San Pedro Isla Bonita, Belize // December 2017

As an avid maker-of-lists, Belize was a country that hadn’t even crossed my mind for 2017 travel destinations. For the 5 year reunion of 6 avid travelers, each one living in a different city across the world, it was a miracle we chose a destination that none of us had been to and could accommodate all of our interests. I can’t truly credit this trip without a shout out to Megha, whose choice of location, detailed planning, and dive guidance made Belize an incredible and exhilarating treat. 

Highlights of the trip include:

✅ Finishing PADI diver certification in the Caribbean Sea
🌅 Glorious sunset-watching
🌶 Excessive consumption of Marie Sharp’s fiery hot sauce
🌊 Underwater spelunking
🏊🏼‍♀️ Jumping off cliffs into waterfalls
🧀 Eating beans/rice/cheese/ and fries for a week straight
🍺 Discovering micheladas for the first time

View of San Pedro Island as we docked from our water taxi.

First sights of San Pedro. Everything is so colorful here.

Morning yoga with our fearless instructor, (almost) Dr. Adeeti.

What you need to know about Belize

Belize is a country located on the eastern coast of Central America, neighboring Guatemala. Belizeans speak fluent English and the local dialect is Belizean Creole, a fast mix of English and Spanish. We had no problems communicating at all, and could easily chat with everyone from cab drivers, to waiters, to dive professionals. Wifi was widely available at almost every restaurant/shop and only one of us had a local data plan. It was very easy to connect to (slow, but functional) wifi for basic needs. The local currency is the Belizean dollar, tagged at twice a US dollar. Both USD and the Belizean Dollar were accepted widely across the country. 

Belizean food was a combination of fresh seafood, American, and Mexican cuisine. Many of the girls in the group really enjoyed fresh ceviche almost every night. Those of us who were vegetarian had a limited assortment of burgers, quesadillas, or rice and beans to choose from. Fries were served liberally at almost every restaurant and we soon learned that Marie Sharp was our new best friend. For vegetarians traveling to Belize, food was definitely available, but the same options got a bit boring after the first few days. In addition, we didn't get too many fresh vegetables or protein sources, but there were a few fresh fruit and juice shops in both San Pedro and San Ignacio. Most folks travel to Belize for a range of adventure, from exploring the marine life and dive sites, to the dense jungle that is home to ancient Mayan ruins. Our trip had the perfect combination of island/beach life and inland adventure. 

Caye Caulker

Adeeti and I kicked off the trip by flying into Belize City and taking a 1.5 hour water taxi to San Pedro, an island off the coast of the Caribbean Sea. In desperate need of wifi and a hot shower, we checked into Hostel La Vista (yes, really) and made our way over to Caye Caulker, a neighboring island. We spent the evening checking out the beachfront bars (definitely recommend the mango margaritas at Margarita Mikes and Happy Hour at the Sip n Dip - take your swimsuits), taking endless pictures and meeting other Americans in town for New Years. 

All in all, we found Caye Caulker to be a lot more slow-paced and sleepy than San Pedro. After catching a gorgeous sunset, we headed back to San Pedro to meet up with Megha and Nikki. Here began the copious consumption of micheladas and terrifying stories of Megha’s dive in the Blue Hole. In retrospect, I wish we’d had a michelada rating competition (10/10 would recommend the micheladas at Nook's).

Diving & Exploring San Pedro

The next morning, the last 2 girls finally flew in from LA and the adventure could truly begin. We moved our luggage to a different Airbnb in a golf cart across the island, then made our way back down the beach to Chuck and Robbie’s to kick off our open water dive certifications. 

 

On New Year’s Eve, we boated out to a different dive site at Esmeralda Gardens for our final 2 dives to finish the open water certification. The sky was overcast, the waves were aggressively choppy, and the water was a darker blue. The water was so much different than the first day of diving and we went down deeper, to about 60 feet this time, which is the maximum depth allowed with the Open Water certification. 

Our first dive site was at Hol Chan Reserve, where we went down to about 30 feet and had just enough time to get a few key dive skills out of the way (ie. equalizing, removing and replacing your mask in the salt water, clearing your mask/regulator underwater to see/breathe). Our second dive was far more exciting - we saw a green moray eel, a peacock flounder that camouflaged in the sand, and a spotted eagle sting ray! I’ll never forget the peacefulness of swimming in the light blue ocean, breathing underwater for the first time, and this incredible recognition that a whole other world exists down there.

We swam through a narrow channel of coral reef to bottom out at a small white patch of sand. Here, we practiced our emergency ascent techniques, air-sharing with a dive buddy, and hovering underwater. We saw some barracudas and schools of fluorescent fish, but were starting to get a lot colder towards the end of the second dive. For some reason, my mask was much foggier and I had trouble seeing in the darker waters. When we surfaced, it was pouring rain against a gorgeous blue/orange sunset. We wrapped up on the last dive boat of 2017 and finished our certifications with Gilbert, our divemaster, just as the year came to an end.

For an unfathomable reason, every restaurant in Belize takes an absurdly long time to bring out food. We’d be cold and ravenous after diving, more than ready for some hot food and a few drinks. Even when we ordered something as simple as fries or a quesadilla, it took an average of about 40-50 minutes to get our food after ordering, so we started having to plan ahead for all our meals. 

We spent New Year’s Eve eating a very long dinner at Wild Mango, one of the island’s top restaurants, and then heading to the town square. The town square was energetic with live music, families heading to church, tourists galore, and all the spirit of the New Year. We watched the fireworks from a pier and checked out Jaguar’s, an underground club that was packed with tourists and locals alike.

Our favorites on San Pedro

Restaurants

• Wild Mango - One of the most popular restaurants on San Pedro, probably better to make reservations. Jalapeno mac n cheese was 10/10 and I hear the different ceviche flavors were amazing too. 
• Coconut Cafe - American style, really good for breakfast/brunch. Get the breakfast sandwich and the cinnamon bun. Also, the fresh watermelon juice. 
• Estel's - Very ideally located, just in front of the water taxi port. Good coffee, wifi, and food.
• Caliente - Good for tacos and micheladas. 

Bars

• Palapa Bar - Recommend going mid-day when it's nice and hot, bring bathing suits so you can chill with drinks on the tubes outside. They also have a great happy hour that ziplines buckets of beer to you on the tubes! 

Dive Companies

• Chuck & Robbie's - PADI dive certification and snorkeling. Everyone was super friendly and very chilled out. Our instructor was Gilbert - we loved him!
• Amigo Del Mar - If you want to dive the Blue hole, this is the main company that organizes that dive. You need to have an advanced water certification and at least 30 dives under your belt before attempting this, because you do go down to ~140 ft. 

More to come soon on our journey inland to San Ignacio and adventuring in the jungle!