About the
Country and People:
Belize,
unique and unusual, is an exciting destination for the
traveler seeking to experience different cultures and
exotic environments. An English-speaking, democratic nation,
Belize is blessed with an amazing variety of bio-geographic
regions, including the longest barrier reef in the Western
Hemisphere, hundreds of tiny cayes (as the Belizeans call
their islands, pronounced 'keys'), miles of unexplored
beaches, and world class diving, snorkeling, and fishing.
Stretching 165 miles from the Yucatan Peninsula
to the Bay of Honduras, the Belize Barrier Reef is renowned
as one of the most pristine in the world. A fantastic
diversity of habitat is found here, including hundreds
of islands, extensive shallow water flats, mangrove ranges,
and innumerable coral reefs.
Belize
is much more than a water sports destination - in a matter
of a few hours you can travel from the coral reefs to
the largest remaining tracts of undisturbed rainforests
in all of Central America. Wildlife abounds; the rainforests
are home to jaguar and Baird's tapir, tayra, agouti, and
howler monkey. The bird life is world famous; this is
a land where it is still possible to see the legendary
harpy eagle in the wild and where colourful tropical birds
like toucans, trogons and orependolas are seen daily.
If this is not enough, Belize was also at
one time the heart of the Mayan civilization. With a cultural
vista that stretches back over forty centuries to the
beginning of the Maya, we can trace this civilization
with over 600 archaeological sites in Belize alone.
Since
the decline of the Mayan empire, beginning around 900
AD, and the later arrival of Europeans, Belize has continued
to evolve with Spanish explorers, Garifuna settlement,
Scottish buccaneers, and a hundred years as a colony of
Great Britain, alll contributing to the cultural mosaic
we find in Belize today. |
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