering body wore out quickly. For the rest of the day, we mostly hung out on the dock with their dog, Olive. The color of the bay was light brown due to the seasonal amount of fresh water, but Barb told us that the color turns blue from encroaching salt water after the end of the rainy season. She told us about all the sea life they have seen from the dock; manatees, dolphins and even a couple of crocodiles. In the evening, I had a mild fever and Barb made Greg and I a traditional local remedy of Coke with Oregano & Lemongrass. It tasted good!
On Friday, Greg and I were still recovering so we mostly lounged around all day except for a visit to the market and the vegetable seller who came to Consejo Shores once a week. By the evening, Greg and I had started to regain our appetite, so we heated up the delicious Tortilla Soup from the restaurant and ate it with homemade quesadillas. The four of us played a lot of card games, including Exploding Kittens for the first time. We picked it up quickly and I won three times and Tori won two times.
On Saturday morning, the overcast skies finally started to clear and we woke up early to watch the beautiful sunrise from the dock. Greg and I felt much better so we planned to drive to the other side of the bay to visit the Cerros Mayan Ruins and Wildtracks, a manatee rescue center. When their gardener, Marcello, arrived at 8am, he chopped down some coconuts from their palm trees and opened them up for us with his machete. The coconut water tasted so refreshing! For breakfast, we stopped at Toppa D Mawnin in Corozal. I felt hungry but I didn't want to risk it with a big breakfast so I just ordered the Cheesy Chaya Pockets, homemade cheese empanadas made of corn and chaya. Tori had the Mushroom and Okra Breakfast with Golden Fry Jacks. I tried one of her Fry Jacks, a popular Belizean breakfast dish consisting of deep-fried dough pieces, often shaped into squares, circles, or triangles.
Our next stop was the Cerros Mayan Ruins on the other side of Corozal Bay. Until recently, you needed to ride the car ferry across the New River to reach the ruins but the new bridge that Taiwan helped build is now open for weekends during its last stage of construction. The span is complete, but the dirt entry ramps still needed to be paved as we drove over. The ancient city of Cerros sat at the mouth of the New River that empties into the bay. The excavations in the 1970s revealed that Mayans settled this location beginning in 500 B.C. with its peak between 50 B.C. to 150 A.D. when the first three kings built its major architecture (4 pyramids, an acropolis and the ballcourts).
After stopping at the visitor center, we walked the correctly named, Mosquito Trail, through the trees to the center of the old city. The first ruling king built the 1st temple (Structure 5C-2nd) in 50 B.C. The platform pyramid was not that large, but it was the most beautiful with four large face masks staring out from the two stepped tiers, surrounded by carved murals. They have been identified as deities from the Maya pantheon representing different aspects of the Sun and Venus, along with the Hero Twins, Hunaphu and Xbalanque. The original masks are now covered by a protective layer of concrete that recreates their original shape. The back of the temple has been eroded away by the encroaching bay. The king also built the 2nd stepped pyramid (Structure 6) where he was buried that stands twice as tall.
Tori and I climbed to the top of the 3rd and largest stepped pyramid (Structure 4), built by the second king around 1 A.D. The stairs were very steep to the top of the 22 meter tall temple that is 58 by 68 meters wide and we had a great view of the bay. The third king built the ballcourts and a 4th temple pyramid (Structure 29C) but was never buried there as the city rapidly declined while the newer city across the bay (Santa Rita Site in Corozal) began to flourish. Cerros returned to being a small village until it was completely abandoned by 1300 A.D. We attempted the walk through the jungle to the Ball Courts but turned back after being bombarded by mosquitoes.
