7:00a
Breakfast
After 4 nights at the Maya Guide Adventures & Jungle Lodge, it was time to say goodbye and move on – right up the street to the Jaguar Creek Hotel and a hot shower!
7:00a
Breakfast
After 4 nights at the Maya Guide Adventures & Jungle Lodge, it was time to say goodbye and move on – right up the street to the Jaguar Creek Hotel and a hot shower!
We had our final breakfast with Maya Guide, and then it was off to the ATM Tour (Actun Tunichil Muknal), which Maya Guide booked for us through another local operator, MayaWalk Tours.
9:00a
ATM Tour (Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave)
After breakfast, we drove to a predesignated meeting point to meet the shuttle that would take us to the ATM Tour. This is a great tour for those looking for a bit of physical adventure à la Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. Read my write-up to get more details on what to expect from what ended up being our favorite experience in Belize.
9:00a
ATM Tour (Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave)
After breakfast, we drove to a predesignated meeting point to meet the shuttle that would take us to the ATM Tour. This is a great tour for those looking for a bit of physical adventure à la Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. Read my write-up to get more details on what to expect from what ended up being our favorite experience in Belize.
5:00p
Jaguar Creek Hotel
As mentioned earlier, we were switching to new lodgings today, and our new home for the next two nights would be the Jaguar Creek Hotel. This is an awesome mid-priced eco lodge with cabanas of all sizes, a dining area with buffet-style meals (extra charge), very polite and helpful staff, and a wonderfully peaceful environment.
5:00p
Jaguar Creek Hotel
As mentioned earlier, we were switching to new lodgings today, and our new home for the next two nights would be the Jaguar Creek Hotel. This is an awesome mid-priced eco lodge with cabanas of all sizes, a dining area with buffet-style meals (extra charge), very polite and helpful staff, and a wonderfully peaceful environment.
6:00p
New Year’s Eve Dinner Party at Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Jungle Lodge
We didn’t have dinner plans for New Year’s Eve, and felt that Jaguar Creek’s dinner options were somewhat limited for the price. The upscale Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Jungle Lodge was next door, and although their dinner prices were a little higher, it sounded like they had a much bigger buffet, so we drove over to see if we could fill our bellies.
6:00p
New Year’s Eve Dinner Party at Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Jungle Lodge
We didn’t have dinner plans for New Year’s Eve, and felt that Jaguar Creek’s dinner options were somewhat limited for the price. The upscale Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Jungle Lodge was next door, and although their dinner prices were a little higher, it sounded like they had a much bigger buffet, so we drove over to see if we could fill our bellies.
What we didn’t know is that similar to Sleeping Giant Rainforest Lodge, meals at Caves Branch are attended mainly by their own guests. Fortunately for our hungry tummies, they were able to eke us in. If you are not a guest, I would recommend calling in advance during the high season to make sure they have space.
We thought this year’s NYE was just going to be a quiet dinner, but it ended up Caves Branch had a dinner party celebration planned, so we joined in on the festivities.
The Caves Branch lodge has a great philosophy of encouraging social interaction, and they do this in a couple ways: they assign seating each night so that you’re always meeting different groups of people, and they only have WiFi available in the dining area after the meal is finished so no one is distracted during dinner.
We were assigned the last two seats at a table with two families who were going on the same Black Hole Drop tour we were doing the following day, so we had the chance to get cozy with each other before the tour. The Kasrovis and the Koorhans ended up being super fun, and we had a blast with them that evening and the next day on the tour. We even met up with the Kasrovis for dinner a couple days later in Placencia. (You can see pics of both clans, as well an additional super fun family, the Piccininnis, on the Black Hole Drop write-up.)
Oftentimes while on vacation, it’s the unplanned activities that end up being some of the best memories you take home, and for us, the NYE celebration at Caves Branch was one of these fun memories.
The other unexpected event was that the management at the lodge decided they weren’t waiting until midnight to close down. Whether it’s so they could go home and celebrate or to let the guests go to bed early to get up for their tours the next day, I don’t know, but some time around 9 or 10pm, they started passing out champagne and counting down the seconds. Well, I guess it was already midnight somewhere in the world…
A note on Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Jungle Lodge. This is a “rugged” yet upscale lodge that was beyond our budget, but I have it on good faith from some of their guests that it’s a fantastic stay. Since we didn’t stay there, I don’t have a write-up for it, but you can check out their website for more info and pics of their accommodations and tours.
Happy New Year y’all! Time to get to bed so we could be up early for tomorrow’s Black Hole Drop. Dun dun duuuun! Sound ominous? It’s not as scary as it sounds.
by The Gassy Squirrel using WordPress, Elementor, and a bunch of plugins.