The Belize Blog: Caye Caulker

Leaving Lamanai, we reversed our steps, boating back up New River to meet a van that then drove us to the ferry dock in Belize City.  Ferries ply the waters around various islands off the northern coast of the country, including our destination, Caye Caulker.  It's less resorty and touristy than its larger neighbor, Ambergris Caye; still, the "downtown" area of Caye Caulker is lively with young backpacker types, small guest houses and shops, and many bars and restaurants with loud music often blaring from them.

We were glad that we stayed a bit out of the core on a quiet, shaded street with some good nearby restaurants, including an authentic French bistro!  One morning, we arrived there early to the gorgeous smell of fresh croissants and, man, were they authentically good!  Could have been in some rue in Paris!

We enjoyed the "island life" for 4 days, swimming with sharks and rays, snorkeling the quite healthy nearby reefs, riding bikes along the heavily rutted streets - especially after a tropical rain - and doing a tour one morning with pilot and "birding guide" Rodrigo. 

Rodrigo was a talker!  Especially about the excessive development on the northern "lobe" of the island, where construction crews often decimated the shore-lined mangroves in order to provide access to their equipment and supplies.  He was born and lived his whole life nearby and so knew the waters well.  That was a good thing, as the morning we went out with him was blustery, cold, and wet with both rain and waves.  

Turns out Rodrigo didn't know a lot about birds - he had a fold-up birding "cheat-sheet" - but in any case given the weather, we saw few birds as we motored along the shore.  But he did take us to an inland lagoon where dozens of egrets, herons, and other water birds fished and frolicked.












We stayed in the pink house, left, on this leafy street
     




We had a house "guard" iguana





Swimming with nurse sharks ...








... and Southern stingrays


This lagoon was busy with Great egrets, Cattle egrets, and Tricolored and Little blue herons

Rodrigo did spot and identify this Yucatan woodpecker for us ... a good one!


This pic and the one below are good examples of the "Caribbean feel" of Caye Caulker




Kate thought she stayed at this guest house 37 years ago!!


















Bye bye to Caye Caulker


 

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Betty McCoyApril 8, 2025 at 10:33 PM

    The snorkeling is amazing there. I remember the Nurse Sharks well. We stayed on Ambergris Caye

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kevin CookApril 9, 2025 at 5:22 AM

    Mui linda

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex ZoghlinApril 9, 2025 at 11:18 AM

    Did you make it to the bar at the “split”?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 9, 2025 at 3:22 PM

      Oh, we walked around the bar scene at the split, too busy and loud for our old selves!

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 9, 2025 at 3:23 PM

      Whoops, that was me, Aaron

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birds of Belize - Culinary Adventures

Image
Birds gotta eat, and they exhibit all kinds of interesting behaviors when hunting for the food they like, whether insects, fish, or the juice of flowers.       Always fun watching woodpeckers poke and hammer to find their morsels.  Here a Pale-billed woodpecker, top left, a Golden-olive top right, and a Chestnut-colored woody, lower right.       Woodpeckers aren't the only birds to probe for insects; below, a White-necked puffbird has a feast of termites in this huge mound high in a ceiba tree.   The Gartered trogon, right, is also eating termites, but only incidentally, as it's main task here is to carve out a nice comfortable nest in this mound for its expected brood. Speaking of young, we watched this adolescent Osprey, below, cry to be fed, looking this way and that for its parent.  Maybe the successful fisher below right?            We saw many other water birds feeding in and around Caye Caulker, inclu...
Read more

The Belize Blog - Lamanai Outpost

Image
We had a bi-modal transit from Belize City to Lamanai Outpost Lodge in the Orange Walk district, first a van to the banks of New River, then a fast boat ride down the river (fast, except multiple stops to sight birds!).  The fellow who piloted the boat somehow knew when to shunt left at this meander, right at that mangrove, without the aid of street signs or anything!    What's more, he was quite a good bird spotter, like most of the Lamanai staff we met, whether they were official guides, office workers, or servers in the lodge restaurant.  Lamanai sits on a large lagoon of the New River, a short walk or boat ride from the Lamanai Mayan site and just downriver from Shipyard, a Mennonite community.  The Outpost Lodge is a compact site with about 15 "cabanas" that are quite large and comfortable, no AC but good ventilation with fans and airflow through windows and thatched roofs.  The dining room and group tours offered opportunities to meet other guests, in...
Read more

From Salsa to Hummingbird Heaven

Image
The shortest transit of our trip was the one-hour drive from Cali to Araucana Lodge nestled in a palm and bamboo grove of the Western Andes range.  This boutique lodge was established by Christopher and Vivian, American and Colombian, respectively, on a finca originally purchased by his grandparents in the 1950s as a retreat from city life.  Besides the lodge, the finca grows organic vegetables, fruit, flowers, and coffee and employs a small army of locals.  Christopher's father started and still runs a nursery business on site. The lodge's meals were excellent and the rooms spacious and comfortable.  Among our fellow lodgers was a group of 8 or so hyper-serious birders (we could tell by the long and intense evening debates about what they saw and by they early early departures each morning) and a lower-key trio from northern Ontario with whom we had more relaxed conversations. The lush interior garden of the Araucana lodge The view from one of the lodge's common are...
Read more