So Ambergris Caye literally translates to “Whale’s Barf Island.” Super sexy name, right? Good news is that this place is the opposite of Whale Barf, which I imagine to be gross. It is friendly, gorgeous, spirited, and authentic – plus there are dogs everywhere. Read on for my Top 8 recommended things to do, see, and experience on La Isla de Whale Barf.
Explore Ambergris Caye on a Golf Cart!
Table stakes if you’re planning to stay on Ambergris Caye. Ambergris Caye is a lot bigger than just the central downtown of San Pedro, and if you want to see everything the island has to offer, this is the way to do it. A golf cart is especially helpful if you’re staying outside of the heart of the city, which I recommend.
Also, I am not sure if this is just me, but getting to drive a golf cart now in my mid-3os is still just as exciting as when I got to do it when I was 12 – there is an unmistakeable thrill derived from driving a doorless amalgam of cheap plastic and metal around at 15 miles per hour with the constant danger of tipping over into a ditch if you take a turn too fast, amirite? Look how much fun we’re having!
Finding a Cart/Getting a Good Deal
As soon as you disembark from the water taxi at the main pier (or once you grab a ride into town from the airport which is like 20 ft away), someone will approach you almost immediately to ask you if you need help with a cart, a tour, etc. We were really tired and didn’t have the energy to say no, and it turned out great for us – no one tried to hose us although it’s clear these guys get a cut from the operators for every weary and/or starry-eyed tourist like me and Kevin that they bring in.
We negotiated our pick of the carts and a full tank of gas and left with a 4-day rental for $350BZ ($175 US). Just do your homework ahead of time, read up on rates online, and be super friendly and you should be able to cut a nice win-win deal. We used XRT Golf Cart Rentals and I’d recommend them.
Stay In North Ambergris Caye
Once you cross the bridge into the North side of town, the packed town disperses and beautiful, tucked away island resorts and waterfront bars and restaurants abound. Staying out here is the best way to do Ambergris Caye as you’re close enough to hang in San Pedro whenever you want, but far enough out to get some R&R. You’ll get way more privacy and more of an “island feel” – plus if you read above and got a golf cart like you were supposed to, you’re golden. Just be prepared for the bridge fee- when we were there we had to pay $10BZ ($5 US) for a there-and-back toll every time we headed south into San Pedro proper on our golf cart. It’s really not outrageous but good to know so that you always have exact change on hand.
We stayed at White Sands Cove, and it rocked. I give it a resounding 10. It had our “Big Three” – polar-level A/C, pool, and proximity to to the beach which in this case included another glorious pier just like our place in Caye Caulker. We stayed in one of the 500-square foot cabanas that included a separate bedroom as well as a full size fridge that fit as many 6-packs of be -er, soda, yogurt, whatever else we wanted to keep cold – as we wanted.
This is just me, passed out on a pool chair…
Ruthie and Terri, who run WSC, were as cool as Colin and Linda from Colinda Cabanas. They personally run a killer bar that they’ll keep open for you forever, and for $15BZ, Ruthie cooked and prepared all of the fish we caught earlier in the day for our dinner! More blackened barracuda, plus a Jamaican jerk snapper.
Go Fishing For Tarpon, Barracuda, and Bonefish
Obviously, if you haven’t already done the whole snorkeling and/or diving thing and you’re not planning on visiting Caye Caulker, do it here in Ambergis Caye. Plenty of excursion companies exist in the center of San Pedro that offer day trips and overnights to see everything nearby, including Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Shark-Ray Alley, and of course the Blue Hole.
Because we’d already gotten our fill on Caye Caulker, we reserved a lot of our time on Ambergris Caye for fishing. For $200BZ ($100US), we booked a guided boat trip for 4 hours, which turned into 5, since our guide was the best. Although we were mainly looking for tarpon and snapper, we were way luckier in the barracuda department. Those things, by the way, are as nasty as you’d imagine! They fought like hell and it took everything I had to reel mine in.
I show off my first catch!
When Kevin and I each caught a barracuda at the same time.
Depending on what you want to catch (tarpon, barracuda, more reef fish, bonefish), you may need different permits and of course the right guide who can take you to the right areas and provide equipment, if needed, to catch those specific fish. Guides aren’t too tough to find, and if you’re staying with a resort on the island just ask the owners for help booking one – most places will have an excellent connection on-hand who will be more than willing to take you out. We tipped about 25% for an awesome day out, and we gutted and cleaned our fish right there on the boat with our guide before Ruthie cooked them up for dinner!
More Dogs. Everywhere.
I have zero boundaries when it comes to dogs and am basically Animaniacs’ Elmira incarnate. There were adorable dogs EVERYWHERE on Ambergris Caye, and we were aboutthisclose to taking an especially awesome guy, Diesel, home with us. Not much else to say here except go pet some dogs (after cautiously approaching them and making sure they seem friendly and open to your petting). Generally speaking, if they have a collar on, they are game for the lovin’.
We met up with Diesel in three different places during our day in downtown San Pedro. If you see him on your next trip, please tell him “Hi” for us/bring him home:
This sweet Viszla lives at the Rendezvous Winery; FYI, the dog was much more enjoyable than the wine. While Ambergris Caye and Belize in general have many strengths, winemaking is not one of them. We very much regret buying a bottle of this wine when we were drunk and then almost barfing when we tried to drink it.
Here is our little buddy Layla whom we met at Doc’s Tiki Bar. Doc’s serves awesome BBQ and Fry Jacks and the owners, who are expats from I THINK Texas, are amazing as well.
