What, more hiking?

This morning we got another early start. We had a nice breakfast on our veranda: fresh papaya, watermelon, toast, fresh squeezed orange juice and some really tasty biscuits filled with coconut and something like chai spices. Our guide for the day, Julien, picked us up at 7am to head to Mayflower Bocawina National Park. Our (*read "My") plan for the day was to hike to the top of Antelope Falls and do some zip lining. Why is it my plan and not Gavin's? Because Gavin despises hiking and would never plan any kind of hike as part of a vacation. Especially not today's particular brand of hiking...


After Julien drove us out of Hopkins and down another typical Belizan bumpy dirt road, we arrived at the national park. The hike up Antelope Falls is only about two miles. No problem, right? Lonely Planet had warned that this hike was "strenuous," but I tend to ignore Lonely Planet's advice on physical activities because they tend to be over cautious on their listings; a hike labeled "strenuous" would be strenuous for people whose only form of exercise is lifting the remote control to change the TV channel.


Here's how I describe the hike to Antelope Falls: 1 mile of easy walking, 1/4 mile of STEEP stairs, and 3/4 mile even steeper so that you have to grab a rope or tree root every step... Yes, I believe strenuous fits the bill. Plus we were in the jungle - not a breath of breeze below the canopy, plus even in the morning it is 80-90 degrees here. Our guide did not set a fast pace; he was so slow going up the stairs and climbing the path that I was actually getting MORE tired having to follow him! Gavin and I thought he was going to go into cardiac arrest and we'd have to carry him out! I don't see how he can guide tourists on these hikes almost every day and still get so out of breath!


Despite the "hardships" of the hike, there were some really nice things to see and smell on the way up. There was a HUGE tree with above-ground roots as tall as me; I of course had to get a picture doing tree pose inside the roots of this particular tree. :) We also smelled the scent of "bear cedar," smelling like freshly cut cedar though it was just live trees... We got to see a beautiful blue morpho butterfly, incredibly electric blue. Gavin pointed out an unpleasantly large spiderweb with an equally unpleasantly large spider chilling out in it. (but still no tarantulas, thank goodness!) Also at one of the look-out points we got to see two pure snow-white hawks lazily circling in the valley below.


We paused a the bottom of the main part of the falls to take a couple pictures (and let our poor guide have a sit down break :) ). The falls were pretty high, and really lovely. Then we continued hiking/climbing up beside the falls. By this point we were completely drenched in sweat, hot and getting exhausted. Then we finally reached the top of the falls.


The whole hike was SO TOTALLY WORTH IT! At the top of Antelope Falls is a deep pool fed by the waterfall - perfect for a chilly, refreshing post-hike swim! I have always wanted to swim in a pool under a waterfall, and I finally got my chance! The water was clear, clean and cold. I walked in with my water shoes, then swam across the pool to stand on the rocks under the falls. What an amazing feeling to have the water pounding on my head, washing off gallons of sweat, smears of sunscreen and greasy bug spray. It is probably the most clean I have ever felt in my life! There was also a little rope with knots so we could climb out of the pool onto higher rocks and then jump in ( I cannonballed. :) ). I could have stayed there all day, but I eventually started to get cold and hungry, and lunch was waiting at the bottom of the hike...


The hike down went much faster. (though I almost dragged Gavin over a cliff with the rope we were both holding on to for balance...) We stopped at a beautiful viewpoint on the way down that overlooks the the jungle and the Maya Mountains. The mist from humidity added a bright haze to everything below... I noticed that despite the bug spray being washed off, I was actually bothered LESS by bugs on the way down than I was on the hike up!


We had a nice lunch that had been cooked by our guide's sister in law, and then continued on with our jungle adventure. :) We headed a bit deeper into the jungle to do some zip lining. Julien has been guiding tours for 17 years, but he had only done the zip line once just yesterday! He decided to do it again with us today. We got all our gear and joined our two zip line guides in yet ANOTHER uphill stair hike to the first platform. From there we did eight different zip lines - a couple really fast and a couple really long. Julien looked a bit terrified every time he jumped off the platforms. :) This was probably the most fun zip line I have ever done. Gavin and I tried to take a couple videos. One video I made as I was zip lining I barely made it to the platform, despite not braking at all... So on video, I have myself losing speed too soon, flinging my foot forward so the guide could grab my leg and drag me to the platform. Lovely, clumsy landing. :)


After zip lining, we drove back to Hopkins through the orange groves. I have been dying to see how a fresh-picked orange tastes. I mentioned that to our guide, but told him I didn't want to pick any off the trees because that would be stealing. Our guide replied, " It is only stealing if you pick three or four bags of oranges, one or two isn't stealing." With that said, he pulled the car over, got out and wandered into the orchard to find me an orange! I had no choice but to follow. Julien said the best oranges were higher in the tree, and I was about to say, "Oh well, I guess there will be no orange stealing today..." But then he picked up a fallen orange and threw it at the high bunch of oranges knocking three of them down. I quickly grabbed them off the ground and ran back to the car before anyone discovered our thievery.


