Belize It or Not

March 15, 2023

This is going to be mostly “or not.”  Rotterdam did call in Belize City today, but we opted for “or not.”

Why?

1. We have been to Belize before and, while we saw some interesting Mayan ruins some distance away in the jungle, Belize City itself was not that interesting.
2. None of the tours offered appealed to us.
3. Passengers are advised not to wander beyond the port unless on an organized tour. An armed guard is stationed at the gate to the terminal.
4. The US State Department Travel Advisory lists Belize CIty as Level 3 (“Reconsider Travel”) due to violent crime and gang violence.
5. This port is a tender port. Tendering ashore adds 45 minutes  to your trip to shore and 45 minutes to your trip back to the ship on a very good day. More likely, 60 to 90 minutes each way. It’s usually not worth it. It is a miserable process.

And so it was that we stayed on the ship while the 500 children and their families went ashore. 

We just had a lazy, relaxing day and evening. We took no pictures.

Some of you may be wondering, “If you didn’t go ashore, where did the photo of the belize sign come from?” And “Why is somebody’s finger in the photo?”

There is a little more to this story. We started collecting magnets  after our previous visit to Belize, so we did not have a Belize magnet. Ken decided to make a “quick” trip to the port in the afternoon, after all of the traffic had died down, to purchase a magnet. It’s a beauty!

He took a photo of the belize sign because he knows I like those signs. It was so sunny and bright that he couldn’t see what he was doing and didn’t realize his finger was in the picture.

Today’s color is royal blue, the predominant color on the flag of Belize. According to Wikipedia, Belize is the only country to have humans depicted as a major design element on its national flag. But no women.