Isela Post

Isela is a Belizean mother who has been cooking from memory and from markets her whole life. Her recipes carry the food of the Yucatec Maya tradition, the corner store ingredients of daily Belizean life, and the party table of every celebration she has ever fed people at. She writes for the Belize News Post.

Temple I rising over the Gran Plaza at Tikal, Guatemala
How to Visit Tikal from Flores EditorialGuatemala

How to Visit Tikal from Flores

Short answer: Flores is the base for visiting Tikal. The ruins sit about an hour and a half northeast of the island, and you get there three ways: a shared shuttle (cheapest and most common), a local colectivo from the Santa Elena bus station, or an organized tour with a guide. The park is open daily from six in the morning to six at night, with a special pre-dawn entry from four for the sunrise. Decide first whether you want the sunrise: it shapes the whole day. Most people see…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Guatemalan shuco on a toasted bun with guacamol, shredded cabbage, grilled sausage, mustard, ketchup and mayonesa at a night street stall
Shucos GuatemalaSnacks

Shucos

Guatemalan shucos are grilled hot dogs built on a split, toasted bread roll: a smear of guacamol, a pile of boiled cabbage, mustard and mayonnaise, and your choice of grilled sausage or meat. The name is Chapín slang for messy. Shucos come from Guatemala City and Antigua street carts. The first one I ate, I ate standing up at a cart in Guatemala City, near eleven at night, the longaniza still spitting on the griddle. The guy split the bread, laid it face-down on the hot iron, and by the…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Conch shells on the Caribbean coast, the shellfish behind Honduran sopa de caracol
Sopa de Caracol (Honduran Conch Soup) DinnerHonduras

Sopa de Caracol (Honduran Conch Soup)

Short answer: Sopa de caracol is the Honduran conch soup, a creamy coconut-milk broth with conch, yuca, green plantain, and carrot, rooted in the Garifuna kitchen of the Caribbean coast. It is close kin to the conch soup we make in Belize, which makes sense: it is the same coast, the same Garifuna people, the same conch. The one rule that decides whether it is tender or rubber: barely cook the conch. It goes in at the very end and cooks in the heat of the pot, not on the…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Crisp fried corn tortillas topped with refried beans and grated dry cheese, the same beans-and-cheese build as catrachas
Catrachas HondurasSnacks

Catrachas

Catrachas are crispy fried corn tortillas spread with refried red beans and topped with crumbled queso fresco, the everyday street snack and party appetizer of Honduras. The name comes from catracha, the feminine of catracho, the word Hondurans use for themselves — so the dish is named after the people who eat it. Every catracha starts here, a fresh corn tortilla on the comal. Honduras's tortilla snacks are easy to mix up. Here is how catracha, baleada, enchilada, and tustaca differ. When I lived in Amapala, on the Pacific side…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Guatemalan tamales negros and colorados wrapped in banana leaf on a plate for Christmas
Tamales Negros DinnerGuatemala

Tamales Negros

Tamales negros are Guatemalan Christmas tamales built on corn masa worked with a dark, slightly sweet chocolate mole called recado negro. They are filled with pork or chicken, prune, raisin, and almond, then wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. The sweet chocolate masa is what sets them apart from red tamales colorados. The first time you smell a recado negro coming together on the stove, you do not expect chocolate. You expect chile and tomato and the deep toasted smell of pepitoria. Then the chocolate goes in, and the whole…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Tikal Maya temple pyramid rising above the Guatemalan jungle
How to Get to Tikal from Belize BelizeEditorial

How to Get to Tikal from Belize

Short answer: There are two ways to reach Tikal from Belize. Go overland, west to San Ignacio, across the one land border at Benque Viejo into Guatemala, then on to Flores, with Tikal a short trip beyond. Or fly Belize City to Flores on Tropic Air in about half an hour and skip the border on the ground. From Flores, Tikal is an easy day trip, about an hour and a half out by road. There is no ferry between Belize and Guatemala, and a Belize rental car usually cannot…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
A small boat moored on a turquoise Caribbean shore
Chetumal to Belize: Border Crossing and Ferry Guide BelizeEditorial

Chetumal to Belize: Border Crossing and Ferry Guide

Short answer: From Chetumal you reach Belize two ways. Take a ferry across the water to the islands, San Pedro on Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker, in about an hour and a half to San Pedro. Or cross the land border at Subteniente López into Corozal and continue south by road. Both need a valid passport. There is no fee to enter Belize as a tourist. The crossing is fast now that the new bridge carries most of the traffic. If you are island-bound, the ferry is the move. If…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
View of a turquoise Caribbean coastline from an airplane window
How to Get from Cancún to Belize BelizeEditorial

