Strapped into a tiny ten-seater plane on the runway of Belize’s Caye Caulker, I feel my stomach beginning to fizz with excitement. Engines rumble then roar, and our bodies jostle as the plane picks up speed. Then suddenly we are airborne, the skinny island that has been our base for a few days transformed into a toytown world of miniature clapboard houses and fast-fading bar shacks.
We are heading for Lighthouse Reef atoll, part of Belize’s pristine barrier reef. At 184 miles long, the reef is the world’s second largest, yet the dazzling beauty easily trumps any brag-worthy statistics.
Our reward is not just our view of the atoll’s turquoise clarity, it’s also the pure Nirvana moment when the pilot tilts sideways and we see the Great Blue Hole. This is something else. From my window I see a near-perfect circle, a marine sinkhole of startling Quink-blue intensity. Fringed by a horseshoe of algae-freckled coral, it is utterly exquisite. We fall silent and my eyes unexpectedly prick with tears.
The 400ft deep Great Blue Hole is so intensely vivid it has been photographed from space. Skilled divers regularly plunge in to shimmy among reef sharks, hammerheads, sea turtles and squirrelfish, but I’m more than happy with my ethereal airborne view.
This year is a fine time to visit Belize, for this tiny unsung country is having a bit of a moment. In December it celebrated the barrier reef’s 25th anniversary as a Unesco world heritage site. And World Ocean Day (June 8) will mark its 10,000th birthday. A guess, possibly, but arguably close enough to flag the reef’s importance as one of the world’s best preserved.
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More recently, as part of the Caribbean tour marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, there was the brief — and not uncontroversial — visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Yet despite their stay, Belize, for the British at least, remains a relatively unknown holiday destination.
Earlier in the week I got talking to my fellow hotel guests Dawn and Geoff. Why Belize, I asked. “Geoff has wanted to come for ages,” Dawn said. “Covid delayed his plans, but every time we told our friends where we were going, they all said: ‘Belize? Where’s that?’ ”
Bordered by Guatemala to the west, Mexico to the north and Honduras to the south, Belize is the country formerly known as British Honduras. It gained independence in 1981, but English is still the national language and the Belizean banknote carries an image of the Queen. In dinky Belize City you’ll find red pillar boxes bearing the curlicued ER insignia. Yet beyond these signs of a questionable past — in the early 1700s British settlers brought enslaved Africans to power the logging industry here — is a tangible sense of a country now replete with national pride. It’s a place at ease with itself.
On my visit Belize’s endless variety enables me to mix the laid-back charms of island life with off-the-beaten-track Maya temples, then explore the steamy wetlands, waterfalls and rainforests around western Cayo District. More of those later. Snorkelling or diving is a must, but you need to factor in the climate’s unpredictability. I am here during the dry season, but we have one superb-sounding snorkel day at Turneffe Atoll cancelled because of rough seas. The waves fringing the reef can reach heights of 20ft; on our cancelled day they kick up a spume of 11ft.
Today, however, is very much our lucky day. We are setting off on a bumpy boat ride to Hol Chan Marine Reserve, reputedly one of the best diving and snorkelling sites in the country. And now it is confession time. I’m a shy snorkeller. Or, you might say, a fear-bound wimp. Call it what you will. Thankfully, I am in safe hands — those of Captain Ronnie from Ragga Sailing Adventures.
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I’ve already fessed up to his English boss, a no-nonsense blonde called Charlie. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ve never known anyone return from a day with Ronnie who’s not been wowed.” She proves to be quite right and, despite my misgivings, this afternoon trumps any snorkelling experience I have known.
Our boat finally putters to a halt, and once our dues are paid at the marine reserve’s hut, plonked just south of the foam-fringed barrier reef, I have Ronnie dancing attendance as he fits my mask then calms my panic when I inadvertently breathe through my nose. He leads the way towards an enchanting underworld teeming with colourful fish. I lose count of the species we see, yet many imprint: stick-like trumpetfish, schools of parrotfish and neon-toned blue tang grouper alongside huge, yellow-tailed horse-eye jacks.
Another standout is a bobbing sea turtle above a sandy shallow. With the preoccupation of a houseproud elderly lady doing a bit of light dusting, she potters about and flaps her fins, eventually fashioning the sand into a neat concave.