We arrived back in Hopkins where we discovered we had a flat tire on the POS rental car. Luckily it had a spare, so we changed the tire and the spare was also low on air! Greg hopped in the car with us and took us to a local mechanic who had an air compressor. Greg also suggested we have the owner, James, fix the original flat tire, too, just in case we had another tire problem on the way to the airport tomorrow. We left the tire with him and dropped the car back at our inn. Then, for lack of anything else to do in Hopkins, we walked to a gift shop we had seen on the way to the tire place. We got a cute little wood sugar bowl that we will probably never use as such - we just wanted it for decoration. :) Then we went back and picked up our tire; James only charged us $5 US to fix the tire!


After fixing the tire, I finally got to try my fresh orange. None of the oranges we saw in Belize looked like what I am familiar with as an orange; none of them were actually the color orange. The three Julien nabbed for me were mottled green and yellow, but he assured me that they were ripe. They were really hard, like a softball... and they had about that much taste. They were virtually impossible to peel because the rind was so hard, and once I finally got the rind off, the oranges were ALL pulp, as unchewable as the sole of a shoe. The only thing we could do was squeeze the juice out with our teeth, then spit out the rest! I guess fresh is not always better...


Starting early in the afternoon, the house next door to our cabana was blaring BAD music, so we decided to find somewhere else to sit on the beach. We walked down to Windschief, where we had had drinks last night, and got some nachos and used their internet. I got to catch up on journaling, finally! Then we came back to the cabana to finally shower of the day's grime. Gavin fell fast asleep, so I let him nap for a while before dinner while I sat on the veranda.


Learning our lesson from the last time we went to Driftwood Pizza, we called our order ahead so we wouldn't have to wait so long to get our food. We decided to walk down the street to it and see what was going on in Hopkins on Saturday night. Pretty much nothing. The street was dark, several people were walking and biking by, loud music was playing in some of the houses, but there did not seem to be any "nightlife." On the way one of the Rastafarian guys we had met on the beach a couple days ago came over to us and annoyingly walked with us for about 15 minutes to Driftwood, jabbering on about nothing, complaining that his family wouldn't give him money for sandpaper to finish his driftwood mask carvings (which we KNEW would result in him asking us for money at some point...) He showed us a "back way" to the pizza place, basically through some people's back yards in complete darkness. I turned on my flashlight so we could see where we were going. Once we got to the pizza place, he of course asked us for $3 Belize dollars so he could buy "sandpaper." We gave it to him in hopes that he would leave us alone! But he came into the pizza place, too! He sat at the bar and chatted with some other guy at the bar, talking loudly enough that we could hear him making fun of us, saying we were afraid of him and using the flashlight, etc. And he used our $3 Belize dollars to buy beer and cigarettes. Of course we knew he wasn't going to be buying any sandpaper, but he could of at least kept up the pretense and bought his beer and cigarettes at A DIFFERENT BAR where we wouldn't see it! At least the pizza was fabulous. :)


When we left Driftwood Pizza to head out for dessert, Gavin made me put our cash in my bra in case the Rastafarian guy had pegged us for a robbery or something. We joked that I was turning into his grandmother, who at our wedding in Mexico was discovered t be carrying $2,000 in her bra! Our walk back was uneventful, and we saw no sign of the guy. We had planned on going to Thongs Cafe for banana bread pudding. (someone needs to tell the German owner of the cafe that the word "thong" now refers to skimpy underwear rather than beach footwear...) Hopkins is such a small world that we happened to run int Jimi and Sabi, the couple we had talked to for a while last night. We sat with them as they finished their dinner and had a couple drinks and dessert, then we all walked back to Windschief together for some more drinks. The bar was dead; only the four of us and a couple obnoxious drunk American tourists, but it was fun to have another couple to talk to, especially since there is not much to do in Hopkins.


We say goodbye to Belize tomorrow...

Hazards of Hummingbird Highway

Today was another day of a lot of driving. We had breakfast at Gumbo Limbo, said a fond farewell to our wonderful hosts Jenny and Mike, then headed off to the coast again for our last two days in Hopkins.

To get to Hopkins, we were lucky enough to drive one of the most beautiful drives in Belize: the Hummingbird Highway. The Hummingbird Highway took us through the Maya mountains, passing through jungles and huge orange tree orchards all the way from the Cayo district to the coast. Though beautiful, the highway was fraught with peril. :) First, a dog decided to commit suicide right in front of us; we were driving along and suddenly about 50 feet in front of us, a dog ran into the road and laid down right in our path! What a brilliant place to take a siesta! We stepped on the brakes, and he changed his mind and wanted to live, so got up and trotted at Belizan pace ( that means "leisurely" ) off the road. Farther down the road, we saw a few kids playing in their yard. All of a sudden, the ~1 year old baby decides to SPRINT into the road! His six year old sister ran into the road after him, scooped him up and carried him back into the yard. We looked for the parents and saw the mother hanging out the window of her house on stilts, not looking all that concerned... Lastly, a full grown man who should have known better stood in the middle of the turning lane, so we stopped and waited for him to move, but nearly got rear ended by another driver, who laid on the horn at US!

