Caye Caulker
Most people know what the longest barrier reef in the world is. No surprise to you that it’s the Great Barrier Reef which is almost 3000 km long. But very few people know what the second longest barrier reef in the world is. Because you know that we are in Belize, you might guess that the reef is in Belize, and you’d be correct. The Belize Barrier Reef is the second longest in the world at approximately 300 km.
There are two main island resorts close to the reef. Think Whitsunday islands. The larger of the two is Ambergris Caye – busier and more touristy. The smaller of the two islands is Caye Caulker (key-col-ka), and that’s the one that we chose. We headed down to the Belize City ferry terminal on foot in the morning and caught the noon ferry to the island. It was a fairly calm crossing, and when we disgorged at the other end, our hostess was waiting for us in a golf buggy. Seems that there are golf buggies everywhere on the island and it’s the main form of transport around.
The village of Caye Caulker is fairly small and only has around 2000 inhabitants, although it swells greatly during the peak of the tourist season. There are a lot of old shanty type accommodation buildings along the foreshore with a few more newer constructions going on. Only a few developments that would rate as modern hotels, some 25, but that keeps the charm of the place intact. We’ve already mused that, if we came back in another 10 years, it will have changed markedly.
After checking in we wandered down the street to see what shops and markets there were, and picked up some lunch on the way at the local Chinese restaurant. (Don’t judge us – it was siesta time and almost everything local was closed.)
After lunch, it was a wander down the sand tracks along the foreshore as far as they went. No sand beaches as we would know them in Australia, so there was nobody swimming, and the water and waves came up to the edge of the accommodations.
The place is buffeted by lots of winds, storms, and hurricanes each year, so lots of things are in disrepair. The island of Caye Caulker is actually two islands, separated by a very small stretch of water in the middle known as ‘The Split’. The Split is a channel formed by Hurricane Hattie, a cat 5 hurricane that killed over 300 people in 1961, and divided the island in two. This seriously annoyed the residents who found themselves on the wrong half. They now have to take a water ferry across The Split if they want to get to the other side.
Our Ferry
Island Jetties
Axios Vacation Apartments