Best Belize Blog

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. continue reading…

Belize is not yet famous for its world-class spas but I predict in the coming years more and more visitors will take advantage of the growing spa presence here:  As the boys go out to sea to bang the flats for permit and bonefish, the girls will be getting pampered at the spa. Then again, winding down in the spa after a day of chasing bonefish doesn’t sound bad either. Here are a few spa retreats my friends and I have really have enjoyed when needing a deep tissue massage or a mud bath. There are a few select masseuses who will come to your resort room for a balcony massage too…but that’s another entry all together. continue reading…

You know as much as I love the Caribbean Sea and the wonders of the reef and living on the beach, each time I go into the mountains of Belize my paradigm begins to shift. Maybe it has permanently. Don’t get me wrong, I love to head out to bang the shallows for bonefish and permit or dive a new cut in the reef or hang out on a little Gilligan’s Island type retreat (there are hundreds) but for me the Mayan Mountains are just as amazing and strikingly beautiful as it gets. Steep green tropical peaks meeting the powder blue sky give such an amazing contrast of colors it’s breathtaking. Staring off at the sea just doesn’t have that same striking visual impact that the mountains of Belize do.

The mountains along the Hummingbird Highway from Belmopan almost to Dangriga looks just like parts of Hawaii. Lush, tall, Jurassic-Park-style mountains. You don’t have to travel far (unless you’re on Ambergris Caye) to drive to a totally a different Belize, a more beautiful Belize. One with 3,000-foot mountains carpeted in huge palm trees with wildlife and birds everywhere. First-time visitors to Belize who ride with me to Placencia from the International airport—friends or clients alike—are all amazed at the beauty in the mountains of Belize. continue reading…

Saltwater fly fishers, we have some great news; you no longer have to wait ’til you’re dead to go to heaven.

If you’ve fly-fished much you’ve probably read that Belize is your best shot at a “flats slam,” a hat trick of catching a tarpon, bonefish, and permit in one day on the fly, and that Belize has some of the bar-none best inshore saltwater flyfishing in the world.

Many places have good action for tarpon, or bonefish, or snook or permit. Belize is unique in that it has superlative quantities of all four. continue reading…