We took the bus from Playa Del Carmen to Chetumal at the boarder of Belize - the objective was to get to Caye Caulker but we weren't exactly sure how we were going to get there!
The guide books are a little vague on the boats so we weren't sure if we could get a boat from Corozal, just over the border or if we would need to go to Belize City.
When we got to Chetumal we ended up speaking to other travellers whilst queuing for bus tickets and decided to all jump in a couple of taxis instead just to get across the border to Corozal. On the other side a few people went to the airport to fly to the islands. A lone Swiss girl plumped for taking the water taxi with us to San Pedro.
The area where the water taxi was leaving from was a little bit strange - absolutely deserted and really scruffy so we were glad to get on the boat!
We reached San Pedro and started the search for accommodation....not an easy task - we arrived at around 6pm so most of the cheap places had gone. We finally booked ourselves into a fairly basic hotel which cost us around 120USD for 2 nights - eeek! 

We went out to find a cashpoint machine which was also a bit of a challenge - we found several but none would accept our cards. One bank even had a sign outside which amused us 'Owned and managed by Belizians for the benefit of Belizians' - all it needed was an underscript stating 'so everyone else bugger off' and it would've summed up our experience!!



We did eventually find one machine which was willing to give us money so we went and celebrated with a beer.....a really expensive beer! As we wandered around looking for somewhere to have dinner we realised that everything on San Pedro is really expensive - it is the playground for rich Americans so the locals take advantage!! I'm not entirely sure what the attraction of the place is though - there's no nice beach and the town is fairly shabby - I guess it's just not very far from the US and they speak English.
We went to a nice restaurant called 'Elvi's' for dinner and then to a bar called Fido's - there was a live band and we watched some very energetic Americans dancin' the night away which was really quite amusing.

Saturday 27th: We found a nice place by the water for breakfast and had a local speciallity - a kind of deep fried bread thing with refried beans and eggs then we hopped on a boat over to Caye Caulker to search for accommodation for the next week.
We were questioning our decision to come to Belize after our initial impressions of San Pedro but we were so relieved when we stepped off the boat onto the much more chilled out beautiful island of Caye Caulker.
We saw a few nice places and a few interesting places including a backpackers hostel I forget the name of which was just bizarre. There didn't appear to be any 'rooms' as such - there were just matresses all over the place and you wandered past people's gear and beds and up loft ladders to get to other areas where there were more matresses - a proper 'community' hostel no privacy for anyone. The owner was a total hippy and the other residents all looked stoned - but it was cheap as chips!!
As we were wandering around we were accosted by the local 'nutter' on his bike with a steering wheel instead of handle bars, who asked if we needed help finding somewhere....he led us to a little complex of really nice Cabanas which were just 80 Belize dollars per night (40USD) so we booked up and went for a beer to celebrate! It's still quite expensive here (10bz for 2 beers), but soo much nicer than San Pedro!
We took the boat back to San Pedro, had dinner in the hotel restaurant - a kind of jerk chicken and rice thing and went back to Fido's for a few beers.

Sunday 28th: We took the boat to Caye Caulker, settled our stuff in, went to explore and see what activities there were to do and booked a few up. We went night snorkelling in the evening which was amazing. We wore wetsuits and took torches and headed out in a little boat with a guide and a driver and a couple of other girls. The guide was really good - he led us around pointing things out for us to see - including lobsters and various fish. What a great experience! 
When we got out of the water, the guide chopped up some fruit which we ate whilst sat on the boat looking at the zillions of stars - fabulous!
We went to get dinner afterwards and found that most places had already finished serving....and it was only around 9pm!! We did manage to find somewhere and then we went for a wander around....only to find the whole place was deserted!! There was bearly more than a few people in each bar. We stayed in I&I's which was the livliest bar around and chatted to some local boys for a while. They were telling us about the local lobster fishing and about some of the local history and stuff which was interesting. We went to bed slightly confused....

Monday 29th: We kayaked around the island today - the guy we rented the kayak from wasn't in the greatest form as he'd just heard that his cousin had been found dead, but he still let us take one out. 
I used my video camera for the first time to try to get some underwater stuff. Not too many big fishes around so we kayaked into a shallow bit where I chased a small spotty fish around for ages and got some quite bad footage!! Ah well!
When we came back there was a huge crowd gathered outside our cabana complex - people were crying and comforting each other. As we approached an open backed truck drove out with the dead man on the back covered with a sheet - you could see his feet sticking out!! I guess this was the kayak guy's cousin - he was in the cabana a couple of doors along from ours!! Shocker...
We chilled out for the rest of the day, went for food, a couple of beers etc.

Tuesday 30th: We got up at around 6am and went for a day trip diving and snorkelling. The first stop was the 'Blue Hole' which took a couple of hours to reach. There were around 25 people on the boat all diving except for Chris and one other girl. The dive masters gave us a briefing and told us that we'd be diving down to 40 meters which gave me a bit of a shock. After all the prep we did for my 30 meter dive and the stories of nitrogen narcosis I was a little nervous about going down to 40mtrs! It was all good though - no craziness. The Blue Hole is a perfectly circular limestone sinkhole more than 300 feet across and 412 feet deep. The dive was literally down a vertical wall and at around 35meters we got to kind of overhang with stalactites and limestone formations which we swam through - there is almost no life down there at all, but it was an facinating dive all the same. Sometimes you apparently can see hammer head sharks down there but unfortunatly we didn't. 
Next stop was Half Moon Caye where we went onto the island to see the Red- footed Boobies and the Frigate Birds which nest on the island. The Frigate birds were putting on a fantasitc display puffing up huge red air balloons under their beaks which they do to attract the females. 
We dived just off the island - there were a lot more fish to be seen but Chris had the best sighting seeing a shark whilst snorkelling!!
We then went for another dive at a place known as the Aquarium, which as the name suggests was a haven for some beautiful fish.
We had a really great day out, well worth the 360Belizian dollars.

New Years Eve: We had a fairly chilled out day, had a swim in the 'Split' - there is no beach on Caye Caulker but there is a kind of pier between 2 parts of the island known as the 'split' where everyone goes to swim and hang out. 
We took the 'sunset' sailing trip with Ragamuffin Tours to celebrate new year - it left at around 5ish and we drank rum punch as we sailed around the island and watched the sunset. We celebrated English new year at 6pm and toasted with all the other passengers...we were a little worse for wear by the time we got back to shore and some of the Aussie girls decided that a little dip was in order!!
 
We had the worst chinese meal ever after the trip and went for a little lie down before heading out to the bar at the split to see the actual new year in. In the bar we bumped into the two bizarre American girls I'd had a drink with in the hostel in Guatemala! We had a few drinks with them and after midnight we went along to the nightclub which was pretty bad!! 

Thursday Jan 1st: We had a lie in, had a little surf on the internet to plan our next move and booked up the hostel at San Ignacio. We didn't do much else all day - just chilled out, had a swim etc.