Leaving Cerros, we continued up the coast of the peninsula to Sarteneja, the largest fishing village in Belize. The locals mainly fish for lobster, conch, and finfish. We saw several of their handmade boats along the shoreline that are built in the village. We then drove a rough dirt road across the narrow peninsula to Wildtracks Belize, a conservation organization focused on rescuing and rehabilitation care for manatees and primates. It was feeding time for their two rescued manatees when we arrived, so they took us directly over to their water tank during the bottle feeding. After they finished off their milk, the caretakers placed a rack of plastic pipes threaded with sea grass on the bottom of the pool for the manatees to eat. We watched the bubbles and bits of chewed grass rising to the surface as they fed, occasionally surfacing for a quick breath. Their current manatees are two adolescents who are almost old enough to be moved to the natural lagoon pool among the mangroves. After the manatees adjust to their new environment, Wildtracks will open the gated enclosure and allow them to come and go into Chetumal Bay until they decide to stay away for good.
The founder, Zoe Walker, then showed us the two smallest pools they use to raise baby manatees who's mothers died in boating accidents. The smallest is the size of a shallow jacuzzi where babies are watched 24 hours a day, one caretaker sitting in the water with them as a surrogate parent while the other takes observation notes. When they reach the proper size, they are taken for short trips into the larger waist-deep pool. At first, the young manatee will stay next to their caretaker but eventually they will start exploring the pool on their own until they are comfortable staying there by themselves. The next step is the largest concrete pool where the current manatees are living with human contact only at feeding time.
Zoe then took us over to the nearby cages with two howler and two spider monkeys. These rescued primates will never be released because they had been kept too long as pets to survive in the wild. In the next yard, we saw a group of very young spider monkeys who still need parental support with their handlers. (One baby monkey was playing in a isolated tree while his caretaker lay on the ground beneath the trunk.) As soon as they are old enough to be on their own, they are moved to secluded cages deeper on the property with limited human contact to form monkey troops that can all be released together. Once they are released into the wild, Wildtracks continues to observe the troop to track their progress. On our drive back, we stopped at the Orchard Bay Resort near Cerros for drinks before continuing back to Corozal for dinner at La Piccola Pizzeria with a group of Barb & Greg's neighbors from Consejo Shores. I tried the PB&J Burger, very good!
We woke even earlier on Sunday morning to watch the sunrise on our last morning in Consejo Shores. We were driving south with Barb & Greg to stay two nights in the town of Teakettle in the center of Belize. After stopping for breakfast at Green Paradise in Corozal, we drove south where we saw Mennonite children in straw hats several times on the side of the road. Since Northern Belize is completely flat, Barb told us any visible hill is a buried Mayan ruin that has not been excavated yet. After two hours of driving, we reached the Altun Ha ruins at 10am.
While the city of Cerros flourished during the Pre-Classic Period, the city of Altun Ha reached its peak in middle of the Classic Period (200 A.D. to 900 A.D.), the golden age of Mayan Civilization. The city began its slow decline before being abandoned with the rest of the surrounding cities as the Mayan populations collapsed and moved northward during the Post-Classic Period (900-1200 A.D.) to form the newer cities in the Yucatan area of Mexico. Altun Ha was a medium-sized city located in an area of extremely high quality Chert, the best in the Mayan world. Chert is a hard rock that was used to make stone tools, weapons and eccentric flint art pieces. The mining, production and trade of these stone items allowed the city to grow rich and prosper.
After checking out the visitor center, we hired a local guide, Jinelle, to show us around the ruins. We first climbed the stairs of Structure A6, a huge pyramid mound that was only partially excavated before it started to collapse. From the top, we had great views of the two large central plazas surrounded by excavated temple pyramids of various heights. After climbing down, we crossed Plaza A with the "Temple of the Green Tomb" into Plaza B dominated by the largest of Altun Ha's temple-pyramids, the "The Sun God's Tomb" also known as "The Temple of the Masonry Altars". A drawing of this 52 foot high temple is the logo on Belikin bottles, Belize's most popular beer. Inside this temple was found a jade head of the Sun God, resting on the forearm of an entombed ruler or priest, the single largest piece of carved jade discovered in the Mayan World. The original, weighing 10 pounds, is stored in the Bank of Belize. Tori and I performed a counter-balance Acro pose on the first level and we climbed to the top of the pyramid for the cool view of the city in the opposite direction.
