Belize Blog – Belizeadventure.com

Occasionally I exchange emails with Marcus, the owner of The Parrot Nest in Bullet Tree Falls, Belize. The Parrot Nest is a great, low-cost alternative to the more expensive lodges in Western Belize (called Cayo). Recently Marcus notified me that he has a new aggregated Belize blog; he collects other blog posts about Western Belize and posts them on this collection page. If you are thinking of traveling to San Ignacio, this is a great resource.

Recent articles posted on his blog included a photo tour of San Ignacio via public bus, a plea for financial assistance form the Cayo Outdoor Theatre, a San Ignacio restaurant review, and an article about 36 weddings that are planned for December 21, 2012 (the end of the Mayan calendar) at Cahal Pech Mayan ruin!

His aggregated blog is called the Cayo Scoop! Best of Cayo’s Online Magazine.

The World of the Maya, meaning Belize, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, made CNN’s list of the World’s Top Destinations for 2012 the network announced Tuesday. CNN’s editors relied on recommendations from four travel experts: Robert Reid, U.S. travel editor for Lonely Planet; Martin Rapp, senior vice president of leisure sales at Altour; Anne Banas, executive editor at SmarterTravel; and Jeanenne Tornatore, senior editor for Orbitz.com.

The Mayan region was second in the list behind England and beat out Myanmar, Chicago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, The Netherlands, Atlantic Canada, Uruguay, and Orlando in the top nine.

“Some see it as an approaching apocalypse, others as the beginning of a new era. Whatever your beliefs are about December 21, 2012, interest is skyrocketing in the Maya, the ancient civilization known for the great cities it left behind in Mexico and Central America.

The date marks the end of a 5,126-year cycle on the Long Count calendar developed by the Maya, and there will be events on the occasion in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, Banas said.

If you want to see incredible ruins, Reid recommended skipping the tourist hordes at Tulum and Chichen Itza in Mexico and instead head to places such as Tikal, Guatemala (which George Lucas used as a location in the original “Star Wars”), and Chiapas, Mexico.

Reid was once exploring a site near Comitan, Mexico, and said he was astonished to discover he was the only person there.

“I had a pyramid to myself,” Reid said. “You’re just looking out over this mountainous valley, and you have the complete Mayan site to yourself. It’s an unreal travel experience.”

Join us on Belize Adventure Week in 2012. We visit a Mayan ruin, two Mayan ceremonial caves, as well as run rivers, and kayak and surf on our island 35 miles off the Belize coast.

One of the greatest things about travel abroad is being introduced to new foods and beverages. On the island, that includes a fridge full of Belikin beer, the leading domestically produced beer brand in Belize. The most common Belikin is a light lager beer. A premium lager and a stout beer are also brewed and sold under the Belikin name.

Belikin is brewed by the Belize Brewing Company, Ltd. which is owned by the Bowen family. The Belikin beer brand name was first marketed (according to differing sources) in the late 1960s or in 1971. Its tagline is “The Only Beer worth drinking”.

The name “Belikin” comes from the Maya language and means “Road to the East”. This is a term which some have suggested is the origin of the name of “Belize” (although the most accepted derivation says the name comes from the Belize River, meaning “muddy”). The Belikin label features a drawing of a Pre-Columbian Maya temple-pyramid at Altun Ha.

The brewery is based in Ladyville, Belize District.

Belikin currently exports its Beer and Premium to a distributor in Los Angeles, California. The distributor ships to select high end alcohol stores across the United States.

One of our guests who is going on an upcoming trip just sent me a link to LeisurePro.com. They have the best deal I have ever seen on a full body dive skin: $26.95!!!!

It looks like a great skin. I computed the shipping and UPS ground to Moab would be $7.45. Really really a good deal. She also sent a report on it: “Just wanted to update you that the diveskins arrived today- (so fast!) and they are great- comfortable and fit perfectly!”

We recommend a full body skin for snorkeling or diving in Belize for 3 reasons: (1) sunburn (you don’t realize you are getting fried when snorkeling, Belize is at 17 degrees north of the equator, twice as close as the middle of the US) (2) warmth, even though the water is about 80 degrees, it’s not 98.6, and you do get cold eventually. We regularly snorkel for a hour or more. If you don’t have some kind of clothing on you won’t be able to snorkel that long (3) there are sometimes stinging creatures in the water and a tight skin protects you from that.

Our most common stinging creature is Pica-Pica, the larvae of the sea thimble jellyfish. They arrive unannounced in a swarm. There is no common schedule and no avoiding them once they show up. If you don’t have a skin on and don’t treat with vinegar if you do get stung, they created a very itchy rash that lasts for days.

So a shorty wetsuit is better than nothing, but full body coverage is even better. This is a GREAT deal!

