I've spent a lot of time in Belize and I can tell you one of the most memorable things you can do there is take a rafting trip down the Moho River.
First off, we are not professional rafters by any stretch. We have been before but nothing like this adventure. You see in our 3 day adventure down the river we went over more than 40 waterfalls! Some were more than 15 ft in height. Now, if you know anything about rafting, that should scare the crap out of you. It worried us a bit, my wife especially. I kept telling her, "don't worry, they would never let anything happen to a tourist for fear of getting a bad rap." I must tell you, this is bad logic. On all expeditions in Belize, you should keep your head about you. Safety is not exactly on par with our expectations. But, that's part of the fun as long as you understand it and don't fully rely on them to keep you safe. Be responsible for yourself!
The "airport" in Punta Gorda we flew out of
Our 3 day excursion started in Placencia, Belize, a beautiful town deserving of exploration on it's own.....
- Check out Laughing Bird National Park.
- Take a boat tour.
- Do some snorkeling.
- Take a cultural tour.
After a two hour drive, we wound up high up in the jungle at our put in spot for the Mojo River. I must admit, the first day of rafting was an major learning experience for us. Being able to work as a team and paddle / steer correctly to hit each drop the way we needed to a lot of practice. Therefore we spent quite a bit of time upside down in the water on day one. No worries though, the water was refreshing and not too quickly moving.
Each night we would pull all our boats ashore and setup our campsite. This meant setting up tents, hanging our clothes out to dry, getting bathroom created and getting grill area built and setup.
The bathroom was just a large hold dug in which we put a 5 gallon bucket with a toilette seat on it and the bottom cut out. Then we'd use brush and limbs to build a bit of a privacy wall around it.
The grills were usually just made of green palm fronds stacked up since they wouldn't burn easily.
First camp site
By the second day we were feeling like pros. We were frequently in the front and didn't flip over or get ejected any more.
Some of the best times were when we'd pick a particularly beautiful spot to pull over and have lunch. One spot was right over a large waterfall that had a bit of a cave like overhang that allowed you to go behind the waterfall. We spent a lot of time jumping off that waterfall.
This river is different than any other I'd seen other than perhaps one in pictures in Croatia. You see it's s limestone river so as the limestone would dissolve over likely millions of years it would make pools all down the river until spills over into the next one. So these waterfalls were literally pools spilling over into each other all the way down the river. So even though we were going over 15 ft waterfalls the combination of a flexible air filled raft and the water flow being somewhat reserved kept it at an "almost" amateur level of rafting. I say almost because a wrong move meant you went over a large waterfall backwards or upside down and were left to catch your raft before the next one.
One interesting happening was the iguanas that would dive out of 75 foot high trees into the water as we would float by. It was really weird as if they were literally trying to bomb us. Our guide kept saying that when growing up they would dive in the river after the iguanas to catch them to eat. We didn't believe him and just laughed. He took that for about an hour before deciding to prove it. Once an iguana dived in the river right in front of him, he stood up and dove in head first right after it. It seemed like forever that he was under the water, then suddenly just as fast as he'd went in, he popped back up. He had an iguana in his hand! We couldn't believe it. These things were huge, like 2 feet long or more.
One of the best parts of the entire excursion was at the end. Eventually the river settled down into flat land and the last half day was a slow smooth float. We came to the place to get out of the river near a village and locals came out of no where to help us get our gear on to trucks. We followed them for a tour of their village and had dinner in one of their homes. It was a lovely experience and the food was impeccable. These villages are very poor but the hospitality and love shown by the people made them seem very rich. We loaded up on some small hand made gifts and made our way to the next adventure.
I hope you enjoyed taking the trip with us. There plenty more to come so please upvote, follow and resteem if you thought it was worthwhile.