BELIZE CITY — Belize’s founding father and first prime minister, George Price, died early Monday, just short of three decades since he led the small Central American nation to independence. He was 92.

Price died at the Belize Healthcare Partners Hospital in Belize City, said a grand nephew, Henry Charles Usher. He was hospitalized Wednesday after a fall at his Belize City home and put in a medically induced coma following surgery to remove a blood clot.

Belize just celebrated it’s 30th anniversary of Independence on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, the death of the Right Honorable George Cadle Price, 92, two days after this milestone achievement – Belize’s Independence. -

Price was Belize’s first leader when it became independent from Britain on Sept. 21, 1981. As head of the centrist People’s United Party, he served two terms as prime minister, in 1981-84 and 1989-1993, and is considered the father of the Caribbean country of about 300,000 people that borders Mexico and Guatemala.

Belize is on the Central American mainland but maintains closer cultural ties with other English-speaking former British colonies in the Caribbean than with its Spanish-speaking neighbors.

In a message broadcast to the nation, the current prime minister called Price “a giant of a man, the greatest architect of Belizean nationalism and Belizean sovereignty.”

PUP Leader Johnny Briceño told the media, during a press briefing held at the PUP headquarters on Queen Street, that he would surely miss the man he said was his mentor.

“We are very grateful for what Mr. Price has done for us as a nation, for all the Belizean people, the fight from the colonial masters to self-government to Independence, where he forged a new country in the Caribbean and Central America, a country that is known as Belize, and where we Belizeans have an identity as Belizeans.

BELIZE CITY, Belize — The Philip Goldson International Airport (PGIA), Belize’s primary port of entry, will now be dishing out regular doses of unique musical renditions to vacationers, as sister agencies within Belize’s Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation and Culture — the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) and the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH), on July 20, 2011, launched the long-awaited Belizean Beats program.

Being a country that proudly boasts over ten diverse ethnic groups, the Belizean Beats program is specifically designed to introduce travelers to Belizean culture from the very onset of their time in the country. It promises to set the tempo for their entire trip as they are immediately and melodiously baptized into the very essence of the Belizean experience.

“As soon as the tourist arrives in Belize we give them a sense of what we have to offer as a vibrant tourism destination filled with culture and history.” said Seleni Matus, BTB’s director of tourism.

“Today we cut the proverbial ribbon on an exciting new initiative that does so much more than just entertain; it serves as an immediate gateway to the heart of Belizean culture.” Dalhouse explained.

Defining music as the universal language, the BTB says it’s confident that this program will transliterate the nation’s heartfelt welcome into an idiom that everyone could comprehend and appreciate despite the linguistic barriers.

Performing at the PGIA on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the first group to be featured in the Belizean Beats program is the up-and-coming local band affectionately known as the Laru Beya Boys. Chosen after grueling auditions against dozens of other top musical groups, this first group has clearly earned the trendsetter position for one of the most dynamic airport programs to have ever come into existence in Belize.

So the next time you take a trip to Mother Nature’s Best Kept Secret and passing through the international airport, don’t worry about your feet tapping — it’s just part of the Belizean experience.

Cayo Espanto – Ambergris Caye

This place is over-the-top luxury for Belize. And easily makes this list, even if it covered the whole Caribbean. If you want the ultimate place to relax, with some of the best service in the Caribbean, and the ideal trailhead for ultimate sea adventure, Cayo Espanto is for you. Did I mention it’s a small private island to boot? Adventure is moments away at Cayo Espanto when you don your scuba or snorkel gear to explore the world’s second-largest barrier-reef system. The reef is right out your back door. Three miles from San Pedro, off the coast of Belize, Cayo Espanto is truly a spectacular and private retreat with spa services too. World class snorkeling, scuba diving, amazing food, attentive staff, and massages all await you at Cayo Espanto. As a note: the whole staff meets you when you pull up to the dock…“(the plane, the plane.)”