But at last, we finally arrived in Hopkins. We found our bed and breakfast, the Hopkins Inn, pretty easily. Our host Rita was not ready for us to come into the room yet, so we walked down the beach to the other side of town to get some lunch.

The Hopkins beach is pretty depressing. It could be a lovely stretch of beach, but this was the most trashed and dirty beach I have ever seen. Bits of every type of garbage known to man were washed up on shore, along with a ton of dead sea grass. All the dead sea grass turned the water washing up on shore a dirty brown color. Also, the locals evidently make huge piles of garbage in their back yards (the beach is their back yard) and light it on fire, so there were tons of piles of partially burned garbage all over the beach! We finally decided to leave the beach and walk along the dusty road in hopes of a better view. There was not really much to see in Hopkins; I was really surprised that Lonely Planet put it in the top 25 Belize experiences.

We arrived at Driftwood Pizza, owned by a couple of US expats. It was so nice to have some pizza after trying very hard to find some Belizan food that was amazing; most Belizan food has been not all the impressive, and as "eating the culture" is one of our favorite things to do on vacations, we have been a bit disappointed in what Belizan cuisine has to offer. (they don't really seem to have their own cuisine - we can get a lot of Mexican food here, and the Central American staple of rice and beans, but haven't had anything really unique to Belize) The pizza was GREAT! I had a vegetarian Hawaiian pizza with eggplant instead of the meat, like I make myself at home, but they actually MARINATED the eggplant in vinegar and spices before cooking it and putting it on the pizza! YUM! I'll have to try that myself. I asked the owner how he marinated the eggplant, and he wouldn't tell me; secret recipe, I guess. They also put honey on the crust and added coconut and sun dried tomatoes to the Hawaiian pizza, which were both interesting touches. Gavin had his usual pile 'o meat pizza and also enjoyed it.

After lunch we walked back to Hopkins Inn on the road. On the way we were stopped by two little kids selling "sweet buns." Gavin was about to say no thank you, but I made him stop and buy a sweet bun; I had read in Lonely Planet that little kids go from door to door selling breads, cookies and desserts that their mom's freshly bake each day, and I had been hoping we would get to buy from one of them! The sweet buns were a kind of biscuit that was just slightly sweet and had a touch of coconut and the occassional raisin inside. They were nice and warm - probably not from coming fresh from the oven, but more likely because the kids had been carrying them around in the hot sun for a while. :) (Later in the day as we were driving out of town, we saw the same kids drop their WHOLE BOWL of sweet buns in the street, pick them back up and put them back in the bowl... Maybe it wasn't such a good idea buying from them after all...)

When we got back to Hopkins Inn, our room was ready. We are again staying in an oceanfront cabana with a nice, breezy deck facing the ocean, where they will serve us breakfast tomorrow. I asked one of the owners about doing a tour of Mayflower Bocawina National Park, and one of the tour guides happened to be at the hotel dropping off some other guests. We set up a tour that will take us on a hike to Antelope Falls and also on Belize's biggest zip line. We realized that we didn't have enough cash to cover the tour, so we had to drive to Danriga 20 miles away to go to an ATM; there are no ATMS or banks in Hopkins.

The drive to Danriga was uneventful, and the most interesting thing in Danriga appeared to be a storefront labeled B-Hive Coffins Fast Food - not sure I would eat there... :) The drive back had lovely views of the sun setting over the Maya mountains and the orange groves; I made Gavin turn around and stop several times so I could take pictures.

When we got back to Hopkins Inn, it was finally time to relax on the beach - the FIRST time on this whole vacation. (Gavin has been teasing me this whole vacation that I didn't plan any relaxing time, and when I am dragging him to all the different activities, he asks me "What's the matter, am I not relaxing fast enough for you?" :) ) We first walked over the the nearest grocery store across the street from the inn so Gavin could buy a Belkin beer; the national Belize beer, which he hadn't tried yet. ("It tastes just like every other country's cheap beer," he said. ) We dragged a couple adirondak chairs over in front of the water, took out our iPads and my small speakers, and sat in front of the water, me writing my journal and he reading. Gavin made a "beach bum" playlist for us to listen to on the beach. A local guy named Brian stopped to talk to us for a bit. Brian has lived here his whole life and makes carvings from driftwood. He was carrying a couple with him, maybe in hopes that we would buy them. :) He asked if we could climb the nearby coconut tree, and I said definitely not. He left us soon after, but he had planted the idea into Gavin's head. A few minutes later, Gavin suddenly got up out of his chair, walked over to the tree and started to jump up it, moving both hands and both feet at once. ("Ow! I pulled my groin!" were the first words out of his mouth. :) ) I of course didn't have my camera, but I got a picture with my iPhone, at least. :) Then I had to try myself. I climbed a bit more carefully to the height that Gavin had so he could take a picture of me, then I fell off. :)

