Harvest Caye, Belize was our third port. It is the private cruise port for NCL. It is located on a small island and is only accessible to cruise passengers. There is a zip line, beaches, poo, and shops. To access the Harvest Caye area from the ship, NCL has built a very long pier.

We are sure there are other “official” Belize signs, but it is the only one we could find.

For our excursion, we hopped in a boat and went 30 minutes down the coast to Monkey River

We passed the NCL Escape on our way

Monkey River was one of the first “modern” settlements in Belize with 3000 residents. In 1891, a banana plague wiped out all of the trees and most of the residents moved further inland. The town now only has 200 permanent residents. It is one of the last purely Creole settlements in Belize.

Monkey River is part of a large watershed that covers 1500 square miles, but the actual Monkey River is only 10 miles long. The water is usually clear, but with the heavy rains, it was very muddy. The surrounding rainforest has mahogany and cedar trees, as well as the Gumbo Limbo, which is nicknamed the Tourist Tree because it’s red peeling bark resembles sun-burnt skin.

We saw numerous birds and even one that was drying its wings so that it could take flight

There were tiny fruit bats and colorful iguanas

And Crocodiles…they were sunning themselves along the shore. The town is plagued by night-time crocodile attacks and recently lost a 150 pound dog. The crocodiles we saw were 4-6 feet in length

Monkey River is known for it’s Howler and Spider monkeys but they tend to hang out in the upper parts of trees away from the river. Our boat pulled up to a small set of stairs and “John” our tour guide led us on a short walk along a paved path. The small black flies were horrible and their bites were painful.

We saw several Howler monkeys, high in the trees. They only howl when a rival family is nearby. Apparently, they did not consider us a threat as we heard no howling…

John pointed out termite nests and a small coconut like fruit called cahoon nuts.

Even with the flies, we enjoyed the short walk. The forest was extremely thick, which would have made early explorations difficult, and why people lived near the water’s edge.

We hopped back on the boat and headed to Harvest Caye. We could see band of rain coming so we hurried back to the ship. It was our 42nd wedding anniversary and we had dinner reservations later in the evening, but we thought we would splurge for lunch. We went to O’Sheehans and ordered lots of “snacks”. We may have ordered too much!!!

To celebrate 42 years, we went to Cagney’s Steakhouse. Their rib-eye is to die for and as a bonus, dinner was free with our Latitude certificate. We received a special dessert and the waiters sang to us.

What a memorable day for our anniversay!!