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Belize
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October,
1998 |
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TRAVEL
We visited
Belize during the first week of October, 1998. (Note: A few weeks
after our visit, Hurricane
Mitch hit Central America very hard and we have not heard how
Belize fared.) We traveled from the US mainland to Belize City via Continental
Airlines out of Houston. From Belize City, we took a short Tropic
Air flight to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. We were met at the
airport by "Charlie", one of the employees at our resort.
Charlie arranged a taxi to take us and our bags 2 short blocks down
the sand streets of San Pedro to the waterfront. There, Charlie
grabbed our bags and tossed them into the Captain Morgans water taxi
for a 3 1/2 mile trip up the coast to our resort, Captain
Morgan's Retreat.
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ACCOMODATIONS
Captain
Morgan's Retreat consists of 21 thatched roof casitas (little
houses), each with an oceanfront view. Not only is the view
fantastic, but functional too. The coast provides a continuous breeze
that eliminates the need for air conditioning. The ammenities are
limited but each casita has it's own private modern bathroom. We
found the casita quite comfortable, but as you'll see, there is so
much to do that you don't spend any time there except for sleep.
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FOOD
Captain Morgans
offers a meal plan at their dining room which is well worth it. We
arranged for breakfast and dinner each day and were glad we did. The
breakfast menu stayed the same the week we were there. Each day we
had a selection of about 8 different dishes including, eggs,
pancakes, waffles, french toast, omelets, and more. Each dish was
served with bacon or sausage if you liked. Fresh squeezed juice and
coffee or tea were also included. Breakfast was served from 7-9am,
earlier if you were headed out early for a trip. Definately sign up
for the breakfast plan.
The dinner menu
also stayed the same the week we were there. Again we had a choice of
about eight items. Each dinner included an appetizer and dessert. One
of the entree choices each night was lobster tail. Since we rarely
get that at home, we both found ourselves eating it quite often.
Neither of us was overly thrilled by a number of the dinner choices
so we ended up having the same thing on a few nights. If we were to
go again (which we might do), we'd look into skipping the dinner plan
on a couple of nights to try some other places on the island.
Lunch was our
chance to explore some of the island culture. On a couple of days our
lunch was included as part of a trip we had planned. Other days we
rode bicycles into San Pedro to try the local cuisine. We
particularly enjoyed Elvi's
Kitchen, Rasta
Pasta, the Capricorn resturant next to Capt. Morgan's, and
burgers at La Palapa (on the pier between Capt. Morgan's and San
Pedro). If you go to La Palapa (highly recommended) plan to stay for
a few Palapa Punches and make an afternoon out of it. It's a great
place to hang out!
To find other
eateries, click here.
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ACTIVITIES
Captain
Morgan's Retreat offers many things to keep busy, whether you want a
relaxing day at the resort to a wild mainland trip. The resort has a
wonderful freshwater pool and pool bar. We found it quite refreshing
to relax at the pool with a drink before dinner. There are ocean
kayaks available and canoes for paddling around the lagoon behind the
resort. You can snorkle off the long dock and explore the manmade
reef. At night I found a large green moray hanging around the
"reef" pile and during the afternoon I stumbled upon a
large stingray (or it stumbled upon me!). There's a volleyball net,
horseshoe pit, and darts if you are interested. The Jolly Roger Bar
(with sand floor) has a full menu of tropical drinks. Bicycles can be
used for free if you want to ride into town. We did this three times
and found it to be quite enjoyable. If you do ride into town, there
is a barge that takes you across the river that splits the island.
Make sure you have a couple of Belize dollars to tip the barge tender.
Captain
Morgan's can also arrange a variety of trips for you. We took an all
day trip to the Mayan Ruin site Altun Ha. It started with an
enjoyable boat ride across the flats to the mainland. We took the
boat up a narrow winding jungle river where we met an old schoolbus
to take us about 30 minutes to the ruin site. We enjoyed a guided
tour of the site, and on the way back, stopped at the luxurious
Maruba Resort for lunch. After lunch we had time to take in the pool
at the resort to cool off. The boat ride back to the mainland was a
bit bumpy (we returned against the waves), but we were refreshed with
Belikin Beer on the trip. If you decide to do this trip, don't forget
bug spray!
Captain
Morgan's can also arrange a number of trips for you. Other Mayan ruin
sites, Belize Zoo, Baboon Santuary, Inland Blue Hole, Snorkeling
trips, Deep sea fishing, etc. Everyone we met that had done the trips
really enjoyed them. Of course, Belize is know for SCUBA diving, and
Captain Morgan's can set that up too!
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DIVING
Let's face it,
you came to dive! Captain Morgan's works with Patojo's SCUBA Center
run by Elmer "Patojo" Paz (patojos@btl.net). Patojo's
offers one and two tank dives in the morning and the afternoon. You
can't beat the convenience as they pick you up at the dock at Captain
Morgan's and within 10 minutes, you are inside the edge of the reef
gearing up for your dive. It was quite windy when we were there which
meant big swells outside the reef. Our dive master would have us gear
up inside the reef and do our dive briefing in the calm water. Once
outside the protection of the reef, we quickly entered the water and
decended, waiting for everyone to assemble as a group. The rules were
simple, dive with your buddy or the divemaster. Don't exceed the max
depth for the dive. If you had a computer, you were on your own as
long as you stayed within no-deco limits. All the diving was drift diving.
One dive not to
miss is the Amigo's Wreck. It's an old cargo boat with the deck at
about 60 feet. After our entry, we assembled on the deck of the wreck
and the divemaster came up followed by about 10 big nurse sharks and
a bunch of big black grouper. The divemaster fed the sharks as we
watched. However, unlike most shark dives, we got a chance to
interact with the sharks. Tracy was petting a nurse shark. I wouldn't
believe it except I got it on video! Everyone agreed it was the best
dive of the week.
We did a couple
of dives on the reef outside of Hol Chan Marine Park. The coral
formations were just beautiful. We dove canyon after canyon! Toward
the end of the dive, a beautiful eagle ray came swimming through one
of the canyons. Another great video shot.
We found the
diving off Ambergris Caye to be just wonderful. The only way to make
it better would have been to have less wind, but we realize you
cannot control the weather. Having the reef so close to shore really
makes the diving nice. No long rides out to that first dive site and
no long rides back. During one of our surface intervals we stopped at
Shark Ray Alley and snorkled. Nurse sharks and Southern Stingray
soup! We had a ball, not to mention using up an entire disposable
underwater camera!
One note. If
you want to dive the Blue Hole, be prepared for a long day. It is
about 2.5 hours by boat from Ambergris Caye. We talked to some people
that did it. They really enjoyed it but admitted that it was a long ride.
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VIDEO
Eagle
Ray Swimming: (186K
RealVideo®)
Feeding
Nurse Sharks: (192K
RealVideo®)
Stingrays
in Hol Chan Marine Park: (247K
RealVideo®)
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LINKS
Scuba
Diving Belize
Belize
EcoTourism
Belize
Tourism Board
GoAmbergrisCaye.com
Ambergris
Caye Online News
San
Pedro Information - A great soundtrack on this site
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