Chabil Mar Villas – Placencia

On the Placencia Peninsula, next to the famed Turtle Inn, is the Chablis Mar Villas Resort, our pick for the place to stay in Placencia. This place is just very tastefully done, including beautiful landscaping from the front gate to the beach. Chabil offers different types of luxury villas ranging from on-the-beach oceanfront and great ocean view villas with both one and two bedrooms. They have a very cool and romantic honeymoon suite too. Almost all the villas have great sea views or views of Placencia’s whole bay. You can get spa services right on your private  balcony with a great view. This little slice of paradise also sits on the best beach on Belize’s mainland. And the staff, from the front desk gals to the in-suite waiters, are welcoming and very friendly. In-your-suite room service offers you some of the best food in Placencia without leaving your suite. Great place to stay whether you a couple or an entire family.

Turtle Inn – Placencia

Regardless of whether you think Turtle Inn is the best on this list, it’s a fact that Turtle and Francis Ford Coppola single-handedly helped make Belize tourism what it is today and put Placencia on the map. It also didn’t hurt that the resort shared both his big name and his big-name guest list. From the moment you walk into the lobby you are transformed to a different place. Belize, Bali, Thailand? Not sure but it has a great feel and totally changes your paradigm. The natural Belizean hardwoods, the front desk carving brought by Coppola from Bali, and the raised floor above a mock jungle setting is perfect. The rooms (with no air) are far eastern in their look and feel, and most sit right on the beach allowing for fresh Caribbean breezes and the gentle rolling waves off the sea. Coppola’s personal suite is available too but will set you back over a grand a night. It’s very private, with over-the-top panache and a private beachfront pool. The other rooms and suites are unique and well-appointed and all come with great Belizean service.  Two really good restaurants make this a great stay for those willing to shell out a few extra bucks…and then there is his other gem…

Blancaneaux – San Ignacio

I feel (and many others agree) this place is more amazing and I think a better experience than even Turtle Inn. Set in the Mayan Mountains at the foot of a beautiful river are a dozen amazing cabanas spread out on a lush tropical landscape that instantly puts you at-ease with nature. Although there a few different styles and sizes of these luxury thatched cabanas, each is made with rich Belizean hardwoods that just give them a rich and luxurious feeling. You have a sense of lush jungle everywhere but you’re in the middle of a pine ridge forest. Like Turtle Inn, the food is excellent and the service is very good and very personal. There are couples’ decks spread around the rocks along the river for napping or reading a great book.  It’s s-o-o-o-o quiet and so peaceful here that it makes for a truly amazing experience. Frankly you can take a dip in the river as well if napping isn’t your thing. The available adventure tours in the mountains are much different than those you’ll find out on the coast. So, step-up and get one of the larger cabanas, sit out on your deck and enjoy.

Belizean Dreams – Hopkins

If you’re in the Hopkins area there are two cool places to stay. Belizean Dreams is one of them. Here, the accommodations are well-appointed two- and three- bedroom villas, with a great second-story master suite for views of the Caribbean. Service here is personal and the small palapa restaurant by the pool and right on the beach offers really good food and drinks. They have a sister resort about a mile away offering more of the same, really nice villas on the beach including some real estate for sale within the resort. This feels more like a second home than a hotel or resort.

Jaguar Reef – Hopkins

Also in Hopkins is Jaguar Reef Lodge located next door to Belizean Dreams. Both are situated on a nice beach within easy reach of a quiet and unspoiled part of the beautiful offshore reef.  Watch the sun come up over the ocean from your room or suite and enjoy the sunset over the Mayan mountains from your back veranda. The accommodations are roomy thatched units, pleasantly rough around the edges, all surrounding a beautiful lodge with good food and friendly service. This place has one of the best menus for adventure tours in the country.

