Go Slow on Caye Caulker
The mind set you should have in order to enjoy Caye Caulker is Go Slow. Caye Caulker is a coral island 30 minutes off the coast of mainland Belize and about a 45 minute boat taxi ride from its more well known neighbor, the island of Ambergris Caye. And in case no one told you, Caye is pronounced as “key” and conch is pronounced as “conk”.
Our 2 week journey in Belize, with a side trip into Guatemala to visit the Mayan ruins at Tikal, started at the international airport in Belize City. From there you can take a fixed rate cab ride into anywhere in Belize City and for us that was the Water Taxi at the Marine Terminal. There are two Water Taxi companies and the scheduled departures are fairly frequent but the frequency can change due to conditions. Generally one of the two companies will be departing every 2-3 hours during a typical day – the time of the next sailing is posted outside the water taxi terminal. As your taxi driver goes by the first company you will be able to see the length of the wait and if need be you can go look at the sailing time at the other water taxi terminal. Our water taxi ride was not a rough one but I heard tales of woe from people who had to endure rain and heavy swells on the trip to Ambergris Caye. There is the option of taking short hops by plane to the islands which is convenient since you are arriving at the airport and can skip the taxi ride and boat ride and just hop directly to either Caye.
Front Street, Caye Caulker
We were looking for a relatively relaxed vacation and after doing some research online we decided we would start at Caye Caulker and stay there for a week before moving on to Ambergris Caye for three nights and Guatemala for three nights. It was the right choice for us. Caye Caulker is small, the roads are not paved, only peds, bikes, and golf carts tread the packed sand streets. Front Street, pictured above is the main drag on the windward side of the island where the water taxi will drop you. One street over is Middle Street and the last street is Back Street and then you are on the Lee side of the island where it is a little quieter and where you want to locate yourself around 5:00 pm to catch some stunning sunsets. All manner of travelers do the dance through the potholes on Front Street weaving in and out to avoid the dips and lips. Think of the potholes as Caye Caulker’s version of speed bumps – they are really just saying to Go Slow.
Sunset at Caye Caulker
Sunset #2 at Caye Caulker
Sunset #3 – Caye Caulker
The island of Caye Caulker was cut in two by Hurricane Hattie in 1961. The area where the island was cut in two is affectionately known as The Split. The section of the island stranded by the hurricane is occupied but does not have electrical service or really any tourist infrastructure. At the tip of the occupied section of the island lies the local institution the Lazy Lizard. The Split is the best place to swim or to grab a corner of the dock and bake in the sun while listening to a little Reggae and knocking back a Belikin, the local beer, or one of your favorite rum concoctions.
A view of the Split with the Lazy Lizard Bar in the Background. It’s the best place to swim on the island.
Mama Luv and its crew are just part of colorful scene at the Split.
The kayaking was good other than one breezy day.
We rode our bikes to The Split but you can walk pretty much anywhere you need to get on the island in 15 minutes.
You can quickly get into a lazy rhythm centered around your daily meals and the sun setting. And both the meals and the sunsets are quite rewarding indeed. People from San Pedro on Ambergris Caye will tell you that Caye Caulker is dead, too slow, no good restaurants or bars. People from Caye Caulker will tell you that San Pedro is too busy, too noisy, too many cars and golf carts speeding along the bumpy paver covered roads. There is a little truth in both those statements – in my thirties and forties I would have preferred Ambergris, in my backpacking late teens and twenties and now in my fifties, Caye Caulker is a better fit.
Herons and Pelicans are common sights
More Peli’s
Some delightful dilapidation but lots of building going on too.
Scene on Middle Street
Not quite the Painted Ladies of SF fame but the tire swing made the picture.
Local marine life.
Met some lovely people at our condo – cheers Bob & Karen
We ate extremely well on Caye Caulker – lots of lobster, lots of fish, and lots of rice & beans. For breakfast we recommend the fryjacks at Errolyn’s House of Fryjacks, Amory Cafe for a nice breakfast or a cinnamon roll at Glenda’s. For the uninitiated a fry jack is a tasty deep fried dough treat that you eat as a side along with eggs, beans, ham, cheese, etc. When you get them to go at Errolyn’s you basically get a stuffed fryjack and a couple from Errolyn’s is a full meal.
Caye Caulker has some very nice restaurants – we can recommend Il Pellicano, Habanero’s, and Fantasy Dining – but I think where the real value is to be found is among Caye Caulker’s casual eats where local recipes and local ingredients shine. In fact some of our best meals were away from Front Street where the majority of the restaurants are located. If you want to eat well at a great value then give these places a try for lunch or dinner – Meldy’s, Maggie’s Sunset Diner, Mama Liz’s Kitchen (great stews), Wish Willie’s, Terry’s Grill, The Little Kitchen and Syd’s. There is a sports bar, a pizza place, Chinese food, Aladdin’s is good for kabobs, a crepe house, and a couple of ice cream joints – plenty to keep you busy for a week.
Lobster traps everywhere. Seafood was a good value – so was beer.
We got the big lobster and had plenty to split – $25 with beers.
