After leaving Valladolid, I made a bee line for Belize. A 6 hour bus ride to Chetumal, MX and a couple hour ferry ride brought me to Caye Caulker, Belize. It was a tiny little island (2 streets, more or less) and rather exorbitant tourist prices. I met a couple of Californians on the ferry ride over, and also was meeting up with a German friend I had met in Valladolid. I got in Christmas Eve, and went to the cat sanctuary where I was renting a bed in a cabana. This lady on the island started saving cats that people tried to get rid of (some had been tied up in a plastic bag and put in the ocean to die), and ended up with a ton of them. I don´t know exactly how many cats she has, but I don´t think 30 is an unreasonable guess. They mostly hung out in their catteries (I didn´t know such a thing existed), but came out to play for a couple hours a day. The cabana was basic but cheap, and the owner was very nice, so it worked out.
Christmas day, Irene and Trenton (the Californians), Johannes (German) and I went on a full day snorkeling trip to the nearby barrier reef (second largest in the world, behing Australia´s Great Barrier Reef). It was really cool, we saw just about everything I would have wanted to see on a diving trip (left my certification at home, doh!) save a whale shark. ...Which I wouldn´t have seen on a diving trip anyway. Nurse sharks, lots of rays, which the guide would pick up and hold so we could pet them, some pretty decent sized fish, sea turtles... Not a bad way to spend Christmas. Although I did miss Amy Grant Christmas music and dinner with the family :-).
We spent the next day just wandering around the island. Caught a local soccer match between Caye Caulker and a neighboring island San Pedro. The locals provided plenty of people watching entertainment. They were pretty much all rastafarian/creole, and I think living on such a tiny island had made more than one of them crazy.
Johannes, Trenton, Irene, Me
Nurse shark in the Caribbean
There were swings everywhere, even at bars.
No loitering at the souvenir shop...
Green Turtle
Sunset on the way back from snorkeling
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