This was our first trip back to Belize in 24 years, the last being our honeymoon. We brought our three young adult sons, who we’d told stories of our beloved Belize adventures over the years. A lot has changed. We spent the beginning and end of the trip in old stomping grounds: the center of Placencia and out on Caye Caulker. Aliana’s Place was our calm spot in the middle of our two weeks. It was absolutely beyond any of our expectations, the pictures do not do it justice. We rented both the main house and the cottage. We all had the best nights’ sleep of our trip, each of us in comfortable queen beds. The cacophony in the morning of birds and the distant howler monkeys is just the intro to this little piece of Belizean paradise. Both the main house and cottage were spotless, simply and beautifully appointed. Each is unique, solidly and obviously lovingly built in the simplicity style of Belize with the comfort of home. The main house has a master bedroom with master bath, second bedroom and bath, sitting room and beautiful kitchen with all needed in a kitchen. Washer and Dryer is in the back of the main house (I believe it’s shared with cottage and has it’s own entrance). Air conditioner I believe was in both, but in January we were fine with just fans moving the air. Cottage has two floors with simple loft with queen bed accessed by handmade spiral stair, main floor with queen bed and small kitchen (again with all basics needed in a kitchen) and table seating for four. My boys spent most of any down time on the hammocks on the porch. The grounds must have been planted over the years with fruit and berry at various stages of maturity. In January we were enjoying a few mulberries, starfruit and limes. Absolutely the highlight of our stay at Aliana’s were caretakers Marie and Luis and their girls. Just such a sweet and hardworking couple. They were attentive to all our needs while honoring our privacy. Make sure to ask to see Marie’s beautiful jewelry. Besides helping to keep up this beautiful paradise, they were patiently and graciously there to help us with our floats on the Mopan along with advice and suggestions and answers to any questions we had. We had expected to make a few trips to caves and ruins, but no-one wanted to leave and we had more fun right on there on the Mopan River in inner tubes one day (do not allow dogs along the way to jump on inner tubes no matter how sweetly they look at you— there seems to be a pair upstream that regularly follow the inner tubes down the river) and we rented the two canoes on another day and paddled down stream to Spanish Lookout. We took a drive up to El Pilar Mayan site, though maybe only 7 miles away, you need patience just getting there...