Veggie Vacations

From Chaa Creek, we were able to take a canoe into town (San Ignacio) – it was 7 miles downstream, which doesn’t sound too difficult, but I guess my arms are weak! We were TIRED!! We got to see some beautiful birds, and also Belize’s one and only suspension bridge:

We walked around San Ignacio – some tourist-aimed shops with postcards and magnets, and some tour operators, but otherwise people just going about their business.  Plenty of produce sold right on the street too!  This was a nice little park right in the middle of town:

We had an amazing lunch in San Ignacio at a Sri Lankan restaurant called Serendib, where I had a good vegetable curry for a ridiculously low price.  Potatoes and rice, yeah a bit too much starch, but I got my veggies and our bill for 3 people was about $14 US.  Yeah.

We then embarked on a long car trip to Placencia, a small town on a peninsula on the Caribbean coast of Belize…

As we traveled onto the peninsula, we were horrified by the destruction of the jungle that was going on… making way for the construction of oversized vacation homes and resorts.  After visiting Placencia, we would choose in the future to stay at one of the hotels right in town to support the locals rather than support one of the ‘big’ resorts that are mowing down nature…Also, the little restaurants in town did a much better job at feeding me vegan than the hotel did.

Our big hotel, Chabil Mar Villas, did at least give us a couple of bars of organic Belizean chocolate (we switched out milk for dark, which was vegan!), and a lovely villa with a full kitchen and a juicer.  We could have fit 15 of our closest friends in it with us!

I can’t say enough good things about Placencia!  We walked into town that day – what a cool place! Bustling with activity.  We bought some bananas and papayas, and some Belizean wine to have with dinner (Note – the Blackberry wine is REALLY sweet! Yikes!).  Produce was plentiful, but you won’t find any health food store type goods in Placencia (i.e. no soymilk!).

There are two streets in Placencia:  1- the street, 2-the boardwalk.  And you can drive a golf cart through town.  We walked through, making mental notes of places we wanted to visit on our next trip into town.  After a good night’s sleep…

…and then we were ready for a day at the beach!

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We were once again woken up by a knock at the door earlier in the morning than I care to remember.  I was pleasantly surprised by the prompt addition of soymilk to my breakfast of granola and fruit this morning.

It was a long and bumpy ride to Tikal, Guatemala, but our tour guide Miguel helped pass the time by telling us about the history of the area.  There were only four of us on the tour that day, so we all got ask plenty of questions.  Passing through customs, we added a stamp to our passports and continued on…

First stop:  Ziplines!

The view from this height was absolutely breathtaking!  This was by far the most nature-inspiring-awe day of our trip.

The zipline tour company provided lunch at their onsite restaurant, but in hindsight, I should have asked the chef to pack me a lunch.  The corn tortillas and vegetables seemed innocent enough, but the “vegetarian” soup definitely wasn’t vegetarian (looked like chicken broth), which made me nervous about the rest of the food.

Once we entered the national park at Tikal…

…we were greeted by some local wildlife

There are literally thousands of temples buried underneath the ground at Tikal, but only about 40 have been uncovered so far.  Once they are uncovered, the maintenance is extremely labor-intensive.  We were able to climb to the top of some of the buildings:

This picture is of the Grand Plaza, thought to be the center of the Mayan society that lived in this area

Two beautiful birds graced us with their presence that day as well – a wild turkey

…and a toucan!

My day felt complete when I saw the toucan!  But we were still in for a fabulous dinner when we got back to Belize.

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After returning from Barton Creek Cave, we were ready for some lunch.  I had the Conquistador Salad, which was nicely topped off with some dried pineapple.

Having refueled, we set off on the hiking trails on the grounds of Chaa Creek.  At the start, we met a new friend – an iguana passing by on the grass near the pool!

We saw some butterflies and beautiful plant life on our hike – perfect afternoon!

At dinner that night, the chef came out to speak to me.  He wanted to make sure that I was happy with the food so far, asked me for any suggestions or requests, said that I could call him anytime if I had questions and that he would gladly pack me a lunch for any of my excursions.  Wow! I was quite pleased.  (My requests were steamed veggies with dinner and soymilk with breakfast.)  He made some off-the-menu items for me that night:  Zucchini chips as an appetizer, and then curried garbanzo beans and steamed veggies with the on-the-menu Belizean rice.  And the papaya sorbet for dessert was fantastic!  I think I had some every night!

After a quick trip to the e-mail hut to reconnect with society, we headed to bed in preparation for our next day’s trip to Guatemala for ziplining and Mayan temples.