Kanantik – Stann Creek

If you want a quiet place on a very nice private beach, Kanantik is for you (last time I was there they didn’t allow kids). Feels like your own private resort. There are only 20 or so very cool, private, tasteful beach cabanas with indoor/outdoor baths. The landscape and grounds are manicured to perfection and the service and staff are perfect, too. For the most part it’s all-inclusive but don’t let that fool you.  This is a very custom experience and the food and drinks are great. Roberto, the owner, a divemaster, has one of the finest diving operations in the country with a beautiful dock system and two really nice boats. If you are looking for a beach hut but don’t want to rough it too much I highly recommend this place. Oh, and it has enough real estate for its own private airstrip.

Turneffe Island Resort

To start with this is an intimate resort on an island located off the coast of Belize situated in one of the three large atolls. It’s a pretty spectacular setting for sure. Unlike a lot of places you’d stay, this resort’s cabanas (the most desirable accommodations), ring the island so each gets a view of the white sand beach and the azure water.  The Deluxe and the Superior suites in the main house are very well-appointed and offer all the exotic feel you need to disconnect and unwind. As a diving and fishing launch point it may be the best in Belize. If isolation and white, white sand is your thing, this is paradise.

Chaa Creek – San Ignacio – Maya Mountains

A pioneer in eco-lodging, this secluded 365-acre nature reserve is perched above the banks of the Macal River in the foothills of the Maya Mountains, and offers an unspoiled ambience like few resorts in Belize. Chaa Creek caters to the traveler looking for both physical and intellectual challenges and its programs and activities revolve around the environment, culture and archaeology of Belize. The cottages and suites are mostly thatched roofed with an inviting rich jungle theme with lots of pretty hardwoods. Try the new Treetop Suites, very cool. And, don’t miss the spa here, it may be the best in the country. They also just invested in a great new pool to take the edge off at the end long day of adventure.

Victoria House, San Pedro – Ambergris Caye

Talk about casual luxury. No shoes required, great staff, great Caribbean food. The kitchen will cook your catch, the bartender will make ceviche while you shower and change for dinner (again no shoes)!  Rooms range from plantation rooms and casitas to a three-bedroom plantation house with a breathtaking oceanfront veranda. All well done and appointed. The secluded Rainforest Suite, just 50 feet away from the Caribbean, is a favorite of honeymooners featuring a wraparound front veranda, floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors.

I was hot, and impatient, and growing more so by the minute. It was June 2005 and my first time in Belize, and I was waiting at the airport for a friend who was in Belize to fly fish and look at real estate.

I’m not the most patient fellow and neither is my friend, less so if anything. A tall, hard-charging sophisticated big city guy, he’s a born salesman who loves life in the fast lane. In the four years I’d known him at that time I don’t think I’d ever seen him without silk slacks and high-dollar dress shoes.

We’d crossed signals and were late to reconnoiter, and I could imagine what kind of mood he was in; the two of us would be a real pair until we could get somewhere out of the heat and relax.

So imagine my shock when a rental car pulls up in front of me, and out steps a guy who is a dead ringer for my tall friend, except it can’t be him. The guy is wearing sunglasses, a mostly unbuttoned Tommy Bahama shirt, board shorts and flip flops.

I know Mike couldn’t possibly even own flip flops, but to my shock, he waves me over with a big, casual grin, a cheery greeting to match the smile and fresh suntan.

He’d only been there two days before me but it was enough to make my hard-charging friend looked as relaxed as if he’d stepped out of one of those Jimmy Buffet novels.

His chill vibe was contagious and I very quickly forgot about how hot and impatient I’d been.

I have come to call this transformation “The Belize Effect.” It generally goes something like this:

DAY ONE: (early in the day)…”Where’s my hotel? Damn it’s hot. Is that a mosquito? Good grief these people talk slow….

(later in the day)…”Wow. I didn’t know they have mountains here. Look at that blue water. I didn’t know that color blue existed.”