After walking us through some of the smaller structures, we went with Jinelle to the Maya Crystal Skull Mampi Diner outside the ruins for some beers to cool off from the heat. When the owner brought out the Karaoke machine and started to sing, Greg joined in and sang "Low" by Flo-rida as everyone got up to dance. Getting back in the car, we drove the rest of the way to the small town of Teakettle. At first, Google Maps sent us down a bad shortcut that turned into a rough road with deep pools of water, but we were able to turn around and go the correct way to reach the Dream Valley Resort overlooking the Belize River. I loved how elevated wooden walkways connected all the raised buildings, including the resort pool, along the river bank, I assume to protect from river flooding during raining season. After hanging out on our balcony to watch the sunset, we all went to the restaurant for dinner. A large church group was eating at the same time as us. The food was very good, especially the Pineapple Ginger Fried Rice that Tori and I shared.
We woke up early on Monday for our tour of the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave. (Cave of the Crystal Sepulchre) We were worried the cave might be closed due to the recent rainfall, but our guide arrived to pick us up at 7:30am. After the drive to the trailhead in the Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve, we were provided with lighted helmets and life jackets. The hike started with a chest-deep river crossing, holding onto the rope strung across the river. It was pretty chilly! It took about 45 minutes to reach the ATM Cave with two more waist-deep river crossings along the way. It felt like an Indiana Jones Adventure as we had to swim into the cave entrance, clambering over rocks and wading through knee to chest high water through the 2 mile long underground river passage. When we reached the Elevator, a rocky climb to reach the upper dry chambers, we had to remove our shoes and wear socks to protect the natural stone floor of the Cathedral Cavern from the oils on our feet.
Our guide explained how the Mayans believed their gods resided in these cave systems and as the Classical Period ended with ecological disasters around 900 A.D., the Mayans began entering these sacred caves more often to perform rituals and offer sacrifices to the gods. As the century long drought continued, they grew more desperate with increased use of human sacrifices to pray for rain. We saw many of the pots that the Mayans ritually broke and the skeletal remains, many of them young children placed tied up in kill holes. At least 14 complete skeletons have been found so far and in the last chamber, we came to the famous Crystal Maiden. It is actually the skeleton of a 17 year old boy, sacrificed in a posed position, that has crystalized and fused to the cave floor due to slow moving water flowing over the bones for hundreds of years.
We ended up spending three hours inside the cave that was discovered in 1989 and opened to the public in 1998. There is a daily limit of 125 visitors with a maximum of 6 per guide. Cameras are forbidden in the cave after someone dropped a camera on a delicate skull so except for our group shot before the tour, I had to find the rest of the photos below on the internet. I really missed my camera on this tour with so many opportunities for awesome photographs, but it was also nice to live in the moment. We exited the cave the same way we came in, except for when we took a detour through a narrow cleft in the rocks. You had to turn your neck at just the right angle to fit your head through crevice while fighting against the strong pull of the river current. Our guide's shoes fell apart as we were swimming out the cave so he had to walk back barefoot to the trailhead.
After hiking back, we were able to shower and change our clothes before eating the homemade meal of chicken, rice and potatoes provided by our guides. We were starving and it tasted delicious! They had a vegetarian option for Tori. This is my favorite cave tour that I have ever been on!!! We were dropped back off at the resort at 3:30pm. We all hung out on the veranda, drinking beers and watching the sunset. We spotted an Iguana perched high up in a tree next to the river. For dinner, Tori and I ordered the exact same thing as the night before, Pesto Pasta and Pineapple Ginger Fried Rice. In the morning, we left Dream Valley at 7am and Greg & Barb drove us to the airport for our 10am flight home. We arrived at LAX at 1:30pm, a perfect time to beat the rush hour traffic home to San Diego.
