Get to know BELIZE

By Mark Stratton

What’s it all about?

Some years back, during a Central American road trip, I entered Belize with some relief at finding an English-speaking nation after weeks of butchering the Spanish language of neighbouring countries. I’d only planned to spend a week here, yet with Belize a microcosm of almost every adventure I’d planned in the region my stay became longer. With jaguars, coral reefs, Maya culture, and Caribbean sunshine, it’s little wonder that the Belize’s current tagline is ‘Grab Life’.

Big cat diaries

In Cockscomb Basin I ended a long quest to see the elusive jaguar. The odds were good as Belize –the first country in the world to have a jaguar sanctuary – also has the world’s greatest density of jaguars; it’s a proud statistic that will endure. This is thanks in part to the country’s conservation ethos, which has led to the Maya Forest Corridor being created to link once separated populations and thus enhance their genetic diversity for generations to come.

Modern Maya

There’s a tendency to view Latin America’s ancient cultures as moribund, survived only by abandoned architecture. Belize does indeed possess sublime Maya archaeology pertaining to their apogee here between the 3rd and 9th centuries; not least Caracol, once home to 140,000 people. Yet Maya people today form 10 per cent of Belize’s population and their time-honoured culture persists. During a Maya living experience tour at Big Falls community, visitors can learn about their cooking, farming, and medicinal plant use.