For our 4th day we decided to plan our own little excursion to get off the island onto another, Caye Caulker. Caye Caulker is another Belizean island and is known to "go slow. We started off our day with breakfast at Pineapples in Ramon's Village. They had a nice, affordable breakfast menu and I was basic and got pancakes.
Then we headed to the town square to get the water taxi to Caye Caulker. It is about a 40-minute ride from San Pedro and costs $15. As soon as you get off the boat you can tell the difference between the two islands. Caye Caulker is quieter and smaller with less major development. there are no cars there, even the taxis are golf carts.
First, we walked from the water taxi station to the split. This is probably the most well-known part of the little island. It's called the split because according to some accounts the island was literally split apart by a hurricane and there is now a channel separating the two parts of the island. Around the split, there are food places, drinks and snacks. We walked there, got some ice cream's decided to come back later for food. We had a pretty strict to-do list during our few hours on the island.
Item number one: Feeding the tarpons.
Location: Calle La Posa, Belize
Though Caye Caulker is small it is not the easiest to navigate. But that may just be because I'm horrible with directions but I would recommend downloading a map and having the points you want to visit beforehand. After I turned everyone around like 5 times we found the dock where you can feed the tarpons. The dock looks like it's in someones' backyard but once you get on it you'll see a woman selling sardines. It was about $5 Belizean dollars for a bowl and she also showed us how to feed the fish. You had to hold the fish between your fingers to dangle it so they don't rip your fingers off. Just kidding, I don't think they're that aggressive, these are considered juvenile Tarpons but they are huge. After she showed us how to feed them the suspense began. We would hold the fish out, dangling from the dock and wait for the tarpons to rocket out and jump up to get it. It was scary and surprising each of the 30 times we did it.
Item #2: Seeing real live seahorses at the seahorse sanctuary.
Location: Iguana Reef Inn, Chapoose Street, Caye Caulker, Belize
Again, we got lost a bunch of times and all my friends hated me. But, they loved me again once we got there, and not because we saw horses, because unfortunately, we did not find any. But, the seahorse sanctuary is located near a very cute beach bar that has swings, hammocks and floating pads to layout on all while enjoying a nice frozen drink where we laid out and enjoyed for a large part of the afternoon. We spent so long there we almost didn't knock off #3 of our most do in Caye Caulker list.
Item #3: Drink lizard spit.
Location: Sip and Dip Beach Bar (and others on the split)
A disgusting name? yes. A very delicious frozen green drink? Also yes. Before getting back onto the water taxi we stopped at Sip and Dip beach bar to split our 100th bowl of ceviche. And ordered some lizard spit. I have no idea what was in the lizard spit but it was the best Lizard spit I've had. With Caye caulker's signature drink in our system, we head back to the water taxi station and went back to Ambergis Caye.
While planning this trip one of the main questions was whether we should stay in Caye Caulker or San Pedro. After visiting both I was extremely happy with our choice to stay in San Pedro. Though both relatively small San Pedro has more of a town feel and has an abundance of food, nightlife and other things to do. If you are looking for a more secluded, quiet vacation spot though I would recommend Caye Caulker.
Once we got back to the rental we got ready for our reservation at Elvie's restaurant, a San Pedro staple. This was one of the stops on our food tour and we enjoyed the ambiance and the little taste that we had. We knew we needed to come back for more. This was one of the more expensive places that we went to eat and the food was really good. I got a salmon wrapped in banana leaves. After dinner, we spent our final night in San Pedro packing and crying because having to leave paradise was just unfair.
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