Ahhhh! A new year and I’m daydreaming about new adventures. Last year I made a wish list/ resolution post of sorts: the places I still wanted to visit in Belize. I say it all the time, it’s a small country but there’s SO many adventures to have. I only ticked off one location (Caracol!) from my 2022 list so those places remain for me to explore but I have some new items for 2023.
The CRC’s new conservation center
Our friend, Dr. Marisa Tellez, of the Crocodile Coalition Center has secured a track of land across the lagoon from Placencia Village on which the NGO is building a eco-education experience and wildlife rescue/ rehabilitation area. Yes, there’re crocodiles! I really want to get over and check it out; the plan is for this to become a local attraction with a proper visitor’s center and zoo-like enclosures for wildlife that has become too ill or injured to live in the wild. Marisa has promised us a play-date with her daughter to pan for lost teeth around the crocodile enclosures. How cool does that sound?!
Monkey River tour
I know! I can’t believe we STILL haven’t done the Monkey River tour! It is one of the top tours to take from Placencia it’s sort of unbelievable that we haven’t done it yet. A few months ago we got to visit Monkey River Village with Eworth Garbutt and friends to help build the seawall that saved 2 houses from erosion but we’ve never been up the river and taken the wildlife tour. I definitely need to make it happen this year.
Gales Point
This past year saw the completion of improvements to the Coastal Highway. This road is a shortcut to points north (basically from just past Dangriga to the Belize Zoo) but was rarely used because it was so rough that it took less time to take the paved Hummingbird Highway instead. Now that the Coastal is newly paved, I expect this area to BOOM. Oh how I wish I’d had any money to buy land out this way as an investment. Too bad, so sad. With the new found accessibility, this mostly raw and wild land will be developed and undeniably changed in the near future so I really want to see it NOW before the tsunami of ‘progress’ sweeps through. From what I hear, Gales Point is a real Creole village. I want to chat with the old folks, listen to some stories, eat some traditional food (the crabs out here are rumored to be big and abundant), and photograph the old houses before it all changes. I’d love to explore the lagoon that is full of manatee and check out some of the rarely-visited caves in this area too.
Where do you want to go? What do you want to see and do in beautiful Belize this year? Tell me in the comments!
About Author
