This is what you can expect to wake up to on Ambergris Caye, just a little bit faster than normal, thanks to these beautiful videos posted by the Sunset Beach Resort.
And what to do with your day? Snorkeling! Swim with gentle Nurse Sharks, Rays and Sea Turtles.
Here’s a sampling of the property and some of the excursions they offer.
This dog lazily trotted under an occupied lounge chair on the dock and plopped down in front of this bottle cap.
Stray Dog Under Chair
Although a long-standing nuisance to Ambergris Caye the stray dogs of the caye are an interesting element. I found them to be a curious parallel to the likes of Paisano. They were mostly harmless, making their lives with meager sustenance, typically laying low in the hot sun… almost at odds with the idyllic surroundings to be living so roughly.
Ambergris Caye Stray Dog under Palm Shadow
Thankfully the Saga Humane Society was founded to help bring kindness, medicine and education to Ambergris Caye, Belize. Saga was founded just a month after the above photo was taken. Thank you to the volunteers of Saga and I hope you enjoy my photographs.
I’d like to thank Hazel for writing me about our beachcomber. Hazel is a painter and was able to identify my subject and direct me to a San Pedro Sun article about Paisano and some wonderful watercolor paintings to commemorate his life. Unfortunately for new travelers to Ambergris Caye you will not have the opportunity to meet him as he passed away in early 2006.
Here’s another photo of Paisano on the beach in Ambergris Caye outside of the Mayan Princess hotel.
Paisano on the Beach in front of the Mayan Princess
I have more photographs from this set that still need to be scanned and I will share them with you and Hazel when they’re ready. Thanks again Hazel!
In 1999 we spent a week on Ambergris Caye and one of our favorite sights was this ubiquitous man who always had a conch shell in some phase of preparation. He was almost always walking, scrubbing a shell, stopping for short spells to rinse off the work in the slight waves.
One afternoon he parked himself on the dock in front of our hotel and I ran for the telephoto lens and took a dozen photos.
When we would encounter him on the beach he’d offer to sell a shell. I think he asked for a few dollars and was quite troubled when we tried to overpay. He wanted nothing more than the meager amount that he felt it was worth. I felt guilty because I knew that I had taken more than just a shell’s worth of enjoyment as we had watched him for days… captivated by the little we could observe about his life. It seemed to us that it mostly involved magically procuring a conch shell and then walking these beautiful sands while carefully accentuating the natural beauty within the conch.
Beachcomber cleaning conch shell
I had a discussion with a local about this man and the gist of the story I was told was that many years ago he had gone through a divorce and ended up selling or losing everything and came here to Ambergris Caye. Stripped of his former life, possessions and finances he was apparently content with the simplicity and artistry of preparing and selling one conch shell to tourists each day.
A Beachfront Cabana on Ambergris Caye
Ambergris Caye, pronounced “am-BER-gris”, is the largest island of Belize located northeast of the country in the Caribbean Sea. Though administered as part of the Belize District, the closest point on the mainland is part of the Corozal District.
The Caye (pronounced as “key”, meaning an island, derived from Spanish: cayo) is about 40 kilometres (25 mi) long from north to south, and about 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) wide. It was named after large lumps of ambergris which washed ashore here[citation needed].
The Belizean island, where it has not been modified by man, is mostly a ring of white sand beach around mangrove swamp in the centre.
A Maya community lived on the island in Pre-Columbian times, and made distinctive polished red ceramics, most notably small well molded figurines of animals.
San Pedro Town is the largest settlement and only town on Ambergris. There are also a number of small villages and resorts. Captain Morgan’s and Mata Chica resorts north of San Pedro played host to the first season of Fox’s Temptation Island in 2000, aired in 2001. More recently, the availability of skydiving during the winter has become a draw for tourists so inclined.
Tourism development of Ambergris Caye began in the early 1970s and grew considerably in the later years of the 20th century. The main attractions are the Belize Barrier Reef and its beaches. That barrier reef is the second largest in the world, after the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. The caye has a small airstrip serviced by Tropic Air and Maya Island Air, and can be reached by plane from Belize City as well as by numerous fast sea ferries. In the meantime Ambergris Caye can also be reached by ferry from Chetumal in Mexico.
San Pedro Day is celebrated annually on June 27.
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