The only English-speaking country in Central America, Belize is a land of houses on stilts, lush rainforest, a first-rate zoo, and a long coral reef off its eastern shore. The unique mix of people ranges from Maya to Mennonites, descendants of African slaves to recent immigrants from Asia. The roads are slow and scarce, the buses crowded, the islands beautiful, and nature never far away. We spent 10 fascinating, sometimes frustrating, days there during our 2009 Central American trip.
When we visited
February 2009
Major stops
Orange Walk Town, Belize Zoo (near La Democracia), Tobbaco Caye (off Dangriga), San Ignacio
Memorable Moment
In a quiet corner of Belize’s jungle zoo, running into a zookeeper who let us feed chicken feet (through the bars of the enclosure) to a young jaguar
Did you know?
With about 16,000 residents, Belize’s capital, Belmopan, is the smallest capital city of any non-island nation in the Western Hemisphere.
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