Costa Maya Orientation - Sunday, 30 December 2007

Photo of what I think is called a "box crab"

Photo of one of the many iguanas on the resort grounds

We had the suite on the top floor of this building

[All photos on this blog are by Alan A. Lew and are released under a Creative Commons copyright, non-commercial use, attribution required, share-alike distribution]


Not having had much sleep on our redeye flight, we slept in fairly late in the morning, though we did make the 10 a.m. free continental breakfast that came with the resort orientation. After the presentation we discussed what tours we might want to do and then signed up for the Lamanai Mayan ruins tour (which includes a nature-based river trip and village stop (6:45am-5:30pm, on the mainland), and a Manatee viewing, snorkeling (two stops), and Caye Caulker visit (we will do this tomorrow, on Monday, 8:15am-5pm). Caye Caulker is a smaller island and town south of Ambergris Caye.

Before coming here several people mentioned going from Belize to the more famous Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala. That is apparently more easily done if you are staying on the mainland. From here you need to either do an overnight land trip or fly, which costs about US$400/person. So we settled for a more local Mayan trip instead.

We also agreed to do the timeshare sales pitch on Friday morning, which reduced our Lamanai tour cost by $200. I hate doing those things, but these two tours was well around $900 for the four of us, so the discount looked good. We then went to the Dive Shop where I signed up for a two-tank dive (US$75) on Wednesday morning.

We then went to the small resort store and got two kayak paddles, life vests, and fins. This was all free to use, and we had brought our own mask and snorkel. Chynna, Skylan and I kayaked around the piers and out just beyond the sea grass the lines most of the shores on Ambergris Caye. Chynna and I also snorkeled some around the pier. Mable relaxed on a hammock between two short palm trees.

I tried out my new underwater camera case for my Canon SD800 compact camera and got some great photos and video. I love it! – though I kept checking to make sure that no water was seeping through the seal. The sun pretty much wiped me out, so we went back to each a late lunch and get ready for a free resort kayak and snorkel dive at 3pm.

Skylan decided that he was too tired to do the afternoon excursion, so it was just Chynna and me. There were four others and our guide, Kirk (the resorts activity coordinator). He took us the Mexico Rocks reef., where about eight small boats were scattered about with snorkelers Kirk said that this was the second most popular snorkel site, after the Hol Chan marine reserve – and it was right in front of or resort.

We tied our kayaks to a pole sticking out of the water and followed Kirk who pointed out animals of interest. This was a very nice snorkel trip, especially since it was free. There was lots of coral and an incredible diversity of fish. I took several videos and soon found that my memory card was full. I deleted a couple of videos and then stuck to taking photos (much smaller in size). After about 45 minutes of diving, we returned to our kayaks and made or way back to shore.

We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. They had a special of breaded freshly caught Reef Grouper, and it was excellent – so soft and tasty. It was not real cheap however (US$16.50 – for fresh fish I guess that is not too bad), and we will mostly be eating in our bungalow for most dinners this week.

We, especially Chynna and I, got a lot of sun today. And we will get even more tomorrow. We also saw several iguanas today – mostly younger ones, though there was one large (2 feet long) older iguana sunning itself in front of our neighboring bungalow.

Arriving at Ambergris Caye, Belize - 29 December 2008

Photo of the southwest corner of Ambergsis Caye -- a popular fishing location

Photo of the Grilled BBQ chicken that we had for lunch in San Pedro

Photo of the piers looking north from Wet Willy's on Hustler's Pier in San Pedro

View from our deck at the Costa Maya Reef Resort on Ambergris Caye, Belize

[All photos on this blog are by Alan A. Lew and released under the Creative Commons Copyright, noncommercial uses only, attribution required, share alike distribution.]

Writing on 30 December 2007 - It is now about 10:30 at night here at the Costa Maya Reef Resort, about 6.5 miles north of the town of San Pedro on the island of Ambergris Caye in Belize.

Events on 29 December 2007

We took a redeye flight from Los Angeles to San Salvador, El Salvador on Friday evening (on December 28), connecting to a flight to Belize City early Saturday morning. We chose this flight to avoid flying through Houston, which I think could have gotten us here without the redeye. My daughter got caught in the Houston mess last year at this time when passengers were grounded on the tarmac for up to 9 hours. LAX to San Salvador is only about 4.5 hours, so we did not got a lot of sleep.

The most interesting thing we encountered was the very reasonable prices on products at the San Salvador airport. I bought good size bags of tortilla chips and cheese puffs for only US$ 0.50 cents each. Had we realized the high cost of everything on Ambergris Caye, I would have bought many more bags!

The flight from Belize City to our island’s major city of San Pedro was fun. We flew on Tropic Air on a single propeller plane that sat about 12 people. Mable sat next to the pilot and the three of us sat directly behind the two of them. The 15 minute flight was smooth, until just before we landed when we hit heavy rain that made for an exciting landing.

A taxi driver representing the Costa Maya Resort (and wearing one of their worker shirts) met us at the airport and took us first to a grocery store where we bought a few items, and then to the pier from which the free boat ride to the resort would depart at 2:30pm, which was 3 hours after our arrival.

We left our bags with in the restaurant/bar at the end of the pier and walked into town where we bought some BBQ chicken being grilled in a drum in front of a grocery store. We each got a quarter of a chicken with cole slaw and either red beans and rice or tortillas and beans for US$4 each (Belize $8 each). We found a log shaded by palm trees in from of a small resort on the beach and ate our messy chicken. It was very tasty.

San Pedro is quite a tourist town, with lots of restaurants and bars, boat and land tour trips and guides, and gift shops and hotels. The most common means of transportation on the city’s narrow streets is by golf cart, and there are many rental places around town.

It was hot. And coming from cold Arizona (even Phoenix seemed very cold with a high of 50F and low of 32F before we left), we were not properly dressed. So after walking a good part of town, and buying a couple gallon jugs of purified water to take to the resort (at about B$3.60 each, US$1.80 each), we went back to the bar to get some sodas and rest until out boat came. Every place we encountered takes US dollars at the exchange rate of twice the value of the Belizean dollar.

It was a 17 minute fast boat ride north to or resort, which is about 6 .5 miles north of San Pedro. In addition to the four of us, there was one other couple on the boat, and the resort seemed largely devoid of guest. There are basically 10 two story bungalows here, with a two bedroom suit upstairs (where we are) and two one bedroom suites downstairs. Our room is very nice with a fantastic view of the Caribbean Sea.

According to the resort information that we had previously received, internet access was not available at the resort, but was available nearby. When we checked in I noticed that there was a computer in the lobby for guests to use. Later, I was even more surprised to learn that there was free wireless internet access in the lobby, and that it was quite fast.

Walking to the lobby, I noticed that every unit had a light on, except one – so there were a lot more people that I expected. While I was online, I spoke with the lady at the front desk who confirmed that only one unit was empty, but said that all of the units would be full by Monday night.

Travelography 2.0 Introduction

I am in Belize for a post-Xmas holiday and I decided to blog about my trip. I found that all my other blogs (click here) were not apropriate because they were not about my personal travels, or they were focused on my travels in Asia. So this is where I pln to post my logs about travel to areas of the world outside of Asia.

Also, I started a podcast called "Travelography 2.0" during NaPodPoMo (National Podcast Post Month) in November 2007 using Utterz.com. I intend to post all my Utterz here, as well.

I hope people find this of interest.

- Alan