Eating Caye Caulker
Fresh fish and fixing your own meals
Everyday between 2 and 4 in the afternoon you can walk down the beach and find fishermen coming in from a days work. It’s easy to spot because you’ll see the frigate birds soaring overhead, waiting to snag the scraps before they fall into the beaks of the pelicans waiting in the water.
For $3usd a kilo you can get grouper or snapper — cleaned on the boat right in front of you. Lobster tails and conch depending on the season go for $6usd a kilo. With both hostels and lots of hotels offering kitchens and grills, this is the way to live large on a tramper’s budget.
Groceries leave a little to be desired, but you can find broccoli, potatoes, onions, rice and canned beans to round out your meals. If you want tacos there are a couple of tortilla stands, too. The grocery stores also sell rum and juice concentrate (squash) to mix up your rum punch desserts.
Lazy Lizard at the Split
It’s almost a guarantee at some point in Caye Caulker while sitting at the split drinking Belikins you’ll get hungry. Don’t fret, it may just seem like a bar but this places serves up delicious and humongous burritos for lunch. Choose from fresh fish, lobster or chicken, and either save half for dinner, split it, or eat it all and settle for the rum and punch for dinner. They range from $3usd to $4.50usd depending on the meat you choose.
Panda Chinese Restaurant
I’m not really a big luncher, but five hours of scuba diving will work up on appetite. Panda Chinese Restaurant is a great place to fill that void — a truly giant fried fish sandwich and an order of fries for $5usd. This sandwich is big enough to share, if you have a diving or lunching buddy.
Caye Caulker and Belize in general has a pretty large Chinese population. On Caye Caulker they run the supermarkets, and a few restaurants. We found Panda to be the best, and most entertaining. Low priced beer, movies showing on the TV and the Chinese couple that runs the restaurant are nice and fun too. The wife who mans the front of the house always has a huge smile and is happy to joke around about whatever. A great spot for fast food cheap and good. Especially if you’ve been hanging around 60 feet underwater all morning.
Take me to GETTING // GOING: CAYE CAULKER
Take me back to CAYE CAULKER // Take me back to BELIZE // Take me HOME