I have been lucky enough to travel to some incredible places in my life. I’ve walked along dry hilltops in Utah, marveling at fossilized clams left behind by a long ago sea. I’ve seen the sun rise over Uluru and SCUBA dived on the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve flown over a South African national park in a two seater light aircraft with an anti-poaching pilot. Sparkling black sand beaches in New Zealand, crumbling Scottish castles, canal houses in Amsterdam…I’m grateful for all the things I have seen.
Travel is amazing. It’s a chance to learn the stories of people you otherwise wouldn’t have met as well as a chance to make new stories of your own.
It’s also frequently uncomfortable. Strange beds, inclement weather, strangers, getting lost…well, travel offers all of that too.
Belize provided both beauty and discomfort.
In the summer of 2020, I was supposed to go on a trip to Paraguay with my grad program. (I’m sure you can guess how that turned out.) With that still on my mind, when I got the chance to go to Belize for a professional development program through the same group that ran the programs for my grad school, I jumped at it.
Beyond reading an article on the traditional chocolate making in Belize and tracking down every item on the 2 page packing list, I didn’t know much about the country before I went.
So, what to know before you go?
#1 Humidity
As soon as I stepped out of the plane, humidity hit me like a wave. There’s no getting away from it. If you’re outside, you start to sweat, even if all you’re doing is standing in place. The tropics don’t mess around. I’d known that it would be humid, but experiencing it was something else entirely.
In the areas where I stayed–halfway between Belmopan and Dangriga for the first half and right near Gales Point for the second half–the relative average humidity in July hovers somewhere between 82 and 88%. Whatever the thermometer says, it feels much, much warmer.
Workaround for #1: Tech clothing is your friend
Was I sweating? Absolutely. But I was also wearing quick wicking, lightweight clothes with SPF built into them. The clothes made a big difference. For most of the trip, I wore the trusty pair of Royal Robbins hike pants I’ve had since 2014 when I bought them on sale from Sierra Trading Post. Sturdy, but lightweight and comfortable, I wore them nearly every day for work when I taught outdoor education. They’ve held up well. This trip, I even wore them snorkeling when we were told we should wear long pants so as not to sunburn the backs of our legs. (These are not made for the water, but the quick dry part helped. I just wish I’d known to buy swim leggings too.)
Shirts-wise, I splurged on some long sleeved tops from an REI sale and picked up a three Xersion tech tees from JCPenney. The “Capilene Cool” Patagonia top was probably the most comfortable of the three long sleeved since it’s so light it almost feels nonexistent. The TYR one I’m sporting in the picture above is from their SunDefense line made for watersports and feels a lot like a rashguard.
I also picked up some viscose panties which dried faster than cotton and tried out two separate bras from a list of what worked best in high humidity. Of the bras I brought, the Hanes Oh So Light Comfortflex Wirefree was the most comfortable. It can’t stop the sweating, so it still got wet, but it dried the fastest.
#2 Bugs
I knew there would be bugs of course. But, when I arrived a day late due to a missed connection and saw my classmates’ legs covered in bites from Botlass flies, I decided to wear long pants for the entirety of my stay at TREES (Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society).
We all thought the coast would be better, so I wore shorts when we were leaving our snorkeling day trip for Loggerhead Shores, an off season resort near Gales Point.
We were wrong.
None of us knew about the tiny, painful sand flies. Like mosquitos, female sand flies enjoy blood meals to give them the nutrition they need to make a new generation of nasty little bloodsuckers. Unlike mosquitos, sand flies are too small to see easily and they don’t respect bug spray.
Workaround for #2: Picaridin lotion and Permethrin treated clothes
According to the resort manager, the sand flies are pretty bad in July when we were there and the worst in August. They’re the least active in February, so that’s something to keep in mind. (February is also when the Belizean humidity tends to be lowest.)
When I was tracking down the packing list items, I read up on the best insect repellents. Even though I still got nibbled on by sand flies, the reason I asked my friends for pictures of their bites is because I hardly had any to show.
I ended up picking the Sawyer Picaridin insect repellent lotion above and I put it on as soon as I woke up, before we went out in the evening, and right after I showered. It has a light scent–which I actually liked–that faded away pretty much as soon as it dried. It worked well.
Wearing long pants helped too. I also splurged on an ExOfficio BugsAway Wanderlux Cianorte shirt from REI, which has InsectShield, a Permethrin-based repellent built into the fabric. That certainly didn’t hurt. I wasn’t bitten even when spending time in the rainforest at night mist-netting bats.
#3 Plastic trash
I hadn’t really been expecting this one, but plastic trash was ever-present on the coast.
The trash washes up from all over the Caribbean. I saw packaging, straws, flip flops, and bottles of every size and shape. It washes up from cruise ships (who I learned are allowed to dump all their trash in international waters) and resorts and everyday people from every country in the region. The marine biologist who was with us when we visited the little Caye above to have lunch and look at the mangroves shared all of that. All of the trash you see in the picture below had floated past the mangrove roots.
We visited the garden behind the resort where the gardeners talked to us about all the amazing things they grow and about how they’d burn the garden waste and seaweed to amend the soil. When I looked at the pile they’d burned that morning, several charred plastic pieces were in it. And any seaweed they get from the beach includes plastic large and small. Breathing in that smoke isn’t good for anyone.
Plastic pollution is hardly unique to Belize. It was just such a shock to see a place so beautiful be so polluted.
Workaround for #3: Trash clean ups
I couldn’t do much about the plastic when I was there, other than make sure I didn’t add to it.
But plastic is a global problem and we can all help. There’s probably a clean up near you, whether it is at a beach or stream or neighborhood park. I’ve done several over the years and have started to fill a little bag with trash whenever I go to the beach. This trip inspired me to want to make volunteering at beach clean ups a much more regular part of my life. I’ve already signed up for my next one.
With all of that, is Belize worth visiting?
Definitely. It’s gorgeous.
The water is clear and warm, home to the healthiest and second largest barrier reef in the world.
The people are friendly. It’s also relatively inexpensive for Americans with their currency fixed to ours at two to one and no visa requirements. (Even the required health insurance was just $18 USD.)
Belize has great chocolate, delicious fruit, and good food altogether. I loved the papaya. We also tried cooked breadfruit, fried jack, johnnycakes, and many, many variations of beans and rice. One interesting fruit we tried was wild sweetsop (pictured below), which tasted wonderful and had a unique texture.
There’s amazing wildlife and varied ecosystems.
I’m incredibly grateful I had the chance to visit.
Beyond the Bookshelves 