You’ll hear that statement all over the city of Belize, and while most of it was actually belizeable... For me this trip had an over all feel more like *Nicki Minaj voice* “haha they was sleepin on me Beliz-zee-zee-zee-zee”. I hadn’t done any research prior to heading to this country, and was surprised at how easy it was to adjust. Basically all the major hotels have English speaking staff and with a big expat community, you’ll find a lot of people to connect with. My main to-do here was not to putz around the city though, instead I elected to take a luxury catamaran island hopping from Placencia, Belize to 7 different islands in the Honduras, Belize, and Guatemala region. I had a nice overnight stay at the Radisson Fort George where I got crazy wasted on bottom shelf margaritas and carried on boozy conversations with the guests - that night, I watched a sassy woman from Barbados show up a bunch of white girls in a church group dancing to The Wobble, that woman would later sit with me and ensure I learned to take shit from no man and live my best life, girl was preachin to the choir š¤£.
THE BOATTTTTTTT
This catamaran was crazy! If you want to switch up staying in hotels all the time, this is a interesting way to do it! 5 guest rooms and crew area with a chef and fully stocked kitchen, this boat did not disappoint. We set sails, and so began a week of relaxation...boozy as fuck relaxation.
Each day brought on a new island/Cay and a few days we hit more than one. The itinerary was:
- Placencia lagoon
- Ranguama Cay
- Little Water Cay
- White Bank
- Hatchet Cay
- Funk Cay
- Mono Cay
- North Long Coco
- Cookson Cay
All very exciting stops with beautiful reefs, cute beaches, and warm water to swim around in all day. Being a thrill seeker, I ran into the “same shit, different day” feeling that plagued this ground hog day style trip about 4 days in. A human can only do so much snorkeling, collecting starfish, manta ray spotting, shark seeking, paddle boarding, skurfigging (water skiing on a paddle board) and sun bathing before you go absolutely insane. ....All sun and no land makes Chris a bored bitch...All sun and no land makes Chris a bored bitch...All sun and no land makes Chris a bored bitch...you get the picture...tropical Shinning situation. To be fair, I had already taken two vacations to Hawaii in the week and month prior to this trip, so I was probably just over all the tropical nonsense. Even with the captains enduring interest in trying to knock me off the paddle board with various (failed) methods - sending me into choppy water, making wakes next to me with the dingy boat, and challenging me to circle the islands we stopped at - there was little true excitement to be had. No amount of cleverly named drinks would allow me to escape the monotony- so I was actually v excited to be done when we docked a week later. I suppose I am just not meant for tooo much relaxation.
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| Boats and sunset "how groundbreaking" |
That said, sailing life is pretty cool. Dolphins follow your boat about across the sea, you learn to be a family with the people on board, and you have a personal chef at your disposal to cater to every craving you get. Totally like that show Overboard- unfortunately without the cool drama. I ate so much good food on this trip, it was incredible!! Fish we would catch out of the sea, fresh lobsters we’d barter for from passing fishermen, and random restaurants isolated to islands in the middle of the Caribbean offered some truly special dining experiences.
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| fuckin huffin' n' puffin' |
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| Skurffing like a boss |
For me, this was a one and done kind of vacation. I’m a bit too much of an adventure and thrill seeker to be bound to a boat for a week, but I can see it being a great fit for the majority of its demographic. You can spend less or more depending on the length of trip, class of boat, style of food, amount of crew, etc. A trip like this would be excellent for a whole family get away or bridal party, not people who prefer to jump out of planes to feel things š
An itch to go to Africa and see what Toto was going on about...and true to form, I got in on a 12:30 flight and everything!
Hotel was the Royal
Decameron - an interesting 4 star hotel in the center of Agadirs tourist area with a
great staff and high security. 95% of the guests only spoke French and the
staff couldn’t quite fully grasp English. I’d recommend staying in a 4 star hotel
in strange places like this, as approaching 5 stars tends to be overly
westernized and loses that foreign feel. The hotel itself encompasses the “that’s good enough” mentality you
will see throughout the country. See a patch on the wall? No need to color
match that shit, all whites are the same shade! Cracks in the corners? Psh more
like better venting for your room. “We have a fitness center” roughly
equated to “there are tons of mismatched weights in various KG for you to play
around with and perhaps you can piece together the equipment for 10/15 min of
proper use”. I LOVED it. *inhales* I digress here, but my absolute favorite
part of all this half assed fuckery is how it translated to the road system.
You’re never sure if the car coming into your lane is going to stop or if you
need to stop or if either of you care to stop, cause today’s a good day to die
motherfucker! The road lines are more or less suggestions like in Thailand, and
the robots (seriously, it’s what they call traffic lights) don’t really seem to
make sense to the locals. Every solution to potential congestion or
safety was to place a roundabout. “We have 9 roads of different speeds that
converge here...ROUNDABOUT....pedestrians need to cross safely where these 4
lanes of traffic all go left.....ROUNDABOUT....we have a nice and simple two
lane street but it’s too simple....ROUNDABOUT.....how can we reduce the
fatalities and crashes with all these roundabouts?....DOUBLE LANE ROUNDABOUT”. I can only ponder who the city planner was approving these or his muse. Needless to say, getting
about was an exciting experience and I enjoyed the rush of not knowing if I’d reach my
destination. *breathes out* (end rant).
