Insight Guides Belize

Insight Guides

• Publisher: Insight
• ISBN:
  9781780055411
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Insight Guides: Inspiring your next adventure

This new edition of Insight Guide Belize is a comprehensive, full-colour travel guide packed with inspiration and information. It includes engrossing features on everything from Buccaneers and Baymen and the Creole language to Birdwatching and Ecotourism.

Inside Insight Guide Belize:

A detailed history section covers the ancient Maya people, the arrival of the Spanish, British colonialism and the battle for independence.

A brand new Best of Belize section lists the country's must-see attractions, from ancient monuments to wildlife reserves and adventure sports to jungle lodges.

The Places section covers the entire country from the Northern Cayes to Punta Gorda and the forests of the south. Specially commissioned photographs vividly capture Belize's beautiful landscape, exotic wildlife and diverse people.

Detailed full-colour maps help you get around, while the travel tips section is packed with useful information on transport, climate, festivals and outdoor activities, and provides answers to such questions as when to go and what to budget for your trip, and includes a selection of the best restaurants.

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-color print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travelers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine

West to San Ignacio

From the underwhelming capital Belmopan, to the heartland of Belize’s eco-tourism around San Ignacio, the west of the country has vast tracts of wilderness, tamed only by luxurious jungle lodges.

Main Attractions

Guanacaste National Park

St Herman’s Blue Hole National Park

San Ignacio

Cahal Pech

Belize Botanic Gardens

Green Hills Butterfly Ranch

Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve

Hidden Valley Falls

Río Frío Cave

Chiquibul Forest Reserve and National Park

Xunantunich

When travelers talk about visiting the interior of Belize, they are usually refer­ing to the lush, mountainous rain­for­ests around the town of San Ignacio, long the heart of the country’s eco­tourism trade. The region is a nature-lover’s fantasy come true. Spread out across a remote subtropical wilderness are dozens of cabaña-style lodges, many of them quite luxurious. Within striking distance – by car, horseback, canoe, or foot – are secluded, jungle-rimmed swimming holes, enormous limestone caverns, Belize’s most significant Maya ruins and Cen­tral America’s highest wa­ter­falls. The background music is the shriek of tropical birds, while iguanas, gibnuts, and skunks habitually stroll across the well-marked nature trails.

The Mopan River.

AWL Images

Hand-winched ferry en route to Xunantunich.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Meanwhile, the rain­for­ests are surprisingly free of Be­lize’s least popular life form, the mosquito – the high­er altitude makes days around San Ignacio hot with­out being over­whelm­ing, while eve­nings can almost be de­scribed as cool.

On the frontier with Guatemala, this is also one of the more Hispanic parts of Belize, populated largely by Spanish-speaking mestizos, and Maya farmers; ­second in numbers come creoles, followed by a classically Belizean smat­ter­ing of East Indians, Chinese, and Leb­a­nese. Several large communities of Mennonites farm the rich land and can be seen clattering along the highways in horse-drawn carriages.

From Belize City, the journey west is itself an interesting one, with Belize Zoo (for more information, click here) just 30 minutes before you reach Belmopan on the George Price (Western) Highway, Guanacaste Park literally on the doorstep of the capital and St Herman’s Cave and the inland version of the Blue Hole just a few miles past Belmopan. All are popular, and worthwhile, detours. For curiosity’s sake, you can, of course, stop in the capital, although even more than four decades after its establishment, Belmopan continues to remain largely the domain of government workers – a far cry from the commercial social bustle of Belize City.

Streetside restaurant, Belmopan.

iStock

Belmopan

Found­ed in 1971, Belmopan 1 [map] is the Brazilia of Belize: an artificial cap­i­tal that has never quite caught on. Government min­is­tries are based here, but most pol­i­ti­cians would rather commute from Be­lize City than take up per­ma­nent res­i­dence.

Belmopan was former Prime Minister George Price’s vision of ‘a modern capital for an emerg­ing na­tion.’ The idea of an inland location had first been fielded after Be­lize City was devastated by Hur­ri­cane Hattie in 1961. Price hoped that a planned city would attract Belizeans from all over the coun­try, and ­eventually replace Be­lize City as a commercial and cul­tur­al center. He also hoped it would centralize the gov­ern­ment by bringing each ministry to­geth­er on the same compound with new, ef­fi­cient facilities.

Things didn’t go quite so smooth­ly as on paper, however. The new government offices, designed to resemble a Maya temple and plaza, were much too small, so today many offices are located away from the center of town. Instead of cut­ting red tape, the move to Belmopan created it. Citizens had to travel all the way to the capital to have documents signed or obtain per­mits. Before long, gov­ern­ment branch offices in Belize City and other towns were given the same power as the head office in the capital.

The biggest problem of all was that Belizeans weren’t willing to move to ­Belmopan – and most still aren’t. Belmopan’s population hovers around 12,000 inhabitants, many of whom are refugees from neighboring coun­tries in Central America. A large number of Belizeans who work here ­commute the hour or so each way from Belize City or San Ignacio rather than live here full time. Even after Hurricane Mitch miraculously bypassed Belize in 1998 and forced thousands to bunk in with Belmopan relatives, there was no mass rush to move out of Belize City into the new capital. After considerable pressure from the government, the University College of Belize (now the University of Belize) finally agreed to expand its existing Belmopan Junior College and vacate most of its Belize City classrooms.

It’s not that Belizeans don’t like Belmopan, it’s just that they find the town too quiet. With only a smattering of hotels and a few res­tau­rants, there isn’t much for the predominantly young, single, gov­ern­ment employees to do for ex­cite­ment. One of the biggest events of the year is the National Agriculture and Trade Show, held in late April at the fairgrounds, which draws thousands for three days of exhibitions and so­cial­iz­ing. Bel­mo­pan’s searing temperatures don’t help lure anyone to settle here either: in the middle of the day, it’s rarely below 100°F (40°C) and noticeably devoid of breezes.

Apolitical center of politics

On the oth­er hand, the few who choose to live in Belmopan enjoy well-maintained roads, clean neighborhoods, and a low crime rate. Unlike Belize City, there is ample room for expansion. Belmopan residents also take in their stride the numerous Central American refugees in settlements like Salvapan, Las Flores, and Ten Cents Creek on the outskirts of town. The immigrants here have fitted in more easily than in other parts of Belize, taking jobs as domestic lab­or­ers, construction workers, street ven­dors, or milpa farmers, and sending their children to school. And, Belmopan’s merchants and restaurant and bar owners welcome the new business.

National Assembly building, Belmopan.

iStock

Road to Spanish Lookout.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Exploring the mini-capital

Belmopan has few historical mon­u­ments, and most of the buildings are administrative offices − in 10 minutes on the Ring Road, you can take in all the sights. But if you have to go to Belmopan on business, or are making a stop en route to somewhere else, there are a few pleasant places to spend a couple of hours.

The best place to start is Market Square, which at any given moment is usually the busiest place in town: buses serving destinations all over Belize stop here and there are several banks, the Caladium restaurant, where the menu includes traditional Belizean and international dishes, smaller food stands, and shops nearby. Central American street vendors sell tasty corn and chicken tamales and other local goodies.

Among the city’s key national buildings are the National Archives, near the ring road and open to the public, which is used mostly for research and contains ...