Belize is an english speaking country, which, a week in to our travels, was a welcome break from trying to get by on our very basic spanish! We had heard about an island off the coast of Belize called Caye Caulker, where most travellers make a beeline for, I could definitely see why!

Caye Caulker
The easiest way to get to Caye Caulker from Mexico is by ferry from Chetumal. We had a bit of an issue at the border though, as you need a document to show your entry date into Mexico when leaving by land or sea. Make sure to ask the airline you arrive with for this, as we didn’t know about it, and it took a lot longer than expected to leave Mexico!

Caye Caulker is like paradise! The motto of the island is “go slow”, no need to tell us twice!

Make sure to check out ‘Fran’s place’, a cute little shack on the sea front where you can get Lobster, garlic bread, mashed potato, rum and chocolate cake, all for £5/$7!

I was really excited before arriving about diving the Blue hole, however, this is really expensive, so we opted for a snorkelling trip around the island instead, a much cheaper and equally as incredible option!

During the snorkel trip we made friends with an english couple (Carl and Vicki) who were travelling with an american guy (Chris). We also got chatting to another english girl (Lindsay) who had paired up with an American woman (Jennie-Rae). Our group had now multiplied from 2 to 7!

The boats would often throw food into the water to attract nurse sharks or sting rays. As amazing as it is to see these incredible animals so close, I’m not comfortable with this practice of feeding and attracting them for the benefit of tourism. Make sure you ask about this when selecting a tour operator to try and prevent this practice from happening.

San Ignacio
We left Caye Caulker and headed for San Ignacio, which was close to the Guatemalan border, and near to the Tikal mayan ruins, our first planned stop in Guatemala. We stayed at ‘Bella’s hostel’ and the owner was so friendly, and even drove us to a nearby beautiful waterfall- ‘Monkey falls’ for the day!

From here it was on to the next country, and back to speaking Spanish again, Guatemala!