It was a week with a jam-packed itinerary of activities: snorkeling, zip lining, cave tubing, visiting Mayan ruins, deliciously colorful meals (local cuisine as well as restaurants with more ambitious takes on the former), small planes and lots of laughs. It was a perfect first taste of Belizean culture, cuisine and most of all its people – who are just as friendly as the brochures and guidebooks tout.

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Once at the cave mouth, it's on with torch-lit helmets, followed by a leap from a small rock cliff into the river to swim inside the cave. For the next few hours we swam and climbed our way deeper and deeper into the rock mountain. Along the way, our helmet torches illuminated enormous atriums of stalactites and stalagmites, and the fact you must either climb or swim to get to each chamber made it all the more awe-inspiring.

For such a small country, Belize looms large in the dive world. This Central American gem harbors some of the most unique adventures in the Western Hemisphere. The world\'s second-longest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, stretches out parallel of the Belize coastline for more than 300 miles.

Unafraid of tush-ular retribution, I was able to relax and let the swirling current float me past tall trumpet trees draped with thick vines. Giant blue herons wafted across the water, wings spread wide, as dark green turtles slipped from the rocks in a flurry of yellow butterflies known as sulfurs.

I've stumbled onto a fairly remarkable game of hooking barracudas on green tube flies from the beach, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would trade this in for catching little bonefish on the flats. Frankly, I can't understand why you'd trade this for the guaranteed frustration of chasing permit on the flats.

For most of the year, tiny Dangriga town is a slow-paced spot for fishing and citrus farming. But each November it provides the backdrop to Belize's flamboyant brand of thanksgiving.

The ancient Maya loved fishing and paddling. They were so eager to access the water sports off the coast of Belize that they dug a narrow channel across the dangly southern terminus of the Yucatán Peninsula as a shortcut for their canoes.

Independent travel is something everyone should do at least once in their life; a self-planned trip, from the restaurants and accommodations to the travel companions. Belize is just the place for one's first independent trip.

So there we were, sipping our beers, palm trees overhanging, the Caribbean lapping to one side and the constant strains of Bob Marley coming from the other.