Belize City: the port, the barrier reef and the road to the cayes

The capital moved inland in the 1960s, to a new town built for the purpose, and that single administrative decision explains the character of Belize City today. Stripped of government, it kept commerce and connection: the deep-water port, the international airport, the terminus of the country's bus routes, and — most useful to a visitor — the water-taxi terminals from which boats leave for the cayes throughout the day. Around a fifth of the national population lives here, which in a country this small is roughly sixty thousand people, so the scale is that of a large town rather than a city. The practical consequence is that almost every trip to Belize passes through, and the question is only whether you stop. The case for stopping is a compact historic quarter you can walk in two hours and a genuinely good national museum; the case against is that the reef, the cayes and the Maya sites are all better and all elsewhere. A reasonable itinerary gives the city a morning at the start or end of a trip and sleeps somewhere else — which is what most experienced visitors do.

The city's set piece is its bridge. Haulover Creek splits the centre in two, and the crossing at its mouth is a manually operated swing bridge — one of very few left working anywhere — which is cranked open by hand with long poles to let taller vessels through, stopping all traffic while it happens. If you are in town when it turns, stay and watch; it is a genuinely nineteenth-century piece of engineering doing its actual job. South of it, St John's Cathedral is the oldest Anglican cathedral in Central America and is built of brick carried as ballast in ships' holds, which is a fact you can see in the walls. North of the creek, the Fort George district holds the seafront: a lighthouse, the memorial to a benefactor whose bequest still funds public works, a colonial-era promenade and the older wooden houses on stilts with shuttered verandas. The Museum of Belize occupies a nineteenth-century brick building near the centre and is the best hour indoors in the country — Maya jade and ceramics, natural history and the story of the city itself, well curated and unhurried.

Offshore lies the reason for most visits. The Belize Barrier Reef runs almost the length of the coast, the longest in the Americas and part of a UNESCO-listed system, and it shelters a chain of low sand-and-mangrove islands. Two are the standard destinations, and they differ sharply: Caye Caulker is small, sandy-streeted, golf-cart-and-bicycle only, and famously unhurried — its motto about slowing down is painted on a sign and generally obeyed — while Ambergris Caye, larger and busier, has the country's main resort town at San Pedro, more restaurants and more boats. Water taxis reach both from the terminal in central Belize City in roughly forty-five minutes to an hour and a half. Diving and snorkelling are the point: Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley for accessible reef, and further out, on Lighthouse Reef, the Great Blue Hole — a circular collapsed cave system over three hundred metres across, dark navy against the pale shallows, which is a demanding deep dive and, for most people, a scenic flight instead. Book the flight for a clear morning.

Belize's Maya sites are among the least crowded in the region and two are easy from the city. Altun Ha is closest, about an hour north — a compact ceremonial centre of plazas and stepped temples in cleared forest, and the source of a famous carved jade head. It is the standard half-day and the one cruise passengers are taken to. Lamanai is the better trip and the more memorable journey: the site sits on a lagoon in the north and the usual approach is by boat up the New River, an hour or more through dense riverine forest with a decent chance of crocodiles, bats, howler monkeys and a great deal of birdlife, arriving at a complex whose mask temple carries enormous stone faces on its facade. Further west, towards the Guatemalan border, Xunantunich is reached by a hand-cranked ferry across a river and rewards the effort with a tall pyramid you can climb for a view over the valley. All three can be done independently by bus and taxi, though the river approach to Lamanai effectively requires a boat operator.

Belize is the only country in Central America with English as its official language, and that is only the beginning of the picture. On any morning in Belize City you will hear English used officially and in business; Belize Kriol, an English-lexifier creole, spoken as the everyday lingua franca by most of the population regardless of background; Spanish, which a majority of the country speaks and which dominates in the north and west; Garifuna, on the southern coast and in the city's Garifuna community; several Maya languages; and, from the agricultural colonies, Plautdietsch among Mennonite farmers who come into town to sell produce. This is not a curiosity — it is the ordinary texture of the place, and it makes Belize feel simultaneously Caribbean and Central American in a way no neighbour does. Garifuna culture in particular is worth seeking out: the drumming and punta music are on the intangible cultural heritage list, and the settlement-day celebrations in November are the biggest event on the calendar outside the capital region.

Philip Goldson International (BZE) sits a short drive northwest of the city and is the country's only significant international gateway, with service from the United States and regional connections. From it, most people move immediately: taxis to the water-taxi terminals, buses to the west and south, or short domestic hops. In the city, walking the historic quarter is straightforward in daylight; taxis are the sensible way to move after dark or with luggage, they are inexpensive, and agreeing the fare before setting off is normal practice. Ordinary urban common sense applies here as in any port town — keep valuables out of sight, use taxis at night, and ask your accommodation about current conditions rather than relying on a guidebook. On money, the Belize dollar is held at a fixed rate against the US dollar rather than floating, which makes mental arithmetic easy and means US notes are accepted almost everywhere. Seasonally, the dry months from roughly late December to May are the reliable window for the reef; the wet season runs June to November and overlaps the hurricane season, with the heaviest rain towards its end.