Even more memorable is the red hogfish I spot parallel-parked alongside a hillock of dark red coral. “It’s having a spa day,” Ronnie says when we come up for air. “Neon gobies are cleaning its skin,” he adds before diving lower to shoo the hogfish away. I watch amazed as the fish’s skin loses its coral-toned camouflage and turns a pearlescent white.
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At nearby Shark Ray Alley, where local fishermen used to gut their catch, the sea is brimming with nurse sharks, many of which encircle our boat, anticipating a snack. Alongside are southern stingrays and eagle rays undulating through the shallows. A day like this is hard to top, so we are especially thankful that Caye Caulker favours a slow, barefoot pace,allowing our experiences time to settle. Earlier we visited neighbouring Ambergris Caye, the largest of the many islands along Belize’s coastline. Here, despite the prettily painted clapboard shops of San Pedro town, we find a party-central vibe that is a bit too full-on, at least for my taste.
Ambergris’ Secret Beach has had its day. Two years ago there was one palapa shade on a stretch of white sand. Today? An inflatable waterpark bobs in the shallows and children scream. “Who let the dogs out?” blares from loudspeakers and the air is rich with the smell of hastily drunk beers. Caulker, on the other hand, has an easy eccentricity. I sit on my balcony and watch a squiffy islander weaving his bike unsteadily down the road. On his greying dreadlocks he wears a hat of green palapa leaves.
Along beach-facing Front Street are restaurants and snack shacks and pelicans patrolling cocktail bars. Magnificent frigate birds ride the thermals with the zigzag wings of a child’s drawing. Below, slogans abound: “No shoes, no problem. No money? Big problem.”
A restaurant with the delightful name Curry Porn abuts another that touts slurpies and pigtail stew. But my favourite pitstop becomes Ice and Beans coffee shop — not just for its hammocks, but also the smiley service, still-warm cinnamon rolls and oh-my-goodness deliciousness of the just-cooked miniature doughnuts.
In contrast, my time in Belize’s hinterland reveals a region barely touched by tourism. Near the border with Guatemala we explore the Maya site of Xunantunich and have the place pretty much to ourselves. I climb the steps of its 130ft El Castillo temple, admiring carved friezes of sun and moon gods, enormous basking iguanas and the extraordinary panorama of plazas and temples, beyond which sprawl western Belize’s searing-green hills and forests. Maya culture is rife here. We stop at Benny’s Kitchen in San Jose Succotz, where the menu spans rice and beans, escabeche and cow foot soup, like Irish stew with a twist, or rather a hoof. Gelatinous, yes, but with a tasty coriander twist. It’s a meal Belizean men particularly favour, not least because of its reputation for being Viagra in soup form.
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Our base in Cayo District is the delightful Hidden Valley Inn, presided over by Gladness Besmehn, a statuesque beauty who welcomes us with arms flung wide. “Hello! I’m Gladness, and I am certainly glad to see you!”
Cottages with log fires surround what was once a private birding lodge. The air is rich with the cawing of chachalacas as early one morning I set off for the Maya village of San Antonio. I’ve an appointment with a Yucatec Maya healer, and what a tiny powerhouse she proves to be. Together we explore her garden, Maria telling me heart-rending stories of her people’s struggle to keep control of their ancestral land. Occasionally she scrunches a leaf. “Polly red,” she tells me. “Good for mosquitoes and mouth sores. And during Covid we boiled oregano; it’s a great anti-inflammatory.”
I hear stories of Maya ceremonies and her cures for everything from bad temper and snake bites to period pains. Out of curiosity, I ask her to take my pulse. She grabs my arms, strong fingers pressing my veins as she mutters Maya prayers. Then something extraordinary happens. For years I’ve been bothered by a blocked ear. No amount of syringing has cleared my lopsided hearing. Yet within minutes, it pops. The world becomes beautifully balanced. Maria smiles. “Stress,” she tells me. “Slow down.” I’m in the right place.
Louise Roddon was a guest of Belize Tourism Board (belizetourism board.org), Hidden Valley Inn (hiddenvalleyinn.com) and Barefoot Caye Caulker (barefoothotel belize.com). Six nights, with two half-board at the Hidden Valley Inn and three room-only at Barefoot Caye Caulker, from £1,793pp, including flights, an overnight stop in Houston and transfers (reefandrainforest.co.uk)
