Caye Caulker

The bus ride to Belize City was uneventful. The bus never got overcrowded, and it was hot but not unbearable.  It wasn’t raining, so the windows could be kept open allowing for a breeze, and since it was direct, there wasn’t much stopping and starting along the way.
We walked the ten minutes to the water taxi terminal, bought our tickets, and waiting the hour till the taxi left.

The day was clear, but the water was choppy, and we were toward the front.  Opposite riding a bus, the front of the boat was the bumpiest ride, and we fought off naseau.
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Our hotel was a fifteen minute walk from the dock.  We walked along the sandy main road,
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then cut through a cemetary where the road ended and walked along the beach for the last bit.  Our room was on the first floor of a duplex, one building back from the water.
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There was a pier, with adirondack chairs that we made immediate use of.
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We walked the main street of town and had lunch at a Cuban restaurant, margaritas to celebrate.
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One end of the main part of the island to the other was a twenty minute walk.  At the far end from our hotel, at a place called The Split, where the island was cut in two by a hurricane in the 60s, was a bar called the Lazy Lizard.  Music blasted and people lounged on the breakwaters and pier.  The horizon was overcast, so we gave up on the sunset and went to dinner.
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The following day was a day of nothing.  We had fryjacks for breakfast, which are something like elephant ears stuffed with whatever you want.  I had ham, beans and cheese.
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We made more use of the pier. I made a failed attempt at snorkeling in the murky water near shore.
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We used the kayaks provided free, snorkeling further out with a bit more success.  We discussed going on a night snorkeling tour, but decided against it.  We had lunch in a restuarant on the water, and dinner at a seafood restaurant called Rose’s, where the menu was the freshly caught fish sitting on a platter as you entered.
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It was just nice being together again.
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We had planned on going on a snorkeling tour on Friday and then having another laid back day on Saturday before S left on Sunday, but we never got going on Friday, and the days were reversed, and Friday ended up being a repeat of Thursday.  Caye Caulker was the opposite of Black Rock Lodge, where we were doing something every day.  Here the thing to do was sit, eat and drink, read, watch the sea. Eat some more, drink some more.
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We had dinner at what we had been told was the restaurant serving the best food on the island.
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The tour on Saturday began at 10:30am.  The weather looked a bit threatening, but Carlos, the guide assured us the weather would hold off for the day and then hit tomorrow.  Good for our snorkeling, but ominous for a flight out of Belize City on Sunday.
We motored out to our first stop, where fisherman were cleaning their catch.  There were sea turtles and colorful fish I couldn’t possibly name.  We moved to a couple different spots.  Carlos got in and took us for a tour of the reef.  We stopped for lunch on Ambergris Caye, in San Pedro, and were glad we had chosen Caye Caulker over it.  After lunch we went to Shark Ray Alley and swam with nurse sharks and sting rays.  We moved and saw a manatee.
(None of these pictures taken by me)
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The skies threatening all day, finally opened, but already wet, we didn’t mind so much.
We had dinner at the same waterside restaurant we had lunch a couple days before, now crowded with locals on a Saturday night.  On the way home we stopped for a couple bottles of beer we didn’t need on a account of our 5:15am wakeup Sunday morning and walked along the beach.  It was dark and crabs darted out of the shadows across our path, startling S in a way I found more amusing than I should have.
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We stayed up too late talking and went to bed probably not quite ready to say goodbye again tomorrow.

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