Truck Stop San Pedro
I award extra points to the Truck Stop because my fellow CT hometown native, Ben Popik, owns it! The last thing I was expecting was to find a local food truck venue owned by a Simsbury Trojan, but there you have it about travel. It was like the time we were sitting in the Jakarta airport at 4:30 AM and I ran into two old colleagues who had happened be also have been in Indonesia, researching Almonds in Jakarta grocery stores.
You have your pick of food genres here, from tacos to ice cream to arepas to Cuban treats; everything we ate was legit. They also serve a frozen “White Russian” horchata drink called El Dudino. Enough said. Make sure to check out the dock area in the back, too, but HEED THE SIGN THAT SAYS “CAUTION: CROCODILES IN WATER.” Sweet jesus I hope there is never an accident with a drunk person on this topic.
After we visited, I heard that they have recently instituted a regular Move Night as well – sounds like it would be worth an evening visit!
Heed that Sign…
The San Pedro LobsterFest
After stumbling upon the country-wide concept of “LobsterFest,” which consists of a series of festivals put on throughout the month of June in different cities to celebrate the beginning of Open Season for lobster fishing, I flipped out and insisted that we plan the Ambergris Caye leg of our trip around San Pedro LobsterFest, the largest and most crazy of all LobsterFest celebrations. It did not disappoint. There are a few parts to consider:
Downtown LobsterFest Festival
A guy who was definitely wasted wandered around in a full-on lobster suit and taking pictures with everyone, the crowds were crazy, and we were rolling in lobster up to our eyeballs. Here is a sampling of the crazy-ass lobster goodness that we got into during the night: Lobster Rolls, Lobster Ceviche, Lobster Bisque, Fried Lobster Tails, Grilled Lobster Tails, Coconut Lobster, Lobster Cocktails (yes like Booze with a giant piece of lobster attached to the side of the martini glass), Lobster Pot Pie, Lobster Ice Cream.
The crazy lobster guy
It was one of those times when there is literally TOO much food to be able to enjoy all of it. My stomach quite promptly freaked out, leading to an entirely different type of gastronomical adventure which involved a ladies’ room that stayed locked for way too long, and open mens’ room, and non-properly-working toilet, a magically long line for the mens’ room at formed out of nowhere right after I entered it, and other details that I’m not quite ready to talk about but that resulted in our swift departure from the scene of LobsterFest and all bars within a 300 foot radius where I might run into someone who had been in that mens’ room line.
Week of LobsterFest
Even though the actual LobsterFest block party is one night, the celebration lasts for an entire week with different bars and restaurants taking turns offering crazy Lobster deals each night. We partook in the $100BZ ($50US) per-person all-you-can-eat extravaganza at Rain (btw this place is fancy and amazing) and Kevin made INSANE use of this offer. Here is a photo of him post-consumption of 4 lobster tails, 3 servings of lobster mac & cheese, and 3 servings of lobster ceviche. Don’t call it all-you-can-eat if you don’t mean it.
Kevin, after pwning the All-You-Can-Eat LobsterFest Special
If you are planning a trip to Ambergris Caye, try you darndest to visit in June and to line up your timing with the chosen Lobsterfest week for that year. You will not regret it. Just bring some Pepto Bismol with you.
Secret Beach
Yet another reason why getting a Golf Cart is so important!! Secret Beach, on the Northern end of Ambergris Caye, is not-so-secret anymore but it is still awesome. It requires somewhat of a drive, so be prepared and check your gas tank. Off-road your golf cart pretty far down to the beach to get to the most secluded and shell-strewn areas, and then you can spend a pretty perfect afternoon pretending you’re on a deserted island. Pack up your golf cart with bevs of your choice and plenty of ice, or bring cash with you and visit the awesome little snackshack bar that you’ll see when you reach Secret Beach – cold beers and kickass grill treats. Here are some pics from our Secret Beach day trip, including one of me embarrassing Kevin. Guess which one.
Go Bar-Hopping Downtown…
During LobsterFest we got our fill of both Lobster and the San Pedro central bar scene. I sincerely regret not going into the club part of Jaguar’s Temple Night Club, which looked absolutely insane.
Here is the entrance:
We DID, however, visit Estelle’s (definitely worth a visit), Fido’s (I can’t go again because of the aforementioned bathroom incident), Lily’s Treasure Chest, where we met some lovely folks visiting from Georgia and who persuaded me to take some shots and then sing a solo karaoke rendition of Zombie to our crew and a group of drunk Marines on a bachelor party vacation. They loved it.
…Espcially at Palapa Bar
We visited 2.0 version of Palapa Bar in all of it’s beachy, grafftied, rickety glory about 6 weeks before it imploded in Hurricane Earl. The Palapas owners have since lovingly resurrected it closer to downtown, which warms my heart.
In any of its three historical iterations on Ambergris Caye (before the Palapa Bar that we patronized existed, there was an even older Palapa Bar back in closer to town), Palapa Bar is your quintessential island beach bar. It lives on a pier built 40 feet into the water, has a thatched roof, no walls to speak of save the back bar, and offers patrons seats on lazy innertubes floating on tethers in the water. We came here twice at 10 A.M. and had “breakfast.” I think the actual food was toast. And then we “washed it down’ with matching giant Big Gulp-size orange slushies that included a pour from I am pretty certain every single liquor bottle on the extensive bar shelf. It was like a Water Tower from Miami University, except we drank it at 10AM and not 2AM. And no, I’m not sorry.
No matter where it is, don’t miss this bar, and you don’t skip talking to the wonderful people who run it, either. While you’re at it, stop being a pussy, grab a marker, and write your name on the wall.