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We woke up to our first full day in Belize to a 6:30am knock at the door – there are no clocks or phones in the cottages!  It was somewhat misty and chilly in the mornings, but then warmed up by mid-morning.  I enjoyed a breakfast of fresh fruit and granola, and then we were off on our half-day excursion to Barton Creek Cave.

day 2 breakfast

The drive was beatifully scenic – just outside of Chaa Creek, our guide Ian pointed out a type of bird (whose name I don’t remember) that lives symbiotically with cows and horses by eating the bugs that land on them.  Very sweet to see these pairs of friends hanging out together!  Much of the drive went through groves of orange and grapefruit groves.  We learned about the important role of citrus in Belize’s economy – Belize’s top produce export is citrus concentrates, mainly white grapefruit, which are produced by freezing rather than heating giving a “fresher” taste.  We also learned that orange trees can blossom and bear fruit simultaneously, and therefore must be harvested by hand.  The scent of orange blossoms was unbelieveable!  After passing through what seemed like several miles of citrus, we reached a Mennonite community, where we saw tamarind, jackfruit, and pineapple growing.

Once arriving at Barton Creek, we got in the canoe and began our trip through the cave…

Mayan artifacts, including pottery and human remains, have been found by archaeologists in Barton Creek Cave.
Caves were important structures to the Mayans – they believed that a cave entrance was a door between the world of humans and the world of the gods.  There are several caves in Belize under which rivers flow that can be explored by canoe, kayak, tube, etc.  We saw beautiful stalactite and stalagmite structures, and a couple of Mayan artifacts.  Unfortunately, inside the cave it was too dark to get any good pictures.

Before we left, Ian asked if we were cooks – I of course said yes, and he picked a leaf of a plant off the ground and asked me what it was – I said cilantro.  It was actually a wild plant called colantro, from which the domesticated cilantro plants we know of originated.  Growing right there in the grass!!

That was the end of our excursion, but we continued to have some adventure back at Chaa Creek…

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I walked on the Asbury Park boardwalk last week for the first time… ever, actually.  Cool place! I highly recommend taking a walk there – lots of bars and restaurants with beautiful views of the oceans.

My friend and I walked up and down and eventually decided on Langosta Lounge, which was self-classified as “vacation inspired cuisine”.  We waited at the bar so we could get an outside table, where they served some unique and interesting drinks – how often do you get fresh ginger in cocktails?

Nice thing about the menu was this: several dishes had an “as vegetarian” option, and the veg option was cheaper than the original.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ordered something “without the chicken” etc. and have felt slighted when they charged the menu price anyway.

I decided on the vegetarian version of Lobster Bangkok which had an impressive mound of vegetables in a coconut curry sauce over black rice (major points for black rice – I love it!) topped with fresh mango.

There was also a vegetarian Moroccan dish with lentils and couscous that sounded delicious, as well as a salad with macadamia nuts and grilled pineapple.

And when I asked if the Bangkok was vegan, the waitress told me that one of their chefs is vegan, so they know how to take care of us! More points.

Highly recommended.

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I just took a trip through two beautiful areas of Belize, and I’d like to share my experiences…

The background info:
There are no direct flights from NYC area to Belize, so we flew out of Newark and connected in Miami.  Once landing in Belize city, it was a long (and bumpy) drive to Chaa Creek (our ‘jungle’ resort).  Much of Belize has paved roads, but the last half hour or so of the ride was on rocky dirt roads.  So beautiful though – lots of unadulterated nature.  We passed by a couple of cattle farms on the way, which is always upsetting.  But I guess anywhere you go, you’re surrounded by the omnivorous masses.

Breakfast:  I had an apple and a banana at 4am before leaving the house…not sure why because I was probably too sleepy to be hungry.  Plane left at 6…FYI – Miami airport is not vegan-friendly.  Bring a snack.  You can get apples, oranges, bananas, etc. and some nuts and trail mix at the book stores.  That’s about it folks.  It was breakfast time (9am) when we got to Miami, so a banana and some nuts was fine.   I was of course packing Larabars in case of emergency…I ended up eating one on the plane from Miami to Belize City.

Lunch:  I continued eating my gigantic bag of cashews from the Miami airport in the van on the way to the resort.  I also ate the bag of carrots and snowpeas that I forgot to declare when going through customs.  oops   Our driver offered to stop somewhere to get lunch, but we really just wanted to get to the resort and settle in.

When we pulled up to Chaa Creek, I got the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere – right smack in the middle of the jungle.  Very exciting (and unfamiliar) for a girl from suburban NJ!

Here are a few quick fun facts about Belize, some of which we learned from our driver on the way…
-Belize was formerly called British Honduras, and achieved independence in 1981
-The official language is English
-Despite being a former British colony, they drive on the right side of the road.
-Belize has the highest literacy rate of all the Central American countries
-Belize has only 3 traffic lights and no stop signs, but TONS of speed bumps!  As you pass through each village, there is a large speed bump, and each village has a school.
-Driving through this area of Belize (from Belize City to San Ignacio), homes were pretty spread out – lots of green in between.  Lots of roadside fruit and veggie stands too!
-The Belize national tree is Mahogany, exports of which used to be a large contributor to Belize’s economy.
- The Belize national animal is called the Tapir, and looks like a cross between a horse and a pig.

The activities:

First was a trip to the little Belize Natural History Museum right on the grounds of Chaa Creek.  Our walk there was studded with signs pointing out resident birds and medicinal (or poisonous!) trees lining the hiking trail.  We took a look around the little museum, which contained some good geographical and historical information about Belize as well as some of their indiginous species.