We went to dinner at the Indian restaurant next door, which Rita had recommended. The food took FOREVER to get to our table, but it was pretty good. I tried their paneer tikka masala, and it tasted like they put several cans of tomato paste into it, along with the typical Belize habanero sauce to make it spicy. Not the best Indian food ever, but still beats rice and beans! :)

After dinner, we walked two doors down on the beach to a bar that Rita had told us was THE place to be on a Friday night. We met a couple from Austria (Jimi and Sabi) there and talked to them for a while. They are avid SCUBA divers, and Jimi had a bad ear infection. Gavin looked in his ear with our flashlight, told him he needed antibiotic drops, and then they bought our next round of drinks. :) We also played a bit of foosball with them and a few locals, which was fun, even though I am terrible at foosball. Gavin and I managed to win against Jimi and Sabi the first time we played with them, then quit while we were ahead and came back to the cabana to be lulled to sleep by ocean waves. We have another early start tomorrow...

A visit to the Underworld

Today I had reserved a tour of Actun Tunichil Muknal - a huge system of caves here in the Cayo district that houses a lot of Mayan artifacts and human remains. According to our guide, Mayans saw the caves as the homes of their gods and the entrance to the underworld, so they performed human sacrifices there as well as leaving other offerings. We got to see the remnants of these rituals.

We started out with a continental breakfast at Gumbo Limbo with our charming hosts, then we drove the two miles on their God-awful road to the western highway. About thirty minutes later we met our guide, Manuel, in the village of Teakettle, the start of the road leading to ATM. We dropped off our car and hopped into his van with two other couples who would be our tour companions, one couple from Canada and one from L.A. We then rode down another God-awful road for about an hour, surrounded by tree farms raising mahogany, oranges and more. Once we got to the entrance of the cave park, we hiked in the jungle for about 45 minutes to get to the entrance to the cave. On the way we saw cute little leaf cutter ants carrying bits of leaves about three times their size. We also saw yellow flowers littering the path in some places, but couldn't tell where they were coming from. They our guide pointed out the tree covered in blooms that was so high above the canopy that it couldn't be seen unless there was a break in the canopy! He also pointed out a cacao tree with a ripe, red bean, so I finally got to see chocolate at its source! During the hike, we had to cross the river three times - the water was pretty cold, and at times it was waist height! I was really glad I had read reviews that said to bring Keen water shoes, because we did the first river crossing five minutes into the hike, and we stayed wet for the entire rest of the day!

We stopped outside the cave entrance, where the river flowed into the cave, to take a couple pictures. Our guide gave us a couple rules for the cave: "Rule number one: no peeing in the water in the cave. Rule number two: no doing number two either!" :) Then we had to walk into the river, and suddenly the ground dropped off to fourteen feet in depth, so we had to swim into the cave! From that moment we walked, swam and slithered through 850 meters of darkness, almost always with our feet or our whole bodies in the cool, flowing water of the river! We all had hard hats and head lamps, so it wasn't too dark, except when our guide told us all to turn off our head lamps and experience the full darkness of the cave. He had us do that several times, and one of those times he decided it would be a great idea to tell us about all the nasty things that live in the caves, like centipedes, scorpions, spiders... Thank you, Manuel, that is just the thing I want to hear while I am standing in complete darkness. Luckily, I didn't see any creepy crawlies the whole time, just a couple bats.

Speaking of bats - in the ceiling of the cave were several deep holes called "bat holes." Our guide pointed them out to us, but with his accent it sounded like he was saying "butt holes," which made us giggle. (the guide admitted to us that a woman he had guided previously had though he was saying "butt holes," too... so it wasn't just our dirty minds. :) )

This cave tour was one of the most fun, amazing and adventurous things I have ever done. The stalagtite and stalagmite formations were absolutely incredible - filling caverns several stories high with sparkling drapery! There were also some hollow stalagmites that we could knock on with our knuckles and they played different pitches like a marimba! I was never claustrophobic because the spaces we were walking in were big and open, not closed and cramped. We did have to walk through neck deep water in the dark a few times, though. Once we had gotten through most of the trip, we had to crawl up some rocks to get into the main chambers, called the Cathedral Chamber and the Sepulcher Chamber. We had to take off our shoes and walk barefoot or in socks in those chambers so we would be mindful of our feet and not step on the artifacts. There was a ton of Mayan pottery in the chambers, some was even whole and unbroken! There were also several human skulls and other bones, but at the very end of the cave was the Crystal Maiden - a whole skeleton still intact of a woman who had been sacrificed to the gods, and her bones were covered in calcium carbonite, which made her sparkle - hence the name "Crystal Maiden."