There are five underwater ridges off the coast of Belize, formed by fault lines resulting when the Yucatan and Nicaraguan “blocks” (limestone plateaus) separated and rotated on the axis of the Central American “spine” of mountains, part of the chain running from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

The most developed of the five is also the one that interests us here at Slickrock because it is the basis of the southern part of the Barrier Reef, Glover’s Reef, and Lighthouse Caye.The underwater ridge gives the atolls of Belize their conspicuous NE-SW orientation. The coral reef grows on top of these underwater features.

The ancient coastline of Belize used to be where the Barrier Reef is now. As the area sank slowly, the coral growing along the coast and around the island continued to grow toward the surface of the water.

Coral needs light to exist and grows rapidly if necessary to stay within 30 feet of the surface.

The Barrier Reef is on the edge of the continental shelf with Glover’s Atoll being beyond the edge of the shelf.

The trench outside of Glover’s Reef descends to 9000’ within five miles of Long Caye.

You can read more about Glover’s Reef on our website.

Of the many fascinating marine species we encounter frequently on Adventure Island in Belize, perhaps the most exotic and majestic is the spotted eagle ray.

The dorsal spots make the spotted eagle ray a big attraction, although because of their shyness, interaction with humans isn’t common. Nevertheless, there have been the rare incident reported of spotted eagle rays leaping out of the water onto boats and landing on people(!)

Eagle rays are a cherished sighting for snorkelers and divers because of their large size and graceful, “flying” motion through the water.

Spotted eagle rays have flat disk-shaped bodies, deep blue or black with white spots on top with a white underbelly, and distinctive flat snouts similar to a duck’s bill.

Their tails are longer than those of other rays. The front half of the long and wing-like pectoral disk has five small gills in its underside. Mature spotted eagle rays can be up to 5 meters (16 ft) in length; the largest have a wingspan of up to 3 meters (10 ft) and a mass of 230 kilograms (507 lb).

The spotted eagleray, a cartilaginous fish of the eagle ray family, Myliobatidae, can be identified by its dark ventral surface covered in white spots or rings. Near the base of the ray’s relatively long tail, just behind the pelvic fins, are several barbed stingers.

Spotted eagle rays commonly feed on small fish and crustaceans, and will sometimes dig with their snouts to look for food buried in the sand of the sea bed. These rays are commonly observed leaping out of the water. The spotted eagle ray is hunted by a wide variety of sharks. The rays are considered Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.

A month ago Belize fares dropped astronomically for dates in January. I blogged about it and told everyone get your Belize ticket now. I did hear from several of you that took my advice. A week later, just as quickly as they dropped, they rose again.

Today I see they have dropped again, but not nearly as much. However, if you live in Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, or Washington, DC, the rates are under $600 round trip, which is a good deal.

We did a sampling of fares from 26 US and Canadian cities for dates in January that correspond to one of our Belize deal trips. Visit our website to see these fares: http://www.slickrock.com/belizeflights.html

Being an admitted anglophile, I just had to share my excitement upon learning the news that one of the royals, Prince Harry, will be visiting Belize! Twice while working in Belize I’ve had the pleasure of seeing British royalty visit. Once I was shopping for one of our tours when Princess Anne and her entourage drove by, and another time, Queen Elizabeth stood just 10 feet away from me!

None of my friends can figure out why I care about this stuff, and I can’t explain it either. One of my best friends is from London, and she thinks I’m crazy.

Anyway, I am happy to share with you all the latest scoop on the royal family’s travel plans from British tabloid The National Ledger:

Prince William and Kate Middleton are set to bring the small island of Tuvalu to a standstill when they mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next year.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge cause a stir wherever they go, and can expect a special reception when they visit the South Pacific island, which has not had a big royal visit in decades.

The couple will also go to Malaysia, Singapore, and the Solomon Islands on behalf of the Queen.

Prince Harry is set to tour Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, while Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, will visit Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

The Queen turns 86 in April and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, will be 91 next year.

Both will be traveling in the UK for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “The details and timings of the visits are still under discussion with the host governments.”

I wonder if Harry would consider coming in March or April? That’s when I will be there!

Stop the presses! Huffington Post has put Belize at the top of their list of top 10 destinations for 2012. Belize beat out Lulea, Sweden; Myanmar; Namibia; Philippines; Tanzania; Yukon, Canada; Tahiti; Texas; and Galicia, Spain.

According to the Skeptics Dictionary, the world will not come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012 when, as some say, the Mayan Calendar predicts that day will usher us into a catastrophic global collapse or the beginning of some kind of new age transformation.

But you never know! So why not hedge your bet by making sure you’re in one of the most incredible locations on planet earth next Dec. 21. Our Dec. 14, 2012 Adventure Island trip and our Dec. 15, 2012 Belize Adventure Week trip will be out on the island when that final Friday arrives and we do book that far in advance.

The Belize Adventure Week trip ought to be doubly enticing to Mayan calendar folks because it involves a visit to Che Chem Ha Mayan Cave where you’ll see hundreds of ceramic offerings left by Mayan shamans along with a final ceremonial chamber. The tour also visits the amazing ruins of Tikal in nearby Guatemala, the region’s most extensive Mayan archeological site.