Right next to the museum building was the butterfly sanctuary.  The gorgeous blue morpho butterfly lives in Belize and Chaa Creek has a screened-in mini-blue morpho sanctuary.  Our guide told us about the life cycle of the butterflies, and some other fun facts… for example, these markings on the butterfly wings that look like eyes – they’re actually like a camouflage – they look like owl’s eyes and are there to scare off predators.  Cool, right?

After seeing the butterflies and taking a walk around the Chaa Creek grounds, we headed into our cottage for showers and then to dinner.  No phones, cell service, clocks, or televisions btw.  (There was a little internet ‘hut’ with two computers where you could send e-mails if you really needed to.)

We were completely disconnected – and in the process, we were allowed to reconnect with life and nature.

Dinner:  This was our first meal at Chaa Creek.  Their menu is structured such that there are 4 courses and choices for each course – there was always one vegetarian option, and they accomodated me very well as a vegan.  Actually, I think the main chef was off that day, so they told me that I could order anything from the lunch menu for dinner if the dinner menu wasn’t cutting it.  The veg option was vegetable lasagna, which was definitely not cutting it!  They brought me corn tortillas instead of parmesean bread, and then a cantaloupe and cho-cho salad – my first day in Belize and I got to try a vegetable I had never heard of before! Score!  Chayote (apparently also called cho-cho) is a squash.  This salad was so good, it made me forget the fact that I hate cantaloupe.  Delicious!

Then I ordered a soy-ginger vegetable stir-fry with chopped peanuts for dinner.  And a nice bowl of fruit for dessert.  It was a good start, and the food got even better the next day!

At 8:00 we took the Creatures of the Night tour, which was pretty fun – we went out on the hiking trails with a guide wearing headlamps (and lots of bug spray) to check out the nocturnal creatures milling about the jungle around the resort.  We saw TONS of gigantic spiders (yikes!), a couple of scorpions, an armadillo, a gecko, a frog, some cool leaf-cutter ants… got a nice shot of a scorpion:

We thought it strange that after dinner was finished being served (9pm), the resort was so quiet – no one at the bar or walking around.  After two days there, we figured out that it was because everyone was exhausted from their supercool excursions and ready to get some rest in anticipation for the next day’s trip….

I slept like a rock that night.  I’ve never been anywhere so beautifully quiet.

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When I arrive in a new place, one of my favorite things to do is to check out some new yoga classes…

As far as gear goes, it’s a pretty easy thing to do – no special shoes required and yoga mats can usually be rented at most yoga schools.  All you need are comfortable clothes.  Weirded out by the thought of using a mat that has been sweated on by countless other yogis?  No problem – get yourself a travel mat!  They are thin and fold up easily to fit into your suitcase.

Before your trip, search for yoga studios in your destination city.  You can use the Yoga Journal directory if you like.  I prefer to go to Google and type in “yoga near [your destination]“.  Once Google Maps provides me with a list of studios to choose from, I check out their websites to see what classes they offer.  I then print out the class schedule, address, and phone number of each studio and stash the info in my suitcase just in case I don’t have access to the internet when I arrive at my destination.

It’s a great opportunity to try out a new class, new teacher, even a new style of yoga.  When visiting my family over Thanksgiving last year, I tried out Bikram for the first time – it was great! And so perfect to get into that super hot room to build up some heat at the end of November.

It’s also great to move and lengthen your body after spending an inordinate amount of time in airports, on planes, in cars, etc…

Most yoga studios have a drop-in fee that hovers around $15-$20.  If you’re a student, carry  your student ID because there’s often a discount.  Also, a lot of studios have special deals for new students – unlimited classes for one week for $25, things like that.  Check websites or call the studios and ask if there are any special offers.

If your destination is a beach town, some studios might offer morning yoga on the beach! Keep your eyes open for this, because it’s a beautiful experience to practice yoga with the sound of the waves crashing and also quite a challenge to balance in the sand.  Make sure to bring a towel for floor poses!  If your destination is a resort or spa, they will possible offer yoga classes on site – easy enough!

Finally, remember to thank your teacher – since you probably won’t be back again, it’s nice to let him or her know that you enjoyed the class.

Check out yoga.about.com for more travel yoga info.

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Good news for veg travelers!  The Jamba Juice chain has introduced vegetarian and vegan menus – check out the couscous salad from this new menu posted at vegetarian.about.com!

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Hi veggie travelers!  Check out this great resource on the Independent Traveler website – Click the checkboxes next to the items you need to bring with you from their EXTENSIVE list, then add a few more of your choosing, and print out your customized packing checklist so that you can’t forget anything!

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There’s a new food blog on the Miami New Times website, and it’s called Meatless in Miami.  Blogger Lauren Reskin talks about the new veg-friendly options popping up at seemingly veg-unfriendly spots in the city.  Even better, she also has a website, Meatless Miami, at which she rates Miami restaurants from “Pathetically insensitive toward meatless society” to “Glorious tofu-filled veggie paradise!”

Very cool.  The only thing cooler might be spotting one of the Golden Girls at one of the veggie paradises

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