On the way out of the caves, the guide took us on a more "adventurous" path. This one was definitely more interesting - we had to wedge ourselves through tiny openings in the rock while still in neck deep rushing water. Really fun and a bit thrilling! (Gavin later in the day started recounting all the dangerous things I make him do on vacations and asked if I am trying to collect on life insurance. :) )

All in all, I am so glad I decided to do the tour - I was on the fence and thought it might be a little "too" adventurous for me, but it definitely wasn't too much for me to handle. (though if I had run into any of those scorpions or centipedes, that may have been a different story... :D )

After hiking the 45 minutes back to the van and then driving another hour back to Teakettle, Gavin and I drove back toward Gumbo Limbo, stopping at the Orange Gallery to tour their shop. The shop is full of absolutely beautiful wood work, all of which is done on site. There were bowls. chairs, little nick nacks, vases, etc. We ended up getting a cutting board, a rolling pin, some wood bottles, a giant vase and a hot plate. We're suckers for hand made wood stuff, plus the wood here is so beautiful and wild looking with different colors and shades, etc. Now we just have to figure out how to pack it all...

After arriving back at Gumbo Limbo, we had a drink with Jenny and Mike and shared stories about our favorite places to travel. Then we got a lovely dinner of garlic shrimp, saffron rice and stir fried veggies. Now we are back in our room, me writing my journal and Gavin reading about top iPad apps (the Ugly Meter is in the top twenty. Nice.), and we are both getting lulled to sleepiness by the sounds of the jungle surrounding us...

Speed bumps and pot holes and dirt roads, oh my!

Today we said goodbye to Ambergris Caye and headed to Cayo District in the southwestern part of Belize. We water taxied back to Belize City, picked up the biggest POS rental car I have ever driven, then headed on our way. Our rental car is an old Isuzu SUV with over 100,000 miles on it. And not just any miles... BELIZE miles. The few highways are decently maintained, but there are a million speed bumps, some not marked clearly and others not marked at all. Both Gavin and I missed one and SLAMMED the car over one... Now you can imagine that probably every tourist that has driven this car has probably done the same, and now you know why this particular car feels like it has no shocks... Once you get off the highways, the roads are dirt, gravel and pothole in equal measure. (two of our tour guides have told us they have PHDs = Pot Hole Dodger, also Pretty Hard Drinker...)

After about two hours of driving, we finally arrived at the lovely Gumbo Limbo resort, named after the Gumbo Limbo tree, whose red, peeling bark has lead the locals to call it the "tourist tree" after the sunburned, peely tourists. (luckily my religious application of SPF 50 has saved me so far...) Our delightful hosts Jenny and Mike are British ex-pats who decided to move to Belize and live out in the middle of the jungle and run a guest house! At least, they were delightful until they offered to take me on a tarantula hunt... :) I, for obvious reasons, politely declined. Gumbo Limbo is an eco resort - they run entirely on wind and solar power, which I thought was pretty impressive... until I had to take cold showers... :)

We settled into our large and lovely room for a few minutes and had some nachos at the restaurant. We were the only guests they had for the two nights we were staying there, so we got to talk to Mike and Jenny a lot. But we had to leave right away to get to Nohoch Che'en Caves Branch to go tubing through the caves. We met our guide at the shop, and then carried our inner tubes for about a half hour hike through the jungle. Our guide, Edgar, decided to carry mine for me so I could take pictures. He showed us a lot of interesting plant life, like a little tiny plant that shrinks away and closes up when you touch it, and "strangler vine" that grows up around another tree and kills it, then continues growing until it is a hollow tree surrounding the dead tree to feed on it. He also showed us poisonwood, which can make a nasty rash like poison ivy, but the gumbo limbo tree is the antidote, and the two trees always grow close to each other. We also got to see colonies of leaf cutter ants carrying slices of leaf and whole flowers well over four times their size and we also saw huge termite colonies surrounding trunks of trees. Edgar pointed out that termites are edible, and offered to let us eat some, informing us that some taste like carrots and some taste like mint. I was sure this was a joke that guides play on tourists, so I politely declined and told him we'd watch him eat some. He DID! Edgar 1, Justine 0.

When we arrived at the entrance to the cave, we sat in our inner tubes in bracingly cold water, and our guide started to drag us into the cave. We had LED headlamps, and we were hooked together by putting our feet over each other's inner tubes - Gavin behind me and our guide in front facing me with his feet on my tube. This didn't work too well for me because since Edgar was facing me, his headlamp was shining right in my face and blinding me. Gavin noted that my bikini clad chest always had plenty of light on it... :D

In the cave we saw some nice stalagtites and stalagmites. It was just nice to float through the cave in the dark - really peaceful.

