If you don’t want to have a song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, do not read any further.

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro
Just like I’d never gone, I knew the song
This is where I want to be
La Isla Bonita

Appar­ently, some twenty years ago, Madonna had a good time in Amber­gris Caye, Belize. And I only real­ize the song referred to that San Pedro (there are tons of them in Latin Amer­ica!) tonight.

A few days ago, we woke up in Caye Calker, tired and sick of a place we couldn’t rec­og­nize any­more. What next? We had planned to stay on the island for a few days before head­ing to Mex­ico. We still had some Belize dol­lars left but Belize is a small coun­try and it seemed like we had been every­where but in one place: Amber­gris Caye, 40 min­utes away.

Orig­i­nally, Caye Calker was the back­packer hang­out while Amber­gris Caye, more devel­oped and big­ger, catered to richer peo­ple. We shrugged the stereo­type off and hopped on the boat. “It’s like going from Ko Phi Phi to Phuket,” we joked. We knew what to expect: a touris­tic place with all the amenities.

But we man­aged to be surprised.

Amber­gris Caye is big. San Pedro, the vil­lage, lies in the mid­dle of the nar­row island. The north and the south sides are home to condos—some fin­ished, most in var­i­ous stages of completion—and gated prop­er­ties. The few main streets are paved, street food and sou­venirs stalls con­gre­gate around the main square.

But unlike Caye Calker, San Pedro was quiet. We found a bud­get hotel eas­ily and walked north along the shore in search of a good patch of sand to sit down and relax. There were plenty under the cool shade of coconut trees. In some places, we had a stretch of beach to our­selves, in other, we shared it with locals—not tourists.

I guess it’s the irony of such places. Tourists stick to their resorts: they eat there, swim there, sleep there. At most, they hit local bars where booze is cheaper. We barely saw them. By stay­ing in San Pedro where the locals actu­ally live, we had access to a few cheap restau­rants, super­mar­kets and almost unspoiled stretches of beach.

I can deal with that!

The sea was too shal­low for a good swim but per­fect for feet-dipping. From the piers, we spot­ted a few stingrays, includ­ing three or four who swam right to the shore to pick up some left-over fish. They were huge and alien-looking with their big eyes.

The sea was Caribbean blue with darker patch where the sea­grass was and lighter patch where it was deeper. In the hori­zon, we could see the waves break­ing over the reef bar­rier. It was just breezy enough.

It was pretty damn close to being perfect.

San Pedro was also much more laid back than I had expected. Maybe it was because we were in the vil­lage, away from the resorts. In a way it reminded me of Can­cún. Yes, the stretch of beach is touristy but Can­cún cen­tro still looks like a Mex­i­can town.

The cou­ple of days we ended up spend­ing in la “isla bonita” made it up for Caye Calker, our lost paradise.

San Pedro

Caribbean Sea

San Pedro Church

San Pedro Church

The Main Square

Under The Coconut Tree

Tan Feet

San Pedro

See­grass and Blue Water

San Pedro Beach

Seashells

Have a Bloody Good Day Mate

Seashells

Two Maradonas

From the Bridge

San Pedro Woman

Stingrays by the Shore

The Boy, the Pel­i­can and the Stingray

San Pedro Beach

San Pedro Beach and a Rainbow

Belize License Plate

Related arti­cles:

1. Beach Bum­ming in Tulum
2. Caye Calker
3. Bondi Beach
4. Tulum, Playa y Pueblo
5. Pulau Lan­gawi