When your water taxi pulls into Ambergris Caye you will immediately notice it is a bigger island and a more developed island than Caye Caulker. You’ll dock in San Pedro and once you leave the dock and go inland to Front Street you’ll see that the streets are paved and there are cars along with golf carts and bicycles and you quickly realize you’ll have more to worry about than you did in Caye Caulker where a pothole was your biggest worry.
Front Street at the Central Park
San Pedro is not blessed with beautiful beaches compared to say your typical beach on a Hawaiian island. At either end of Ambergris Caye there are some larger resorts that have created acceptable beaches but most sunbathers are either out on the water or laying on a dock or hanging out at their hotel pool. We met lots of Canadians and mid-westerners escaping the cold – many of them for multiple weeks. Belize is easy travel for English speaking folks, having formerly been a British colony most people do speak English. A little traveler’s Spanish can also come in handy in some establishments. The Belizean currency is pegged at two to one to the dollar and so U.S. dollars are widely accepted along with the Belizean money. ATM’s aren’t as plentiful as in the States but could be found in every locale we visited.
The food in San Pedro did not disappoint and we found a few new surprises along with the ever present rice and beans, stew chicken and Marie Sharp’s Hot Sauce. We had a delicious lobster burrito at Waruguma along with a new treat called pupusas. Pupusas (pictured left) are a Salvadorian dish made with a hardy corn tortilla filled with some combination of meats, cheeses and beans. In our case we had the shrimp and it made for a nice appetizer before our burrito.
A local tip from Ismail our snorkeling guide led us to Reuben the Ceviche man who works his magic from the back of Cholos Sports Bar which is right next to one of the water taxi docks. Tucked away in the back of the bar you’ll find Reuben a very friendly man that makes a ceviche that was worth coming back for again the next night. The ingredients change depending on the catch but the two nights we visited we bought a mixed order of delicious shrimp and super tender octopus ceviche. The ceviche can be eaten there or taken out and it comes in sizes of $10 \ $15 \ $20 BZ$ including chips. Instead of the vinegar brine that many use, Reuben uses a lemon juice brine that was fabulous with the tender seafood combined with the salt on the tortilla chips.
Caliente Restaurant – we ate out on the patio and had a nice Margarita and some tasty white wine. We had the whole fish deep fried and all the trimings. I don’t recall what the waiter said when we asked him about the fish species but I remember that it was not a name I was familiar with and that it was tender, flaky, flavorful goodness
We ate at and liked these spots for lunch and breakfast:
- Caramba! Restaurant
- Celi’s Restaurant
- Estel’s Dine by the Sea
We heard and read about these places being good but did not try:
- El Fogon
- Elvi’s Kitchen
- Fido’s Restaurant & Bar
Do try some johnnycakes, Conch fritters and Belikin beer when your there. And in case you are a Guinness fan did you know that in Belize they brew a slightly spicier version of Guinness under a license from Dublin called Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. Very tasty.
This iguana thinks he is the cock of the walk.
Palapa’s Bar – a good place to enjoy an afternoon or evening.
Palapa Bar and Grill – A good daytime hang out spot and probably an even more lively night spot. You can eat, drink, hang out on the dock or float near the dock in the inner-tubes supplied by Palapa’s.
And then it was time to leave the gentle breezes and the blue, blue, water of the ocean behind and leave the Cayes of Belize to head inland to Guatemala.
We opted for the 5 AM wake up and bus to Tikal rather than the 3 AM one which would have allowed us to be on site and watch the sun slowly come up over the jungle. As it was we were able to see a good deal of the sunrise and get some nice pictures of the silhouetted temples against the rising sun with the backdrop of the jungle.
The bus ride up was in a collectivo van that stopped at several establishments along the way to fill up the 14 passenger limit. During our drive up we saw warning signs for jaguar, deer, wild turkeys, snakes and for coatimundi which the Guatemalans call pizote.
We paid at the gate and then were driven another minutes to where we were let off and could purchase food or head into the ruins. We had already had a cuppa at our hotel and had breakfast bars so we went immediately to the main plaza.
When we arrived the main plaza was virtually empty and the sun was just coming up in the East so we climbed one of the temples and watch the show unfold before us. The jungle was waking up with bird and monkey cries and it was very cool to see the sun slowly come up and reveal the details of the expansive ruins of the Mayan city.
After quickly surveying the main plaza we headed off in the direction of the seven temples because I knew our chances of seeing wildlife was better if we left the majority of the people behind us at the main plaza.
And it wasn’t long before we heard and then saw some commotion in the canopy and upon closer inspection saw the lanky fellow below just hanging out observing the humans on the ground.
Our other four monkey sightings were mostly spider monkeys including the one below that we photographed climbing on one of the temples. A nearby guide said that it was relatively rare to see them climb on the ruins. We also saw a group of howler monkeys that we know from experience sometimes like to amuse themselves by flinging their feces at passerby’s below. These howlers were more polite than the Costa Rican ones that we met.
Walking the jungle from temple to temple by ourselves made us feel like we were discovering a lost city. It was really pretty magical and I understand why so many people have a spiritual reaction during their visit. The sun was rising and filtering its way through the thick jungle, the birds and monkeys were creating their own wall of sound, and then carved out of the rain forest you would come across these amazing temples built hundreds of years ago in 700 AD.
