Rio Blanco National Park

Right before we headed to Rio Blanco National Park, we had a pit stop at a local restaurant “Coleman’s Café – No Coffee, No Breakfast”.  The buffet consisted of rice and beans, stewed beans, chicken, pork, calaloo (kind of like spinach), cohune cabbage (cohune palm hearts) and a few other items. We always order traditional Belizean food when out but this was the first time we had tasted Cohune palm.

Coleman’s buffet with traditional Belizean food.

As delicious as this meal was, it was a little expensive for our likings. It was $20.00 BZD ($10 USD) per adult and half price for kids. In most other  restaurants it is $10.00 BZD per plate. It was an “all you can eat buffet”  so we did take advantage of that. We were stuffed at the end of our meal! The owners probably rethought the 1/2 price for kids.

Coleman’s Café – No Coffee, No Breakfast

We had a beautiful ride to Rio Blanco, driving through traditional Maya villages and having an excellent view of mountains. This road was a narrow, dirt road up until two years ago, thank goodness! Everyone in the Maya villages live in huts with palapa rooves. We drove by women washing their clothes in the river, a mother pig and her piglets crossing the road, people running and riding bikes on the road… It gave us a taste of their culture and how they live.

 

Santa Cruz, a traditional Maya village

 

Rio Blanco was amazing! It was only a five minute hike from the park entrance to the waterfall. The waterfall was beautiful! It was only about 20 ft. tall. As protective as Mum can get sometimes, her theory about safety was very reasonable this time. We had to stay pretty close to the rock by the shore as there was a very strong current. After a refreshing swim we headed back to Sun Creek Lodge. It was an awesome adventure!

 

Rio Blanco Falls

 

This post was a family effort with Alex as lead writer.