Belize is a former British colony that only recently gained full independence in 1981. It is now a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The main language in Belize is English, as opposed to Spanish, which is the major language in all of its surrounding neighbors. The British ties and English language make Belize a very safe place to travel compared to what you might find right over the border. It is a very small country and you can easily see most of the major areas in under 2 weeks.

Click here to visit the Belize scuba diving page.

No pictures may be used for commercial purposes, reprinted, or made available on the Internet without my express written permission.

A short flight away from Belize City is the city of Dangriga, which is the largest town in Southern Belize and is the gateway to the Garifuna people and culture. A half-hour taxi ride from Dangriga is the town of Hopkins, which is the traditional home of the Garifuna people. We only had one night to stay before moving on and literally walked into the Jaguar Reef Lodge off the beach, having been turned away from a 100% booked spot further north.

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On the Caves Branch property is a gigantic, 300ft deep natural sinkhole that is over 1000ft in diameter. On this particular tour, we hiked for two hours into the jungle to arrive at the sinkhole. After strapping into rock climbing harnesses, we repelled down the 300ft vertical drop and ate lunch at the bottom of the hole. After finishing, we then climbed out and hiked back to our pick-up point.

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On the Caves Branch property are many underground caves, one of which we explored with two trained guides.

The Waterfall Cave Expedition is not for the faint of heart and it required a fair amount of physical activity. The cave system we entered stretched for more than 5km, but we only ventured 2.5km deep. We hiked deep into the cave, climbed up 7 underground waterfalls and then reversed course, jumping back down the waterfalls we had just climbed up.

It is hard to get a sense of scale in many of these pictures, but some of the cavernous rooms could stretch beyond what you could see with the light on top of your head. The air is 100% still, it is almost 100% humidity, and the water is very cold.

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