Belize General Info

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on August 10, 2011

In the departure area of the Belize international airport (BZE) there is an impressive display of photos of many Belize islands taken from a plane. These images are of very high quality. Years ago we contacted the photographer, Jimmie C. Smith, to purchase the use of several of his photos for our Belize brochure. Several times in the past years he has gone down to Belize with professional camera g

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on August 9, 2011

When I flew to Belize a few weeks ago, I entered the immigration area just like always. But something was different… I was surprised to hear some really great Belizean music coming from the baggage claim area. While waiting in line to get my passport stamped, I couldn’t see exactly where the music was coming from because there were so many people waiting for their luggage. This sounded like li

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on August 8, 2011

Belize doesn’t produce many handmade souvenirs. They don’t have a tradition of handicrafts, except for drums from Dangriga and Hopkins. In fact, most tourist gift shops in Belize will be filled with products from Guatemala. So what do you take home to your friends and family? I have the answer! Belize does have an interesting selection of excellent food and drinks. There are many options in th

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on August 5, 2011

So, I spent 6 days in Belize on a swift tour of lodging options in the country. I’ve worked in Belize for 26 years, but I had never done anything even close to that before. Usually I fly down, meet a group of our guests at the Biltmore, take them out to our island, stay 5 or so weeks to hang with almost 150 of our guests, and then fly directly home. I wasn’t super familiar with other places in

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David Pogue, technology columnist for the NY Times, just posted a very interesting set of tips for travelers on his blog Pogue’s Posts: Five (And Then Some) Tech Tips for Travel. It’s mostly about apps for your phone that help you track and keep track of your flights; he includes a great story about knowing his flight was delayed way before the gate attendants knew it. He also reveals one

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on August 3, 2011

I was very excited to visit Punta Gorda, Belize (known locally as “PG”) on the Tourism Board travel agent tour last week. PG is all the way south in Belize in the Toledo district, almost to Guatemala. It is still like it used to be, a remote jungle area by the sea, where many of the locals have little contact with the rest of Belize. In fact, in no other part of Belize can you visit both jungl

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on August 2, 2011

I got back a few days ago from my whirlwind tour of Belize lodges. I found out near the end that I had toured 33 inns in less than a week. After a while, fancy hotels all start to look the same, and if it wasn’t for my pictures I wouldn’t be able to keep them straight in my mind. We saw a LOT of hotel rooms in 5 days. But one stands out for its charm and grace: Victoria House on Ambergris Caye

Posted by Slickrock Adventures on July 29, 2011

When we were at Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Jungle Lodge he gave each of us a soap sampler which consisted of a soap dish made out of jungle hardwoods from downed trees from Hurricane Richard and 3 bars of assorted soap. I just realized the soap dish has more info on the Chess Foundation I mentioned in my last post, so I wanted to include that here. The soap company is called the Mystic Mayan Na

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When we first began to kayak in Belize we naturally looked around for interesting rivers in addition to sea kayaking from island to island. My partner Cully had gotten his start in the adventure travel business by teaching whitewater kayaking on the Colorado River right near Moab where we still live. Right away we started hearing about this amazing jungle river you had to run by flashlight. The Ca