After the cave tubing, we drove back to Gumbo Limbo for a nice dinner all by ourselves in their outdoor covered restaurant, watching the geckos run around on the ceiling catching bugs. I ordered a margarita, and I think it may have been the first time our hosts had prepared a margarita; they served it WARM. :) Combine warmth with a sickly sweet bottled margarita mix, and you kind of get the impression you are drinking a melted lime popsicle. I had them bring me some ice, then it was okay. We had some delicious chocolate cake for dessert, and Gavin and I even each had our own. (I suspend the shared dessert rule on vacation. :) ) Then, "fat and happy," we retired to our room for an early turn in - another early morning adventure is planned for tomorrow...

Into the "Abyss"

Otherwise known as the Blue Hole, one of the most famous dive sites in Belize, was our destination for the third day of our trip. It is a perfectly circular hole in the ocean, surrounded by coral reefs, that drops some 400 feet deep. Most of the bottom is filled with silt and debris, but the dive to the Blue Hole goes down about 120 feet, and at the bottom there is a little cave filled with huge stalagtites and stalagmites. I was really excited to go on this dive, but a little nervous since the descent is quick and I have a lot of trouble clearing my ears. This was the main activity I wanted to do in Belize.

I believe a couple posts ago I mentioned that anyone who gets up at 6am on vacations is out of their mind? Well, to do the Blue Hole dive, we had to be AT THE DOCK at 5:30am... We rolled out of bed at 5am, grabbed our masks and wetsuits and walked to the dock, where they served us a sugar-tastic breakfast of white raisin bread, laughing cow cheese, orange "drink" and fruit. Then we were packed onto a motor boat to Caye Caulker, where we were jammed onto another full motor boat to the Blue Hole.

Close to the coastline of Belize there are no waves at all; the barrier reef forms a natural breaker. But as soon as we crossed over the reef, the ride got REALLY rough - we were boating against the wind, so crashing over large ocean waves. I had to move to the back of the boat to get a smoother ride. This was a LONG boat ride - about an hour and a half to finally get to the Blue Hole. Thank ye lawd for motion sickness patches, or I would have been a mess...

I had no idea how big the Blue Hole is from the aerial pictures I had seen on the internet. Our boat parked inside the Blue Hole, and I could barely see the far edge of it! We all set up our SCUBA equipment, then stepped over the side of the boat. Immediately everyone started descending around me, and immediately I had trouble with equalizing my ears only about 10 feet down. It took me so long to clear my ears that everyone had disappeared into the abyss - all I could see was everyone's air bubbles floating up. Then suddenly my ears started clearing normally, so I descended to the depth and met everyone else. I was excited that I would get to go down and see the underwater rock formations. I floated over the deep hole; this was the first dive I have ever been on that I couldn't see the bottom of the ocean... Then the whole group started to ASCEND! I had missed the entire thing - they had already gone down into the cave and back up! I was really upset that I had come all this way to miss the one thing I had really wanted to see. Once we got to the surface, Gavin tried to make me feel better by telling me it "wasn't that great," but he also told me that he got nitrogen narcosis while he was down there (getting loopy/drunk from all the nitrogen in your bloodstream due to deep diving), so I can't trust his opinion. :)

After Blue Hole, we went to another dive site called Half Moon Caye. The dive master encouraged me to get in the water and start descending as soon as I hit the water since it takes me so long to equalize. So I walked into the water, and for the first time in any dive I have ever done, my ears equalized quickly and easily! Maybe I am finally over my ear trouble!! I even beat Gavin down; he was looking for me around the surface since he expected me to be having my usual trouble. :) This dive was really beautiful - it was a wall dive, so we swam along the side of a huge wall of coral of every color, shape and size. Our dive master pointed out a spotted eagle ray: a huge stingray with leopard-like spots. Seeing it swim gracefully by surrounded by nothing but the abyss of the ocean, I got this incredible feeling of peace. There is nothing more peaceful and calming than being in an underwater oceanscape, swaddled by a cocoon of water pressure, surrounded by some of the most beautiful and incredible living things in existence. We also got to float along side a sea turtle eating from the coral wall. Then our dive master decided to take us all through a hole/passage through the coral wall. I was one of the last people to go through - and the person before me kicked up a storm - completely clouding the water, so I couldn't see which way to go. I got a bit freaked out and saw a hole directly upwards through the coral, and decided I would just go through that. But as a beginner diver, I tend to forget I have a big tank attached to my back. I got briefly stuck in the hole (another bit of a scare for me...) - it was barely big enough for me, but I managed to wiggle out, and luckily none of the coral there was the stinging type. :) I saw everyone else lower down on the other side of the wall looking and waiting for me. The rest of the dive was beautiful and uneventful. :)

