Veggie Vacations

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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