Ya Better Belize It!

(Yes, we were those tourists.)

Well this quarantine has blessed us with an abundant amount of time to catch up and do things we haven’t made time for.  First up, Spanish lessons. Caitey, Taylor and I are all taking it to Duolingo to refresh our Spanish speaking skills. Next, video making for Tay and blogging for Steph.  So here’s the latest. 

For the new year, in between Seattle and San Diego contracts, we finally took a trip to Belize to get SCUBA certified.  Getting those 2019 goals completed JUST in time. Let’s start with if you are thinking about getting scuba certified #1.  DO IT. and #2. Do it in a cool place (aka Belize). Unknown to many, Belize is home to the world’s second largest barrier reef.  That made it a pretty easy choice to complete our open water dives. After reaching out to a few different dive shops, we decided to go with Scuba School and Family Dive Center in San Pedro.  San Pedro is on Ambergris Caye, the larger of the two popular islands. We are so happy with our experience there we would recommend it over and over again. They recommended we complete our online PADI training at home and then complete our confined and open water dives with them, which we did and we would recommend as well.  No one wants to sit in a class for 8 hours on vacation, so we just did that at home! Our confined dives were done at the end of the dock in the ocean and our open water dives were completed on the reef. We saw sharks, turtles, many types of fish, eels, sting rays and so much more. It made for the most exciting certification dives!  We loved it so much we also did a couple of extra dives with them before we left.   

Other things to do in San Pedro:  we rented a golf cart to go to Secret Beach (not so much of a secret).  It took a lot longer than we expected to drive there, but it was an experience with many potholes.  But the beach was nice and had some bars and restaurants available as well. We visited the Truck Stop- a cute area on the way to/from Secret Beach.  It had a few food carts, some games, foosball and a pool. We also did many beach walks, were regulars at Izzy’s smoothie shop, and found some favorite coffee shops.  We also spent a day in Caye Caulker, the island right next to Ambergris Caye. It is much smaller, but it has an area called “The Split” that is definitely worth visiting.  There are ferries that go to/from Ambergris and Caye Caulker multiple times a day making it very easy to go back and forth. We also snorkeled Shark Ray Alley. A cool experience, but I honestly enjoyed the other dives we did more.  The reason it wasn’t my favorite is the reason the sharks approach the boats is that some tour companies will feed them, so if you don’t they swim away right away. It was still fun to swim with sharks and rays though. We became regulars at the Palapa Bar and also rang in 2020 with outdoor music and fireworks.  

After almost a week diving and enjoing the island, we headed back to the mainland to check out the jungle.  We rented a car, which was luckily still there when we got there 5 hours late and drove up to San Ignacio. The first couple of days we stayed in a cabana in the jungle and I slept in an attic.  It was a nice spot, secluded in the jungle with our fav, a rope swing. From there, we did the ATM cave tour, which was such a fun, intense, and long cave tour. Not meant for the claustrophobic, but we had so much fun swimming, climbing and hiking through this huge cave.  We also stopped at the Xunantunich Mayan ruins on our way to our second accomodation. A cool, and cheap experience. 

The next couple of nights we stayed in a Treehouse, compliments of Caitey.  A 30 minute drive down a very sketchy dirt road into the jungle had us second guessing our decision to go along with Caitey’s idea, but it ended up being worth it.  Two days secluded in a treehouse in a jungle without wifi was just what we needed. The property was owned by a family. They cooked us meals, had fires for us and then we also booked a horse back riding and caving tour with them.  Possibly the most sketchy tour I’ve done to date (and there’s been a few), but made for a great story. We rode horses for maybe an hour, into the jungle with Joe and his machete and then were brought into a remote cave that Joe discovered, spent the next few hours exploring said cave, alone, in the dark and then rode our horses back.  This was an adventure to say the least.  

The next day, we said goodbye to the jungle and Belize and started our journey home.  This was an unforgettable adventure once again and a destination we would recommend everyone to see!  Go to our videos tab, for our video highlights made by Taylor!  

With the outbreak of COVID-19, unfortunately our next adventure to Patagonia has been cancelled, but after our contracts in San Diego are up, we will find something to fill our time- still TBD! 

Stay healthy, friends.

Steph and Tay