After the Half Moon dive, we docked the boat on Half Moon Caye - a small and GORGEOUS island for which the dive site was named. We ate lunch at one of the many picnic tables interspersed between hundreds of palm trees. The caye is also home to a rare bird called the red footed booby. We could hike about 15 minutes to see a huge colony of the birds. (of course Gavin made a bunch of comments the whole way down that he was really excited to see all the boobies...) At the end of the path, we climbed up onto a platform that was above the jungle canopy, and the trees were FULL of the birds! Some males had a big red pouch that the poofed up for some reason - either to impress the girl boobies or to show up other males. The grown up ones were mostly black, but there were also some cute fuzzy white babies. Gavin complained that he had walked 15 minutes to see boobies, and all he got to see was a bunch of birds. :)

After our lunch break, we all got back into the boat to go to our last dive site, the Aquarium. As soon as I stepped into the water, I understood why it was called Aquarium. As soon as I landed in the water, I opened my eyes and saw I had landed right in the middle of a school of yellow and silver striped fish that had not even bothered to scatter when I landed in the middle of them! That is something I have noticed on all the dives and snorkeling we have done here - the sea life isn't bothered by humans in their space at all! This dive was more pretty coral and sea life, not that much different than the last one, but still lovely.

After the last dive, we had another long boat ride back to the Cayes. Gavin started to look pretty miserable - he had managed to catch a nasty sinus infection with a fever, so he had been popping ibuprofen like candy all day. We landed on Caye Caulker, where we switched back to our original boat. The driver had kindly made a HUGE vat of rum punch, which Gavin and I both partook. It was seriously the BEST rum punch ever - the main fruit was watermelon, and there were huge chunks of watermelon in it! We were a little nervous that the driver himself might have been drinking the rum punch as well... But we made it back to San Pedro in one piece. :)

Gavin felt okay enough to go out for dinner, so we walked to the Sunset Restaurant, where we watched a beautiful sunset over the Ambergris Caye lagoon. Poor Gavin had been such a good sport all day - dragging himself boating, diving and eating with me despite feeling absolutely miserable that I took him back to our cabana early so he could have a nice, long night of recovery time. :)

You'll be the Captain of this boat!

Our third day in Belize was a pretty chill one because I didn't have a specific plan, unlike my usual "MUST SEE OR DO SOMETHING AT EVERY MINUTE" planned days that are typical of most of my vacations. I have a hard time just hanging out and relaxing - I can do that at home! When I am in another place, I want to and see things that I CAN'T do and see at home!

We slept in and got up to have breakfast on our cute little private balcony. Yesterday we had bought some fresh yogurt, granola, cantelope and bread from a local grocery store, so we had a nice little meal facing the already risen sun east over the ocean. The light is so beautiful here in the morning that after breakfast I dragged Gavin out to some sea grape and palm trees in front of our cabana to do some cliche "yoga-in-the-tropics" pictures. Then we walked into downtown to rent a couple bikes and bike around the Caye a bit.

We rented from Joe's Bikes - a little local business where the husband takes care of the bikes and his wife does the paperwork while nursing her 1 year old baby. Gavin got a bright blue one, and, being a girl, I got stuck with hot pink. :) It didn't take me long to discover that these Belizean bikes lacked a few, shall we say, "amenities" that I am used to on a bike. I got on the bike and rode 20 feet to the busy intersection and realized there were no brakes on my handle bars! As I got nearer to the intersection I yelled in alarm to Gavin, "I can't stop! There are no brakes!" He responded that to brake I had to back pedal, like a little kid's bike! That definitely took some getting used to. The bikes also were only one gear, which didn't matter that much since the island is pretty flat. But despite being old and definitely well-used, the bikes rode REALLY well - it is obvious that they were really well cared for, as all the riding through the sandy roads, streets and the beach definitely has to take its toll on them!

We rode north from downtown to get to the north end of the island - crossing the steep little toll bridge between the north and south of the caye I was definitely missing lower gears on my bike. The north end of the island seems to be all larger resorts and houses, and mostly deserted. There was a little sandy path along the beach where we dodged palm trees and the occasional garden worker as we rode along the ocean. There were no shops, businesses or restaurants, just really ritzy looking housing until we saw a large thatched roof structure suspended out over the water, and in its thatched roof was carved the word "BAR." We were thirsty from biking in the heat, so we biked out on the pier to it. Upstairs in the bar I ordered a watermelon juice and we split nachos while listening to a group of 40-something women gossip loudly over a couple too many beers. When we were done with our drinks, we went back down onto the peer below the bar to unlock our bikes and continue on. As I was getting out the keys for our bike locks, I noticed that the slats of wood that formed the pier were wide enough for the keys to fall through if I dropped them. I moved to the other side where the slats were closer together, while telling Gavin that it would be just my lock to drop the key through the slats into the ocean. I handed Gavin his key, and before he even got his bike unlocked HE dropped the key through the slats! We realized we couldn't just pay for a new lock because his bike was still locked and he had no way to get it loose! I went back up to the bar to see if anybody had a snorkeling mask so Gavin could look underwater for the key. One of the bartenders happened to have a mask, so Gavin jumped in and found the key pretty quickly. Tragedy averted. :)