DAY TWO: (early)… “Fish, scuba dive, hike…look at real estate…we’ll never get to do it all. What are we gonna do? I gotta budget my time…”

(later)…”Man, the air here is soft. How is air soft? But it is. Must be the ocean breeze. This place is like nowhere in the Caribbean. Look at that friggin’ palm tree. Wonder if I could climb it? I wonder how tall they grow? Maybe I’ll climb it after just one more pina colada….”

DAY THREE: (early)…”Look at that sunrise, man. Why do fish have to bite so early in the day? Where the heck is that other flip flop?”….

(later)…”I came here to slay bonefish but I’m starting to think a hammock beats a boat hands down.”

DAY FOUR: (early)…”Is it bad to drink before noon on a weekday? No way, relaxing is never bad for you…”

(later)…”During the weekday? Huh. What day is it anyway? I keep asking people but no one seems to be sure…”

DAY FIVE: “I’m getting a place here.”

…to be continued

Chaa Creek – Situated on this very cool 365-acre eco-resort above the Macal River, the Spa at Chaa Creek offers one of the best spa menus in Belize. The therapists are wonderful and friendly and have the fingers of an angel. The massages and facials were some of the best ones I have ever had. Don’t miss the butterfly farm.

Jaguar Reef, Butterflies Spa – Next door to the famed Jaguar Reef, the new Butterflies Spa offers a welcoming environment and dozens of different treatments to choose from. Wonderful facial and enjoyed the hydrotherapy too.

Cayo Espanto – Truly one of the most beautiful places to stay in Belize, Cayo Espanto’s whole vibe and ambience plays host to a small but well-orchestrated spa experience.  The best treatments are done in your own villa: private, unobtrusive and relaxing. Some treatments come with the room package (so does the cuisine). The spa treatments were amazing and the accommodations were out of this world.

Maruba Resort Jungle Spa – A different kind of place, an oasis of charm and grace with a hint of wildness. This is not your traditional spa. The resort was conceived and created to blend various Mayan, Creole, and African designs side-by-side within a jungle setting, creating a relaxed and exotic feel. The spa offers all-natural treatments derived from ancient techniques that incorporate natural products produced from Maruba Therapy and the surrounding jungle environment. They specialize in mud treatments using all-natural Mood Muds. Fun to get dirty here.

Ka’ana – Located poolside, the treatment rooms at this boutique resort in the Cayo district help make Ka’ana a great place for a day at the spa. Therapists use a variety of local calming and revitalizing ingredients in all massages, skin and body treatments are all performed by a terrific and friendly staff. The spa area is inspired with sensual Landero original Maya artwork and soothing aromas, that relax you as soon as you enter and hear the calming music.

With the way we anticipate Belize growing and new eco-resorts coming online with announcements every month, I’m sure the next time we feature the top spas in Belize we’ll have plenty of new spa experiences and options to talk about, each with their own unique way of capturing that special ambience of Belize.

But don’t look past Moon Belize (Moon Handbooks) written by former Belize resident Joshua Berman. He’s delivers a guide to some of the best experiences in Belize, from hiking waterfall, jungle horse-rides and diving the reefs. The guide covers the ground well and will give you all the tools and insight you need to experience the best of Belize.

The Rough Guide to Belize 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) is a comprehensive guide to the country and covers all the top attractions. The book also takes a detailed look at the region’s history, cuisine, environment and diverse culture and comes complete with maps and plans for the entire country.

Interested in diving while in Belize? Lonely Planet’s Diving & Snorkeling Belize explores 82 of the best dive sites off Belize, with full-color photos and easy-to-read maps throughout. Belize is home to the world’s second-largest barrier reef and three of the Western Hemisphere’s four coral atolls. Shallow reefs ring the more than 450 cayes and islets, while towering walls plunge into the sea. More than 400 fish species and a host of corals and invertebrates shelter in the warm Caribbean waters.

For more info or questions please email us at blog@threepalmsbelize.com