Ya betta Belize it!

If you can't dive before you go, you must learn. Belize has some of the most outstanding dive sites in the world, and the barrier reef is spectacular. It is second in length only to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and despite having a lower diversity of fish species it more than compensates with abundance and richness of corals. The cayes are an excellent location to stpo off and recharge you batteries if you are on a long trip, with crystal seas, golden sand and the bluest sky.

Visit Belize Zoo. Even if zoos aren't your thing I promise that you will enjoy the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Centre, and will have the opportunity to see some of the amazing wildlife of the country at first hand. Animals are often just out of sight in the rainforest, and can only be heard through the dense vegetation or require good eyesight!

Belize in one of the countries that was home to the ancient Mayan civilization, and there are a number of archaeological sites throughout the country. If time in the country is restricted and you can only visit one site go to Lamanai (the submerged crocodile) reached on a cruise along the New River Lagoon through the rainforest from the town of Orange Walk in the north.

There are a number of parks and reserves throughout the country, in fact around 40% of the country is protected for the conservation of biodiversity (the rich range of plants and animals). Many of these are run by directly by the local communities, providing an income for people who would otherwise survive by clearing the rainforest for farming. Give your support to conservation, the environment and the communities of Belize by visiting them. Part of the departure tax paid at the border or airport on leaving the country is used to support the conservation work undertaken in Belize.

Quick Tips:

Belize City has a bit of a reputation for crime, especially if you are white and/or a woman. Don't walk around at night - take a taxi. Compared to other countries I have visited there isn't so much hassle though, and once you have gained a tan (not pink sunburn!) they don't consider you as interesting as a new arrival and will leave you alone.

Best Way To Get Around:

Taking the bus can be quite an experience, as you are likely to share your journey with three times the recommended number of passengers, some chickens, the weekly rations for a small village and a few jerry cans of petrol. The journey will be long, as the roads are mainly potholed dirt tracks, especially when you reach the south of the country. Crossing bridges can also be a little hair-raising, as these tend to be single track and in a dubious state of repair. Most driving is on the left (as in the UK), but the buses are usually American, so you get off into oncoming traffic.

To reach the Cayes, take a water-taxi from the waterfront in Belize City. Then sit back and hold on tight for a speedboat journey to your destination. You will probably get wet, but its the most exciting way to arrive in the cays.

Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Centre (to give it the full title) is one of the major attractions in the Belize City region. Located a few kilometres outside the city, it is between an area of swamp/wetland and the edge of the jungle. What sets it apart from other zoos it that you will only find native Belizean animals there, and many of the animals are not kept in cages.

The signs all around the zoo are written in Belizian dialect and give the local name for the animal as well as an insight into their characters.

My favourite animals were the beautiful, sleek black jaguar and the charismatic scarlet macaw (parrot). It seems as though the animals come to have a look at you as much as you looking at them, and pose for your camera. There is a chance however, that you may not see some of the animals that are there, as the enclosures have been designed to look as much like the dense natural forest as possible, and they often sneak away to the sides backing on to the jungle.

Other unusual animals include the tapir (the national animal of Belize), peccaries (wild pigs), a kinkajou (the 'nightwalker' in Belizean), and the 6ft tall jabiru stork.

The tropical education centre at the zoo is very good, spreading the message for the importance of conservation of species and habitats throughout the world.

Lamanai means 'submerged crocodile' in the language of the ancient Maya, and describes the series of temples and buildings that lie alongside the New River Lagoon. It’s about an hour’s river cruise from Orange Walk, through dense patches of jungle. Taking the bus will be a four-hour journey, but you pass through some of the most bizarre scenery in Belize.

The region is called Shipyard and is the home of the Mennonite people, a religious sect like the Amish who farm the area without the use of machines. The men are tall and bearded, and the women wear old-fashioned frocks. The whole scene looks like it’s from the Little House on the Prairie TV series. They speak German.

Lamanai is one of the oldest Mayan sites, and was continually inhabited for thousands of years up to the present day. Descendents of the original Maya people live in the town of Indian Church nearby. The church itself dates from the time of the Spanish arrival in Central America.

There is a small stall at the site that sells snacks and drinks, as well as souvenirs. There was some work going on clearing jungle to build a new jetty and visitor centre, but I don't know if this has been completed yet. There is a small museum of relics by the stall, and the guides will be able to tell you a little about them, but otherwise it can be quite dull.

The temples are spectacular. The 1st is called Jaguar, and it is possible to climb to the top. All that can be seen is dense jungle canopy and the lagoon, despite the fact there are another four temples close by! Walking through the forest you come across the others, rising up through a jumble of trees and vines. At other Mayan sites ground has often been cleared to expose the plazas that would lie between the temples, but this would spoil the Indiana Jones feeling that you get here! The mask temple has a giant face on the front ("the Big Head," as I christened it), with its eyes half closed apparently in a dream. There is a trail through the jungle to other temples, via the old church and a sugar-mill built by the Spanish, eventually leading into Indian Church.

Because the site is surrounded by jungle, Lamanai is excellent for wildlife. There is a troop of black howler monkeys (baboon in Belizean dialect) living in the forest, and they pass over the site in the afternoon. They make an amazing racket (a cross between thunder and a gargling drain) to mark their territory. There are a wide range of birds, including vultures and toucans. You wonder why toucans don't overbalance and fall due to their unusual beaks. You might see some snakes in the jungle, and the poisonous fer-de-lance is found here, so be careful where you walk. The mozzies are huge and vicious so ensure you have long-sleeved shirts and trousers for the evening.

In the shallow waters (approximately 2m) inside the reef, nurse sharks and southern stingrays will approach your boat. Most cruise trips will drop some food in the water for them.

