Guidebook to Belize

Our first stop off the ferry back to Belize City was Rental One to get our vehicle for the remainder of the trip. They do pick you up at the airport which I did not know at the time, most rental places will. I do recommend them, we had no issues and they supplied us with a phone and cooler at no extra charge.

Belmopan

For our first night inland, we drove to Belmopan the capital. Other than a cute little market there wasn’t much to be seen in town. We stayed at a hostel for the night with private bed/bathrooms.

We made a visit to St. Herman’s Blue Hole National Park the day we arrived, there is a cool little walk through the caves as well as the swimming hole itself.

The next day we did a kayaking trip through the jungle and caves with Belize Inland Tours. Our guide was an awesome local who provided us homemade burritos and the best part was we were the only two on the trip. We met our guide at the blue hole in the morning. To get to the kayaking location we were off-roading through the jungle for about an hour which was a cool little bonus. Once in the water we went through three different caves, at one point we had to lay back flat on our kayaks and use our hands to slide us through a cave that brushed our belly’s as we went under.

San Ignacio

After this trip we headed to out next destination San Ignacio; which is a beautiful lush green town right on the river, with an awesome farmers market. There is a walkable downtown area with shops and restaurants. Here we stayed in a shared home, with a shared bathroom. The owner enjoyed spending the evening in her hammock drinking beers with us listening to stories of your adventures and looking at our photos.

Our first trip here was the ATM tour with Carlos the Caveman, who I highly recommend. He picked us up at our Airbnb along with Adam who we met on Caye Caulker. He took the time to explain the flora and fauna on our way into the cave, taking our time to avoid crowds, we crossed the river three different times. Once you enter there is no sunlight for 2.5 hours. I conquered a lot of fears that day 1) Being in the pitch dark 2) Stepping and putting my hands into water where you couldn’t see what was beyond 3) Very confined spaces. The hike through the cave is one thing, but when you reach the end… I don’t want to give it all away, but the cathedral is something else and the Mayan artifacts look as though they were placed there yesterday, everything is so well preserved. Unfortunately there is no cameras allowed because some dumbass dropped his camera and broke a skull, yes, a skull, but you can see pictures that national geographic collected online. I would not miss this!

Our next adventure took us to Xunantunich the large Mayan ruins close to the border of Guatemala. You have to cross a river to get there, which we did in our car on the large hand cranked wooden ferry contraption that takes up to four vehicles and people across at a time. Once there you can choose to hire a guide for $20 BZ, or you can go at it alone, we went at it alone. The entire site is breathtaking. The site offers little shade, it gets pretty busy and there are howler monkeys everywhere.

In the town of San Ignacio there is another set of ruins Cahal Pech, I think I liked these more solely because there wasn’t anyone around and they were smaller and more intimate, there was an actual home with beds on this site, again breathtaking.

Honestly the only honorable mention as far as food goes during this part of our trip was a guy that sold chicken on the side of the road in technically I believe it was Santa Elena adjacent to San Ignacio, with homemade hot sauce and tortillas.

Hopkins

After spending two nights in San Ignacio we were off to Hopkins a tiny inland coastal town where we stayed at the Comfort in, which were private bath/bedrooms with a shared outdoor kitchen and yard. The owner also enjoyed hanging out and drinking beers with his guests. The beaches here are pristine! We did unfortunately get eaten alive by no-see-ums.

On our last night we did the Bioluminescence, which I can’t say enough about. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell you the name of the company that took us; we might have been a little buzzed and we might have just jumped into the van with a German couple we had met who had pre-planned to join the tour. The van picked us up at the Comfort In and took us to the river where we boarded a boat, we were each provided a flashlight as we slowly drove down river to highlight alligator eyes which glow orange. We were able to see a few and get up pretty close. The second part of the tour we reached an opening in the water; I’ve never seen so many stars in my life I felt like I was in a dome like in the hunger games. The blue glowing water was absolutely magical. Without even thinking we jumped into the hot water and began swimming around. It is to this day one of the best things I have experienced, watching the water sparkle blue as you move and looking into the sky at the congestion of stars.

We also couldn’t pass up making a stop at the Marie Sharp’s factory on our way back to Belize city.

What to pack for your trip to Belize