Backbacker heaven: a strip of sand in the middle of a calm, tropical ocean, with reggae music, cheap beers and lobsters, simple living, swimming, diving, snorkelling, windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing, and a friendly nightlife. This is Caye Caulker, a small coral islet out in the Caribbean so small (5km x 1km) that you could circle it in a couple of hours, and if a big wave came, it would obliterate everything. Hurricane Hattie (1961) did almost just that, but the island reemerged, albeit cut into two islands with the split just north of town (the split that was created was only a few feet deep, but this was deepened by manual dredging and subsequent tidal flows). Hurricane Keith (2000), also caused considerable damage. Here, the most challenging thing might be navigating the protected sea grass that grows along the shore or deciding to dive off the docks instead.
The main jumping off point for the famous Blue Hole (#956), and for those not diving trained, the closer Shark and Ray Alley (#930), it's also a mid-way point for travelers on the way to Ambergris, a more developed cay further north. It has two main north-south streets -- Front Street and Back Street, which are only a few houses apart.
Caye Caulker was first settled hundreds of years ago, but mostly dates from the Caste War of the Yucatan in the mid 1800s when mestizos fleeing violence moved to the island to settle. It first emerged as part of the Gringo Trail in the 1970s as tourists moved from the Mexican Yucantan hubs to Guatemala's Tikal, and the easily available marijuana certainly helped its popularity.
Surprisingly, it's only 20km from Belize City, has it's own small airstrip, but the main form of transport on the island is, of course, walking, although the odd cyclist can be found.
The Strip bar is particularly popular!
Source: Lonely Planet Central America on a Shoestring 7th Edition 2010
34km off Colombia's wild and mangroved Pacific coast lies the mysterious island of Gorgona, so named for the hundreds of snakes present when Pizarro's ship stopped there in 1524. For a long time a prison and forbidden to outsiders, it is now a majestic holiday resort of wild jungle trails, pristine beaches, spectacular diving, and peace and quiet (one small resort and the boats only cross from Guapi, the nearest village and airport, two times a week).
Nature rules here, as is evidenced by the jungle completely reclaiming the prison over the past 30 years, but also by the hundreds of small monkeys, lizards, snakes, birds, and other creatures. My favorite, by far, were the humpback whales that traverse this coast several months of the year with their babies on their way to and from the tropics and Antarctica. Breaking just off the island, breaching and playing or just breathing, they astonish and excite all visitors when they are seen several times a day.
Ever since I was young I've been fascinated with the Marianas trench. The diagram above helps to show why I always found it so amazing -- we always thing about the highest point, Everest, but we rarely think about how deep the earth goes inwards, and the fact that the earth goes further inwards than it does outwards is really quite incredible. At almost 11km deep (5960 fathoms) at 'Challenger Deep' at its southern end, it is further into the earth than we can go outward although both extremes suffer from too much pressure -- altitude sickness, oxygen deprivation, atmospheric pressure, etc. I just wish it wasn't so inaccessible!
And even though there are areas of the Arctic ocean floor that go closer to the earth's core (because Earth is not a perfect sphere and the Marianas is at its widest point in the tropics), it is a phenomenal place.
Cool facts:
It is 1 to 4 degrees C at the bottom.
Xenophyophores are a microbial bacteria life form found deep in the trench.
The Marianas Islands were claimed by Spain in 1668.
The trench was first 'sounded' in the 1870s.
In 1995, an unmanned remote controlled Japanese vehicle completed the deepest dive on record.
Four manned descents have been made, the first in 1960, and the most recent by director James Cameron in 2012.
Sole, flounder and shrimp have been observed at the bottom.
It has been proposed as a place for nuclear waste disposal, in hopes that the tectonic movements will eventually push the waste under the earth and into the earth's mantle. Thank goodness it's prohibited by international law!
Idyllic, beautiful Boracay, the pride of Philippine beaches for decades, and a truly well-deserved reputation for spectacular gorgeousness! It's an island in the Visayas, and not so easy to get to considering the nearest airport is a banca boat and van/bus ride away. But of course, it's been years since I went and am sure the infrastructure is improved since 2001! What more to say about a picture-perfect, motorbikable, wanderable island in the warm Pacific Ocean with diving and snorkelling and suntanning?
Apologies, once again, for the poor quality scans of film photos. All you have to do is close your eyes and imagine crisp white sand beaches, turquoise oceans and tranquility and you're there, anyway.
Just off Caye Caulker, south of Ambergris Caye, in Belize's off-shore coral reef, is the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, and one of it's special features is a snorkelling site called Shark (and) Ray Alley. The reason it is so called is because it's almost guaranteed that you will see sharks and rays when you visit! Beautiful nurse sharks either circle around you or sleep on the ocean floor. Southern sting rays hide on the sandy bottom or float gracefully past. All this in only a couple of meters of water!
Backbacker heaven: a strip of sand in the middle of a calm, tropical ocean, with reggae music, cheap beers and lobsters, simple living, swimming, diving, snorkelling, windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing, and a friendly nightlife. This is Caye Caulker, a small coral islet out in the Caribbean so small (5km x 1km) that you could circle it in a couple of hours, and if a big wave came, it would obliterate everything. Hurricane Hattie (1961) did almost just that, but the island reemerged, albeit cut into two islands with the split just north of town (the split that was created was only a few feet deep, but this was deepened by manual dredging and subsequent tidal flows). Hurricane Keith (2000), also caused considerable damage. Here, the most challenging thing might be navigating the protected sea grass that grows along the shore or deciding to dive off the docks instead. 
The main jumping off point for the famous Blue Hole (#956), and for those not diving trained, the closer Shark and Ray Alley (#930), it's also a mid-way point for travelers on the way to Ambergris, a more developed cay further north. It has two main north-south streets -- Front Street and Back Street, which are only a few houses apart.
Caye Caulker was first settled hundreds of years ago, but mostly dates from the Caste War of the Yucatan in the mid 1800s when mestizos fleeing violence moved to the island to settle. It first emerged as part of the Gringo Trail in the 1970s as tourists moved from the Mexican Yucantan hubs to Guatemala's Tikal, and the easily available marijuana certainly helped its popularity.
Surprisingly, it's only 20km from Belize City, has it's own small airstrip, but the main form of transport on the island is, of course, walking, although the odd cyclist can be found.
