Belize: October, 1998

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

Copyright © 2001 Kris Warmann. All Rights Reserved.