Caye Caulker

 

Caye Caulker was the island I read about decades ago that first drew my attention to Belize. So my first trip to Belize had to include at least a day there.

Getting There

There are essentially 2 ways to get from Ambergris Caye to Caye Caulker: take a water taxi or fly. Flying is a little quicker, but costs more. We elected to take the water taxi, partly just for the experience.

The water taxi terminal was directly outside of Estel’s Dine By The Sea in San Pedro. We could easily walk there with our luggage from our hotel. I stopped in a day early to ask when we should purchase tickets. You can purchase ahead of time or day of. They have multiple trips leaving each day and she said their boats never sell out. So, the day we wanted to leave we headed over about 30 minutes early and bought tickets. Easy peasy. You check your luggage which they load and unload for you. The ride to Caye Caulker is about 30 minutes. The boat goes on to stop at Belize City and Chetumal, Mexico as well.

 

Caye Caulker is pretty small. When we arrived, we walked with our luggage to our hotel for the night. We walked everywhere on Caye Caulker. When we had to get to the airport to fly back to BZE, the hotel called us a taxi, which was a golf cart!

 

To get back to BZE to fly home, you again have the option of taking a water taxi or flying. For that trip, we chose to fly. Both Tropic and Maya Air have options for flying from Caye Caulker to BZE. 

We again flew Maya. It is a very small airport and airstrip. We arrived an hour early, but we definitely didn't need to. Since the planes are so small, they choose your seat in a way to try and balance out the weight of the plane. For this flight, they sat me as co-pilot!

 

The beer of Belize is Belikin. You can find a Belikin store and bar at the BZE airport to enjoy your first and last tastes of it (the airport also has some souvenir shops and a pizza restaurant).

Hotel

For our night on this island we stayed at Yocamatsu, a local B and B. It was fine for a night, and things on this island seem a bit more rustic than on Ambergris. I'd probably look for a different hotel if I went back. We hung out a bit at Iguana Reef Inn which I thought looked really nice.

Activities

This trip was more to just get a feel of the island. Nothing was really planned, but we did come across a few quick activities.

 

One of the first things we did was check out The Split, which is home to the famous Lazy Lizard.

  

We had a drink at the Lazy Lizard, but it was honestly so loud and busy that we didn't stay long. 

 

Iguana Reef Inn is home to a seahorse habitat. They have an area that has rope in the water that the seahorses live in. It is very difficult to spot them, but some employees were trying to point a couple out to us. 

We went to Iguana Reef Inn a few times. They had a little bar there to grab drinks and a spot to get into the ocean. They fed the pelicans and rays which meant there were a lot hanging around.

As we walked around the island, we were invited to participate in a crab race! I figured, when in Rome, right? They had a bucket of crabs that you could mark with paint so you knew which one was yours.

Then they put all the crabs in a bucket and placed the bucket in the middle of this raked circle they had. 

They would lift up the bucket and all the crabs instinctively started making their way to the outside of the circle. Whoever reached it first won! We placed $5 on 2 races, but didn't come in first either time.

 

One way I find activities to do in new areas is to simply open Google maps and explore locations. Chris found tarpon feeding this way and we decided to check it out. 

You pay a few bucks to get a bowl of sardines. You hold out a sardine over the water and the tarpons jump out to eat the fish. It was actually pretty exciting.  

 

 

 

While there, we also saw a couple large iguanas. Those that run the tarpon feeding also put out treats for these iguanas.

 

We really enjoyed just wandering around the island and popping into stores and restaurants that looked interesting. The convenience stores allow you to purchase alcohol to go and you can drink as you walk around exploring.

    

 

As we wandered around one night we found karaoke at one of the bars. The security guard was the most entertaining one there! 

 

The Food

My mouth is watering thinking about the food on Caye Caulker. It was easily the best of the trip! I would go back to Caye Caulker again simply to eat. 

 

When we first got on the island, we noticed all of these 50 gallon drums converted into grills. Most were grilling lobster. We decided immediately that would be our first meal on the island. We grabbed some lobster from Chef Kareem's UnBelizable Lunch. OMG! It was sooooo good!

 

He grilled us up some lobsters and served it with a side of rice. I could eat this everyday! He also taught us a trick to keep the flies away. Take the shell off your lobster and put it on the ground. The flies will go after the shell and leave your food alone. Pretty tricky! 

We had another unbelievable unBelizeable meal at Wish Willy Bar & Grill. You feel like you're eating in your friend's backyard. You even serve yourself drinks out of the coolers he has out back!

This meal was amazing- and cheap! I would definitely recommend Wish Willys.

 Tips

Belize was pretty cheap; cheaper than things here locally. The local currency is the Belize dollar (BZ or BZD). The conversion rate is $2 BZ to $1 USD, so it's very easy to convert. However, everywhere we went accepted USD. The change they gave us sometimes included a mix of USD and BZ. Most places also took credit card. We use our American Airlines credit card whenever we travel since there are no foreign transaction fees, plus it helps us get miles to use in future travel! Another benefit of the card is it includes a free checked bag each when we fly AA; there are also some other travel perks. 

The island motto is "Go Slow." In fact, when we were walking to grab a bite a local yelled out at us (in a teasing way) "Slow down! The bar will still be there when you get there!" The island definitely encouraged you to just slow down and enjoy life. We certainly did.