They look huge in the water, dark shadows circling around the boat, and when you get in the water they are massive. Nurse sharks will reach around six feet in length and the rays almost five feet in diameter. They are friendly, curious fish and like to approach you closely and check you out! I was quite scared at the beginning, but they are quite relaxed animals and some will rub against you like a cat. The rays are beautiful and move as though they are flying through the water.

It is possible to swim to the reef, about 100 metres away. In some places the reef reaches the surface of the water, but it is still teeming with fish. Shark Ray Alley is definitely a place to bring a camera to, as the shallow, clear water means that it is ideal for taking pictures of your close encounter.

On one visit to the site, I spotted a four-foot long Caribbean reef shark in the water. These are much more fearsome looking than the dark brown nurse sharks, silvery and pointed. It certainly got my adrenaline racing.

Once you have visited Shark Ray Alley, you can buy the T-shirt from the Toucan on Caye Caulker!

This is a chance to indulge in all your Steve Irwin/Crocodile Dundee fantasies. After dark I set out as part of a small group in a river cruiser with a huge spotlight mounted on the front. Our guides were an American PhD student studying the crocodile population in Belize, and Ramon the driver of the boat.

There are two kinds of crocodile found in the waters of Belize, the saltie (found in saltwaters of the cays and coastal swamps) and Morlet's crocodile (found in the freshwater rivers and lagoons of the mainland). Salties are big bad boys, reaching around 12ft in length, and these can be dangerous to humans. While I was ou in Belize a kid was killed by a saltie crocodile living in one of the many canals that criss-cross Belize City. The Morlet's is a smaller beast, reaching only 8ft in length, and is rarely encountered by people, preferring to spend the day sleeping and the night hunting for fish.

The crocodile’s eyes glow red in the darkness and it becomes transfixed by the light, like a rabbit in the headlights of a car. We saw a couple in the water gliding under the boat with a flick of their powerful tails. The guide caught a small one (about 1 metre long) for his study, and put a bit of duct tape over its jaws and eyes to let us hold it. It seemed to be quite calm about this, as apparently once their eyes are closed their brains tell them they are sleeping and they fall asleep.

A couple of us in the group went back to visit the guide in his lab the next day. He'd gone out again later that night and brought in two larger crocs (about 6ft in lenght). These really were monsters, with hard, smooth armoured scales, vicious looking claws and long peg-like teeth. (Crocs can be distinguished from alligators as their teeth protrude outside the mouth when it is closed, hence: if it smiles, its a crocodile.) The guide removed the tape from their eyes and they began to stir, making low rumbling growls. He took various samples and measurements for his study, marked them fro identification, and released them back into the lagoon later in the evening.

Next morning when I went swimming in the river. The tracks of a big croc were visible on the sand under the pontoon, large clawed footprints and a wavy line from the thick tail. Scary!

About 30 minutes by water-taxi from Belize City lies the sandy island of Caye Caulker, one of the main tourist hotspots of Belize. The island is actually two, divided at 'the split' by a hurricane in the 1960s. The southern-half is the town and the northern half remains largely undeveloped mangrove and swamp. The town is small and easily covered on foot (shoes are optional), although many locals use bikes or golf-buggies to get around. There is an airstrip at the southern point, and it is possible to fly to Belize City or San Pedro on Ambergris Caye.

There are two main streets on the island, running parallel to each other, so it is virtually impossible to get lost.

Caye Caulker is an ideal point to start out on a day trip to the reef, and there are many companies offering dive trips. The reef is actually just over kilometre offshore, and the water is around two metres deep. Don't be tempted to swim out though as there are a huge number of speed boats using the coastal channel and they won't see you until it is too late.

The Happy Lobster and the Sand Box are good middle-value restaurants in the town, open to the sea air and serving value for money food. The Hurricane Bar does very good homemade ice creams, with a lot of tropical flavours. At the split is the Lazy Lizard beach bar, the best bar in Belize, although sometimes it is busy with British Squaddies on R'n'R from their jungle training.

There are a number of souvenir shops on the main street, mainly selling a lot of tat. Try the Toucan for good quality, inexpensive T-shirts. Also remember that it is against the law to buy stuff made from black coral, and although this is available in some shops it will be confiscated at customs and you can be fined.

Belmopan is the capital of Belize, but only a city in the loosest of terms. With a current population of approximately 7,000 inhabitants it is one of the smallest capital cities in the world. The town was purpose-built in the 1960s following the devastation of Belize City by Hurricane Hattie, to provide a safe location in the interior mainly for government and administration offices. The Valley of Peace, a camp for refugees escaping the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador, was made a permanent settlement in the 1980s, boosting the meagre population.

I only spent a couple of nights in Belmopan, having been evacuated from the coast to avoid a hurricane headed straight for the cays. Around 30 of us camped out in a room in the high school, with the knowledge that if the hurricane struck the city we would have the use of a bucket behind a waist-high screen as a toilet whilst the storm passed over. One enterprising lad hired a couple of videos to keep everyone entertained, only to be thwarted by a poor cut. Fortunately for us in the classroom, Hurricane Chantal was downgraded to a tropical storm that struck the south of the country. We only received the tropical wave that followed the storm, which meant lots of warm rain and high humidity for the rest of the night and NO NEED FOR WEEING IN A BUCKET!! Yeah!

The best thing about our time in Belmopan was the Chinese restaurant where we went for dinner. The portions were immense, and very cheap and they were showing 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' on the TV. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the place, but it is just past the bank and the petrol station on the left-hand side. Belmopan is laid out in a gridiron pattern so it is relatively simple to find things such as the supermarket and laundrette, etc. In itself, Belmopan is not a high priority destination for tourists, lacking any real attractions, and more often than not they pass straight through on the beautifully named Hummingbird Highway headed for Dangriga and Placencia in the south, or San Ignatio in the west.