You betta Belize it!

"Belize?"

It was a question that a lot of people asked me before I left on my trip. "Why Belize?"

My answer at the time was, "Because my sister was going and I wanted to go on a trip." Honest, but not the full truth. I'd been thinking about going to Belize since learning to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It's not the most sought-after vacation destination. But after this trip, I don't really understand why not.

Highlights:

• English-speaking
• Relatively cheap (-er than Mexico)
• Relatively safe (-er than Mexico)
• Hot
• Loads of coastline
• Second-longest reef in the world
• Consequently, loads of fantastic marine-life for snorkeling or diving
• Friendly people
• Interesting history and culture (Mayan ruins)
• Lots of adventure and eco-tourism (caving, jungles, waterfalls)

But I'm kind of glad that you all waited, because it meant that it wasn't so packed full of stupid tourists. Actually, there were still plenty of stupid tourists, but most of them were overnight cruise-shippers. Ugh. But at least that meant we didn't really interact with them too much -- we could avoid them pretty easily.

So where did I go?

We didn't do the easiest trip: Flying into Cancun (return) was $500 from Toronto. Half the price of flying to Belize City. But it turned out that our regional flight back to Cancun got cancelled, so we had to fly OUT of Belize City anyway (for almost $600, one-way for the worst/cheapest flight on offer). But we had to take the bus down - it was interesting, but something I only really need to do once.

Here's my trip outline. And you can click to see some initial photos here. More to follow (I hope).


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