Honeymoon Review – Part One

Since I’ve been entirely too lazy to upload some of the professional wedding pictures, I think I’ll start with the honeymoon review.  

Our honeymoon in Belize started with a 5-day, 4-night stay at the wonderful Mopan River Resort.  DH and I wanted to do many ‘inland’ tours/adventures and it made no sense for us to spend so much time traveling from San Pedro to the mainland, so we decide it would be best to break the honeymoon up into two segments.  One inland (and thus do all of the inland tours we wanted) and one on/by the ocean.   This seemed to work out well for us. 

MRR is located in the wonderfully small town of Benque Viejo del Carmen, which is about 5 miles from the Guatemalan boarder.   This all-inclusive resort is situated on a secluded piece of land on the banks of the Mopan River.  You actually have to take a short boat ride to get to the resort (it’s that secluded)!  

The Mopan River

There are 24 cabanas and everything is included with your stay except for tour site fees and any borders fees.   Even transportation to and from the Belize City airport (which is 80 miles one way) is included. 

 We were in cabin 7, which is on the far side (or up river side) of the resort.

 Our Cabin

View from our Cabin’s front porch

The path from our cabin to the boat dock.

(Please ignore the fact that it looks overcast in all of these pictures.  A – they were taken in the early morning when we weren’t on adventures or in the unbelievable heat and B- the temperature difference between our air-conditioned room and the outside jungle made our cameras fog up.  We didn’t get a drop of rain the entire time we were in Belize and every day at MRR was outstandingly sunny!)

This lovely path twists and turns its way through the resort but usually leads back to the main cabin.  The main cabin was where everyone gathered to eat meals, or to socialize while sipping on  fantastic rum beverages.   There were only 2 other couples staying at MRR while we were there (we were there during the tail end of the season), and we all adventured together.  Our meals were delicious and the meal variety was a welcomed surprise.  I did expect to see some things served over and over, but that was not the case here.  In fact, there were things I would have gladly eaten everyday (those fried apple banana fritter-like things being one of them.. yum!).   DH and I (and the two other couples staying there) went on 3 inland adventures during our stay.  We went cave tubing, visited Tikal (a Guatemalan Mayan ruin site.  Blog pending), and took a trip to a Mayan cave called Che Chem Ha (again, blog pending).  

Our first tour was the cave tubing adventure.  We didn’t take any pictures of our cave tubing excursion (the one thing we didn’t manage to buy before the wedding: waterproof cameras), but I did manage to steal this one from here.

All of our tours were booked through MRR, so for the record, we didn’t use the company I thieved the picture from.   =)

Cave tubing is just as it sounds.  Tubing through a cave.  It was a blast.  We were there at the end of the dry season so the water was pretty low in some places and as our guide said, we did have to do some “Cave Walking”.   DH didn’t pick up his butt once and got slammed in the back with a rock (what is with that boy and tubing issues!?!? Really!) but other than that, we had a great time.   It gets pretty dark in the cave, so we had little head lamps to help us see which way we were floating.   We actually tubed through two caves, and stopped a few times to jump off rocks and swim around.  

I wouldn’t recommend this tour if you’re afraid of the dark, caves, bats, water, tubes, and/or the thought of being in small places (the caves we tubed through were massive, but in the dark, your imagination can get carried away, so I can see where people who are claustrophobic have a hard time).  

For our first tour, cave tubing was a great experience.   My very out-of-shape self would classify it as mild on the energy exertion scale.  We did have to hike about a mile to the tube drop, but the float was completely worth it and afterward we had a lovely lunch before heading back to the resort.   I did take a nap when we got back to the resort.   For the first few days, the heat in Belize will zap all of the energy out of you.  It takes about 2-3 days to really adjust to the point where you feel normal again. 

On your last day, the resort takes you back to the international airport in Belize City.  On the way, we stopped at the Belize Zoo.  The zoo only contains animals indigenous to Belize, and we had a fun time roaming about for about an hour before we caught our flight to San Pedro.  

This jaguar napped the whole time we were there, but a zoo worker said that when he’s awake, you can actually pet him (that’s how close to his cage we were!!)

This species of toucan is the national bird of Belize.   He kept cracking us up while eating his fruit tray.

Our hosts (at MRR), Kim and Ron, were awesome, super friendly, and extremely knowledgeable about the towns, tours, and culture of the area.   We can easily see ourselves returning to MRR in the future to enjoy many of the  tours that we didn’t have time for.   

For more about Mopan River Resort and to read other traveler reviews, please visit the Mopan review page on  TravelAdvisor. 

Next up: Tikal and how I thought I was going to die at Che Chem Ha