3 Best Sights in The Cayo District, Belize

The largest tourism information center in the country, the BZ$4 million Cayo Welcome Center was established in San Ignacio due to the Cayo's archaeological sites and rain-forest jungle lodges getting an increasing number of visitors. Besides friendly staff who provide information about tours, lodging, restaurants, and sightseeing, the center has exhibits and photos of Mayan artifacts found in San Ignacio, along with contemporary art and cultural displays. Free Wi-Fi is available throughout. Food stalls and a burger restaurant are in or near the center complex, and there is easy access to the pedestrian-only section of Burns Avenue, with its tour guide offices, restaurants, bars, banks, shops, and budget hotels. The center also functions as a community center, with free movies and musical concerts by local bands some nights.

This reserve is a highlight of any journey to Belize and an adventure to explore, although the scenery may remind you more of the piney woods of the far southern Appalachians than of tropical jungle. The Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve is in the high country of Belize—low mountains and rolling hills are covered in part by vast pine forests and crisscrossed with old logging roads. Waterfalls and streams abound, and there are accessible caves, such as Rio Frio. The higher elevations, up to near 3,400 feet, provide cooler temperatures and outstanding views. The best way to see this area, which covers more than 106,000 acres, is on a mountain bike, a horse, or your own feet. It's also not a bad ride in an SUV, which you'll need to get you through the Pine Ridge to the Chiquibul wilderness and the magnificent ruins of Caracol. Aside from the Honduras pines, 80% of which were damaged in recent years by the southern pine beetle but are now recovering, you'll see lilac-color mimosa, Saint-John's-wort, and occasionally a garish red flower appropriately known as hotlips. Look for the craboo, a wild tree whose berries are used in a brandy-like liqueur believed to have aphrodisiac properties (the fruit ripens June through August). Birds love this fruit, so any craboo is a good place to spot orioles and woodpeckers. You may not see them, but the Pine Ridge is home to many of Belize's large mammals, including tapirs, cougars, jaguars, and ocelots, and in the streams are a few Morelet's crocodiles.

The hilltop community of Spanish Lookout, population 3,000, about 5 miles (8 km) north of the George Price Highway, is one of the centers of Belize's 11,000-strong Mennonite community, of which nearly 3,000 are in Cayo District. The easiest access to Spanish Lookout is via the paved Route 30 at Mile 57.5 of the Price Highway. The village's blond-haired, fair-skinned residents may seem out of place in this tropical country, but they're responsible for much of the construction, manufacturing, and agriculture in Belize. They built many of Belize's resorts, and most of the chickens, eggs, cheese, and milk you'll consume during your stay come from their farms. Many of the small wooden houses that you see all over Belize are Mennonite prefabs built in Spanish Lookout. In Belize's conservative Mennonite communities, women dress in cotton frocks and head scarves, and the men don straw hats, suspenders, and dark trousers. Some still travel in horse-drawn buggies. However, most Mennonites around Spanish Lookout have embraced pickup trucks and modern farming equipment. The cafés and small shopping centers in Spanish Lookout offer a unique opportunity to mingle with these sometimes world-wary people, but they don't appreciate being gawked at or photographed any more than you do. Stores in Spanish Lookout are modern and well-stocked, the farms wouldn't look out of place in the U.S. Midwest, and many of the roads are paved (the Mennonites do their own road paving). Oil in commercial quantities was discovered in Spanish Lookout in 2005, and several wells are still pumping, although the amount of oil pumped has diminished in recent years.