How to Get from Cancún to Belize

Short answer: There are four real ways to get from Cancún to Belize. Fly direct to Belize City on Tropic Air in about an hour and a half. Take the ADO bus south, when it is running, an overnight overland trip. Book a private shuttle door to door. Or travel down to Chetumal and cross there, which is the route if your destination is the islands. There is no boat that leaves Cancún for Belize. Whatever a booking site tells you, that direct ferry does not exist. The ferries to…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Bowl of Honduran sopa de mondongo with tripe, yuca, plantain, and corn
Sopa de Mondongo DinnerHonduras

Sopa de Mondongo

Sopa de mondongo is a hearty Honduran tripe soup: beef stomach cleaned, simmered long, and brought together with yuca, green plantain, chayote, corn, and carrot in a herb-bright broth. Found across Latin America, the Honduran version stays clear and brothy rather than thick, leans on root vegetables for body, and finishes with cilantro and culantro. On the Caribbean coast, coconut milk goes in at the end. Ingredients This makes a full pot, enough for 6 people with rice and tortillas on the side. For cleaning the tripe: 2 lb honeycomb…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Pan de coco, Garifuna coconut bread rolls on a wooden board
Pan de Coco BreadGarifunaHonduras

Pan de Coco

Pan de coco is the Garifuna coconut bread of Central America's Caribbean coast — soft, slightly sweet wheat rolls built on fresh coconut milk, with no dairy, no eggs, and a crumb that is dense and tender enough to tear open beside a bowl of fish stew. Honduras holds the largest Garifuna population, and the north coast is this bread's heartland: La Ceiba, Trujillo, Tela. Belize carries the same tradition in Dangriga, Hopkins, and Seine Bight. Where Pan de Coco Comes From Coconut is the heart of the Garifuna kitchen.…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Whole fried fish with coconut rice and patacones, Caribbean-coast style
Pescado Frito Hondureño DinnerHonduras

Pescado Frito Hondureño

Pescado frito hondureño is a whole fish scored, rubbed with achiote, garlic, cumin, and sour orange, and fried until the skin shatters. It is served with tajadas of fried green plantain, curtido, and fresh chismol — the plate you find at beach stands and roadside comedores on both Honduran coasts and inland at Lake Yojoa. The Caribbean coast at Útila, where the day's catch comes fried whole. I lived on Amapala, on Isla del Tigre out in the Gulf of Fonseca, for a few years in my late teens, where…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Crispy Honduran pastelitos de carne, fried corn-masa turnovers served with dipping salsa
Pastelitos de Carne HondurasSnacks

Pastelitos de Carne

Honduran pastelitos de carne are fried corn-masa turnovers stuffed with seasoned ground beef and diced potato, folded into a half-moon and fried crisp. This street-food staple gets topped with shredded cabbage, tangy chimol salsa, and grated dry cheese, sold hot from market stalls and home kitchens across Honduras. The first thing you hear is the crackle. A pastelito comes out of the oil deep gold, and when the cabbage and salsa hit the hot shell it goes soft at the edges and stays crisp in the center. That contrast is…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Anafre, the Honduran hot refried red bean and melted cheese dip, served bubbling in a clay brazier with crisp totopos
Anafre HondurasSnacks

Anafre

Anafre is the Honduran appetizer of refried red beans and melted quesillo cheese (often with crumbled chorizo) served bubbling in a small clay brazier at the table, kept warm over live coals, and scooped from a shared pot with totopos, crisp fried corn tortilla triangles. The clay pot is the defining object. When you order it at a Honduran restaurant, the brazier arrives first, still bubbling, and everyone digs in before the main courses come. That is the dish: a communal, fire-kept fondue, not a plated snack, not a topping,…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Guatemalan tamales colorados, the red-recado tamal served with bread and coffee
Tamales Colorados DinnerGuatemala

Tamales Colorados

Tamales colorados are Guatemala’s red tamal: soft corn masa sauced with a recado of tomato, tomatillo, guaque and pasa chiles, achiote, and toasted pepitoria and sesame, wrapped around pork or chicken with an olive and a strip of roasted red pepper, then steamed in banana leaf. What Makes a Tamal Colorado the Guatemalan Saturday Tamal In Guatemala, Saturday is tamale day. A small red lantern hung outside a tienda signals that the tamales colorados are ready that evening. This is not a special-occasion food in the way an outsider might…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Fresh loroco flower buds, the Guatemalan finishing ingredient for pollo en crema
Pollo en Crema DinnerGuatemala

