Belithe. The English-speaking UFO of Central America.

Belize is The Central American linguistic exception. Where its six neighbors (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama) have spoken Spanish since the conquest, it speaks English — a heritage of three centuries under British rule. The colony bore the name of Belize until 1973, and only gained its full independence in 1981. The country remained a member of the Commonwealth: until 2022, Queen Elizabeth II was featured on the local banknotes—since then, the coat of arms of Belize has replaced her. Population: only 410,000 inhabitants — less than one of Paris's arrondissements — distributed among Afro-Belizean Creoles, Yucatec/Mopan/Kekchi Maya, Spanish-speaking Mestizos, Afro-Caribbean Garifuna, German-speaking Mennonites, and East Indians. It is probably The most multilingual country in Central America per capita Most Belizeans juggle 3 languages daily.

Offshore, it's one of the largest underwater stages on the planet. The Belize Barrier Reef — UNESCO 1996 — is the 2^e Great Barrier Reef, surpassed only by Australia's Great Barrier Reef. 300 kilometers of continuous reefs line the coast, punctuated by three coral atolls Lighthouse Reef, Glover's Reef, and Turneffe—a unique situation in the Atlantic, where atolls are normally reserved for the Pacific and Indian Oceans. At the heart of Lighthouse Reef is the Blue Hole a perfectly circular karst crater, 300 meters in diameter, 124 meters deep, an ancient sinkhole that collapsed 12,000 years ago. Jacques Cousteau explored it in 1971 aboard the Calypso., it ranked it in its global top 10 diving sites, and made it known to the world. At Caye Caulker, island of 8 km in the Caribbean Sea with the official motto Go Slow, life has an almost comical slowness — no cars, only golf carts, and a ferry to leave. Ambergris Caye and his village of San Pedro inspired The Beautiful Island from Madonna in 1986 — the song remains the unofficial anthem of Belizean tourism today.

Belize is also the country that has highest density of jaguars in Central America. The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, created in 1990 in the Maya Mountains, is the world's first reserve entirely dedicated to Panthera onca — its population is estimated between 15,000 and 20,000 individuals. Inland, the jungle of Cayo District is home to major archaeological sites: Snail, the country's largest Mayan site with Caana — 43 meters tall, still the tallest man-made structure in Belize ; Xunantunich and its hand-cranked ferry (the only one of its kind in the world), which you operate by hand to cross the Mopan River; Lamanai, which can be reached by boat as you travel up the New River through the jungle, passing crocodiles and over 600 species of birds; and the sacred cave Actun Tunichil Muknal — the ATM Cave — where you wade waist-deep into the water to reach, a kilometer into the rock, Mayan sacrificial skeletons still in place, fossilized by the concretions, including the famous Crystal Maiden. National Geographic has ranked it among the world's top 10 sacred caves.

In terms of its people, it is one of the most unique melting pots on the continent. The Garífunas — descendants of Africans shipwrecked on the island of Saint Vincent, who intermarried with the Caribs, were deported by the British in 1797 to the island of Roatán, and were later dispersed along the Atlantic coast of Central America — form one of the region’s most culturally vibrant communities. Their Garifuna Settlement Day on November 19 is national holiday : The whole country celebrates the 1832 landing in Dangriga, with people dancing the tip goat-skin drums, we eat the border (plantain purée and fish soup with coconut milk), we drink Belikin, the only beer brewed locally since 1969. The Mennonites — German-speaking communities arrived in waves from Mexico to Belize in the 1950s, conservative (Old Order in horse-drawn buggies, drive-in at Spanish Lookout) or progressive (New Order) — they ensure today nearly 15% of the national agricultural GDP. And then there's the official tourism slogan, better conceived than elsewhere: «Belize — Mother Nature's Best Kept Secret». That's right.