Caye Caulker - last day

We lazed around and wandered the town again today. The day started out sunny but went overcast around noon. The locals can't stop talking about how rare this cold weather is in January.

As much as we love Caye Caulker, we've decided that today was our last day here. The weather has been too chilly to snorkel or swim and tomorrow, we will hop back on the ferry to Belize City and then will take a bus to Orange Walk in the Northern part of Belize. It will be our first big bus travel day and we are ready for a change of pace and to practice our rapidly improving travel skills. Going to a new place, I cant be sure about internet so I will post again as soon as I can.

Here are my final thoughts on Caye Caulker:

We have loved this lazy little island. We would absolutely come back here and think that this would be a great place for a little 5 day relaxing vacation. We could fly direct from Dallas in 3 hours, take a cab straight to the ferry and be settled on the island that evening and snorkeling the reef the next morning.

The people are wonderful, friendly, funny, laid back, peaceful and helpful. Everyone has a smile on their face and seems truly greatful to live on such a beautiful island. A lot of the locals came here from the mainland to find a more laid back existance.

We found these little cabins on the southern side of the island and stayed for $35 Belize a night which is $17.50 US. They arent super clean and dont have a new paint job. The water smelled like sulfer but came out of the shower HOT. There are plenty of other accomodations and I would say all are relatively cheap by beach rental standards. Food could get a little more pricy but the nicer restaurants' most expensive seafood dishes run around $10-$12 a plate with cheaper, non-seafood options like the $3.50 burgers we had yesterday for lunch and the $7.50 grilled lobster shishkabob that we shared for lunch today...yum.

This is definately a place for diving and snorkeling with little else to do besides wandering the very small town, people watching, or relaxing reading a book or having drinks. We could see the reef out in the distance which keep the waters around the island super calm. Sea grass grows along the most of the island beaches so its not really a "lay on the beach" place.

The transportation here is on foot, bicycle or golf cart but everything is so close, the golf carts seemed like a silly (but fun) extravegance.

The bugs havent been bad at all but its been really windy and cold. I assume they can get bad when its warmer. I've seen some mosquitos in the room but havent gotten any bites from them. I did get 2 bites on my foot the other night but I'm pretty sure they were ant bites and I got them through my sandals while eating dinner inside in a restaurant that had a sandy floor (conch and lobster fritters...so greasy and yummy)

It attracts a more budget minded traveler and we have heard accents of all kinds from all over the world. While there are lots of tourists, the island is not busy and there arent really night clubs or anything. We have felt extremely safe here, even in the evening. This is a place that you could bring kids and probably even let bigger kids run amuck in town. Its just so small that there is little trouble to get into.

When we were talking to the guy at the restaurant this morning over coffee, we said we would be telling our friends about this place and he asked us kindly not to tell everyone. They like it peaceful here and that is the charm so please disregard all of the wonderful things that I have said and please dont come here...its terrible and you will hate it. We want to help keep this place a secret...shhhhh.