Pollo en Crema

Pollo en crema is a Central American dish of bone-in chicken in a cultured-cream sauce built on tomatillo or tomato, with guisquil, carrot, and potato. The Guatemalan version is vegetable-forward, mildly seasoned, and often finished with loroco. It is everyday food — the kind of Sunday pot that feeds the whole table — and it won the 2011 AGEXPORT competition for most representative Guatemalan dish in the loroco variant. Every July, Chimaltenango hosts a festival celebrating it. That is not a country hedging about its cuisine. Ingredients The sauce is…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Belizean Cassava Bread Recipe BelizeBreadGarifuna

Belizean Cassava Bread Recipe

Belizean cassava bread is finely grated cassava wrung dry, shaped into rounds, dried until stiff, then browned over heat until crisp. It is flat, firm, and slightly bitter. Nothing like wheat bread, and not trying to be. Across the Caribbean it goes by bammie, bammy, or casabe. The same tradition, the same process, names that shifted depending on who was speaking and which island or coast they came from. In Belize it is most closely associated with Garifuna cooking. I first made this the right way with my aunt, who…
Isela Post
September 3, 2026
Belizean Cassava Pone Recipe BelizeDessert

Belizean Cassava Pone Recipe

Belizean cassava pone is a baked pudding made from finely grated cassava and fresh coconut, sweetened with brown sugar and baked until the edges caramelize and the interior sets into something dense and slightly stretchy. You will also hear it called cassava cake, plastic pudding, or yuca pudding across Belize and the wider Caribbean. Different names, same dish. It is a traditional teatime food, eaten in squares at room temperature with nothing alongside it. My mother made cassava pone on Saturdays when the cassava came in from the yard. She…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Belizean Corn Tortillas Recipe BelizeBread

Belizean Corn Tortillas Recipe

Belizean corn tortillas are small, round flatbreads made from masa (ground corn dough), pressed by hand or with a tortilla press and cooked dry on a comal. They are the foundation of some of the most important dishes in northern Belize: salbutes, panuchos, panades, and Orange Walk tacos all start here, with this dough, pressed this thin, cooked this way. The corn tortilla is not the same as the flour tortilla. In northern Belize you find both. The flour tortilla is softer, more forgiving. The corn tortilla has more to…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Darasa green banana tamale on a banana leaf with fried fish
Darasa Recipe (Garifuna Green Banana Tamales) BelizeGarifunaSnacks

Darasa Recipe (Garifuna Green Banana Tamales)

Darasa is the Garifuna green banana tamale: grated unripe bananas bound with coconut milk and a squeeze of citrus, wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled until it sets. People who grew up on corn tamales expect masa and meat, and darasa is neither. It is softer, a little tangy, and built on green banana instead of corn. The one thing that defines it, and the thing recipes online most often get wrong, is that the banana is grated raw, not boiled and mashed. Get that right and the rest…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Bowl of tapado, the Garifuna coconut seafood stew of the Honduran coast, with fish, plantain, and yuca
Tapado BelizeDinnerGarifuna

Tapado

Tapado is the Garifuna coconut seafood stew of the Honduran Caribbean coast, a one-pot dish of whole fish, shrimp, and shellfish simmered with green plantain, yuca, and fresh coconut milk, seasoned with culantro and annatto. The coastal version, tapado costeño, is sweet and creamy; the inland tapado olanchano uses meat instead. A pot of tapado tells you where you are before you taste it. The smell of coconut milk thickening over fish, the green plantain and yuca going soft in the broth, a whole fish laid across the top of…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026
Cross-section of a Honduran baleada with beans, cream and cheese
Baleadas (Honduran Folded Flour Tortillas) HondurasSnacks

Baleadas (Honduran Folded Flour Tortillas)

Short answer: A baleada is a thick, soft wheat-flour tortilla folded over warm refried red beans, a pour of Honduran cream (mantequilla rala), and crumbled hard white cheese (queso duro). That three-ingredient fold is the baleada sencilla, the original. Add scrambled egg, avocado, or meat and it becomes a baleada especial. The whole thing lives or dies on the tortilla: thick, pillow-soft, pressed by hand, cooked fast on a dry comal. Never corn. Never fried crisp. The moment it folds without cracking, you have a baleada. Flour tortillas for baleadas,…
Isela Post
August 4, 2026