Belize Blog – Belizeadventure.com

Victor Myers runs the East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon, high water!

I receive a lot of pictures by email from people just getting home from the island. I save most of them and use some of them, but it can take a while for me to deal with these messages. Because I am going to Belize this weekend, I am trying to clean out my inbox. I JUST looked at the pictures that Jenn Workman sent to me back in May (sorry about the delay Jenn!) Jenn was on our first ever Belize island wedding charter. One of her pictures is (as they say) UNBELIZEABLE. Belize kitesurfing at sunset. Wow.

Our best itinerary for solo travel is our Belize Adventure Week package. This very active vacation is perfect for single women or men who are traveling alone to Belize.

This tour has our smallest maximum… only 12 people can join this trip at a time. This is because of the size of the van we use for the inland part of the tour.

On this adventure package we explore Tikal in nearby Guatemala, we visit Che Chem Ha pottery cave, and we also drive to the banks of the Macal or Mopan River for whitewater kayaking lessons. Our final inland day we run the underground Caves Branch River. All of these activities involve vehicle transport, and our van only holds 15 people.

Because of the small group size it doesn’t matter if you are traveling by yourself or not, everyone becomes best friends fast because you are spending a lot of time in the van together and also you are learning new things every day: kayaking, caving, Mayan history… and once you get out to the island you continue to experience new things as a group (sea kayaking, surfing, snorkeling, paddleboarding).

Another reason this trip is perfect for those who must (or choose to) travel alone is that everything is taken care of. All you have to do is get yourself to and from our Belize City hotel (10 minute cab ride) and from then we escort the group and take care of everything. AND we include a Slickrock t-shirt as part of the package. You wear your t-shirt when arriving in Belize and you can find others on your tour if they are at the airport at the same time. Then you can share a cab to the hotel as well!

Of course, our island only trip, called Adventure Island at Glover’s Reef, gets many solo travelers also, and they have a fantastic time as well, although the trip maximum is larger (22).

I talk to people all the time who don’t want to travel alone but none of their friends have their same days off, or they don’t have the same ability to pay for the trip, or some other reason that they can’t join their friend, no matter how much they want to. If you sympathize with this scenario, you don’t have to be concerned. Travelling alone to Belize is a cinch on this trip. Give us a call today (800.390.5715) and we can tell you all about our Belize Adventure Week trip!

Belize celebrates their 30th anniversary this September! In 1981 Belize became Belize, after 149 years as British Honduras, a British colony.

Chaa Creek, Belize’s oldest eco-lodge, celebrates the anniversary of their inception this September also. They have a BIG party planned, and a bunch of deals to entice you there for the festivities.

Visit their blog to read more about it: The Belizean birthday bash bargains and diaspora deals

I just found this fantastic collection of Belize maps on the Marty Casado’s excellent site ambergriscaye.com. One of the oldest website’s dedicated to Belize, we originally found this site through Marty’s invaluable hurricane forum which posts messages from Belizeans and those concerned about Belizeans seeking updates during hurricanes.

You really should check out this page, he has links to almost 150 maps! In addition to many maps of Ambergris Caye and San Pedro businesses, he has aerial photos of resorts, satellite images of the island, and details on the geology of the island.

But he doesn’t stop there, he has relief maps of Belize, Guatemala and the entire Caribbean, geology of Belize and offshore Belize, maps of many inland Belize resorts, maps of most of the towns of Belize… it goes on and on!

If you want to buy a map of Belize, we sell one, just fill out your shipping and payment info on our secure server.

Every year we are asked about whether traveling to Belize or the tropics is a good idea during ‘the rainy season’. Slickrock is not open during this time (summer and fall) and it is partly due to bad weather in Belize, although the weather in the summer (June – August) is often not too severe until hurricane season arrives in September (although it can, of course, begin earlier). The other reason we close our operation during this time is due to the general decrease in interest people have in going south for the summer.

The rainy season, which affects all tropical regions on the planet, is caused by the equatorial weather zone – a low pressure, rain bearing climate zone – migrating north or south depending on the season. In the northern hemisphere’s summer, this climate zone moves north, affecting the latitudes of Central America and the Caribbean. This weather pattern creates periods of intense rainfall and humid, muggy weather which starts in June and lasts until November. However, the rain patterns are not the typical daily rainshowers during the afternoon which mist people associate with tropical rainy seasons. Rather, Central America experiences a series of tropical ‘waves’ of low pressure which sweep ashore off the Caribbean. These waves bring in 4-5 days of intense rains, then clear out. So in fact Belize and its neighboring countries have long periods of good weather in the summer, interspersed with rain events of a few days. Central America in general does not get the equatorial daily downpours found in such places as the rainforests of the Amazon or Congo.

The fall sees the most intense period of Belize’s rainy season. More frequent and more intense tropical waves sweep ashore, and monthly rainfall totals are the highest of the year. The trade winds slack off and it gets extremely hot and humid. This is the time of the year when hurricanes become a threat, as tropical storms in the Caribbean are able to grow and intensify into monster storms due to the heat content of the sea and low wind shear.

As fall approaches winter, the equatorial climate zone retreats south and a drier, cooler climate moves in. The tropical waves cease and rainfall decreases, and by spring the dry season is firmly entrenched and we sometimes see no rain at all for two months at a time!

It is always exciting when I finish the Belize brochure each summer. It’s a huge decision deciding what photos to use because we have so many more than we can fit into our 12 page catalog. I JUST finished it… it’s not printed yet but it’s ready online! Please check it out, and send me an email and let me know what you think. (And if you find a typo, let me know by next Thursday when I go to the printer in Grand Junction to finalize it!) [slickrock(at)slickrock(dot)com]

Download Slickrock’s NEW Belize brochure