In August we took a family trip with our adult children to Belize. There were six of us, so we rented a three-bedroom Villa at the Belizean Cove Estates. This eight-unit villa complex is located in Ambergris Caye, just north of the main town of San Pedro. The island is the largest belonging to Belize and also the most popular to visit. We really loved the accommodations at the Belizean Cove Estates. The complex is on the Caribbean Sea with our villa opening up to the beautiful pool overlooking the Sea. Our villa gave us the space we needed, while also allowing us to be able to hang out together. The staff was extremely helpful and friendly. They even assisted us by having groceries in our villa upon our arrival. The three-bedroom villa also has a full kitchen, stocked with cooking essentials such as pots, pans, utensils, and spices. While the island has water taxis that you can take to get around, we chose to rent a six-seater golf cart because the water taxis go by a schedule, which can be limiting. Most nights we went into town for dinner, exploring different restaurants. We enjoyed sampling different menus and loved the atmosphere in town. One night we decided to buy lobster tails from the local fishermen outside of our villa and grilled them, proving to be a very inexpensive, yet excellent decision. The Caribbean in general has been having a problem with Sargassum Seaweed in the past year or so. Belize has also suffered from the seaweed problem. Sargassum is a vine-like, floating algae that circulates throughout the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic. This forms the nearly 2 million-square-mile Sargasso Sea. The seaweed often washes up on beaches in the Gulf, the southern U.S. Atlantic coast, and the northern Caribbean in managable quantities in spring and summer, however, it has been showing up in larger amounts in the Caribbean in the last year. The Belizian Cove Estates did a good job keeping our beach clean. However, the island was affected by this because the seaweed brings with it a foul sulferic smell, and the beaches were not really swimmable. We found that there was a beach on the other side of the island that was not affected by this. This beach was called the secret beach because it was really hard to find. We took a rough ride in the golf cart to find this beach, as the terrain is bumpy because the roads aren’t paved. The beach, however, was crystal clear. You could go way out and the water remained shallow and clear. We loved this beach! We spent an afternoon there, floating in the mellow waters. On the way we stopped at the Las Terrazas Resort, which is the Virtuoso property on Ambergris Caye. I toured the hotel and really liked it. I highly recommend this property as well as the Belizean Cove depending on your needs. Another excursion that we really enjoyed was snorkeling on the barrier reef. This was amazing! We saw so much, such as: Barracuda, Grouper, Eel, huge sea turtles, Stingrays, and Manatees. The most exciting was swimming with the sharks—the guides even assisted us in holding the nurse sharks! I asked why they don’t bite and was told that these sharks are slower than other sharks and that since the water is crystal clear they know that we are not their food. This was truly an amazing day for us. Belize is a fun destination that offers active adventure, great food, and plenty of sun and relaxation. - Judy
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Judy SchwartzYour travel agent for life! Archives
January 2017
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