Since Gavin thought the water felt so nice, he wanted to stay and swim for a while, so I jumped in with him and we swam under the dock to the other side of the bar where they had tied several inner tubes. As we sat and floated in the tubes, we read the abundance of graffiti all over the underside of the dock, including such gems as, "I did pee where you float," "Only bar where you can pee and drink at the same time," and "A woman let me put my penis inside of her RIGHT HERE" with an arrow. I hadn't seen anyone drinking in the water, but then some other people came into the tubing area and the bartender lowered a bucket full of beer two stories down to the tubes for them! How convenient! Too bad I hate beer, and there is no, say, bucket 'o margaritas.

After crawling out of the water at Palapa (the name of the bar), we biked back into downtown and farther south than we had been on the island before. We saw a HUGE resort called Ramon's Village - complete with a private beach, spa, beautiful gardens, etc. Gavin wanted to eat there for dinner, so we biked back to our cabana (stopping for more custard on the way...) to shower and get ready for dinner.

Ramon's village restaurant was decent, but a little cheesy. The waiter kept saying "No problemo" even though nobody else says that here. They were all wearing cheesy green hawaiian shirts. When I ordered the Pineapple Boat for dinner, the waiter said "You'll be the captain of that boat!" Gavin and I think he says that to EVERYONE who orders that particular dish... :) It had some fancy description on the menu, but it was really just shrimp fried rice in a hollowed out pineapple. :)

Gavin started to feel like he was getting sick, so we headed back to our cabana, stopping at Fido again along the way to grab a drink and listen to a pretty good band. After that, we took the nice moonlit bike ride back to go to bed.

UnBelizeable

These plays on words between "believe"and "Belize" abound around here, but they still make me smile. :)

Our first full day in Belize we were woken up by the sun rising over the ocean through our cabana windows - at 6am. Well, actually it was only me who was woken up by it, as Gavin can sleep through anything the world can provide in light or noise, a skill which I have yet to acquire... I let him sleep for a couple more hours, since who in their right mind gets up at 6am on vacation? When he finally woke up, we walked down the beach to have breakfast at a lovely beachside restaurant attacked Estel's. The huevos rancheros were really tasty, and I had my first experience with Belizan "fry jacks.". Basically, they are like our east coast fried dough, but served for breakfast EVERY DAY, not only at the Big E. :). I am also totally hooked on the fresh watermelon juice that is served at every restaurant here; so perfectly refreshing on a hot Belize day!

After breakfast we wandered around the small downtown area, doing a little shopping and exploring. Gavin actually bought a pair of sunglasses - the first he has owned in his life - because it is so bright and sunny here! I told him he is getting soft in his "old age" since previously he had refused to wear sunglasses on principle. :). For lunch we stopped at a little roadside stand and bought some rice and beans. I asked for just a little, and the woman gave me probably a good three pounds of the stuff! Gavin and I ate it as we walked to the south side of downtown for our first water activities of the trip; I had scheduled a diving and snorkeling trip to Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray alley.

Belize is lined on its east side with a barrier coral reef, and Hol Chan is a channel through the coral reef that is a little "highway" for a ton of marine life. It is not very deep - the dive is only about thirty feet - so I thought it would be a good "starter" dive for me with my trouble equalizing my ears. Our dive master named Eddie took us first to see some sea turtles - we could get within a few feet of them as they fed on the sea grass that covered the bottom. We were about a mile away from shore, but the water was still only about 6-12 feet deep! After floating with the sea turtles for a bit, Eddie started to take us into the channel. Through the channel we swam near to HUGE grouper, many schools of fish, saw a couple stingrays and reef sharks...

It was apparent that Eddie liked to "mess with" the marine life. He poked a little metal pin he had into the sand under a hole in the coral, and then a moray eel came out! He did this at several different holes, spending almost 5 minutes at one, at which point Gavin gave me the "cuckoo" hand signal, circling his finger around his ear. It is hard to laugh with a regulator in your mouth. :) Gavin got bored of waiting for him to stop playing and forgot to be mindful of the coral and got stung when his knee hit an innocent looking frond. After Eddie got bored with tormenting eels, he took us through a small cave/archway in the coral, barely big enough for two people to be inside at once. Inside was a HUGE school of yellow and silver fish each about twice the size of my hand that didn't even swim away at our approach; they weren't scared of us at all! That was probably my favorite part of the whole dive! When we came out of the cave, Eddie found another poor little thing to torture: a jellyfish. It was pristine transparent white and probably 1.5 times as big as my head - really beautiful to see one in the ocean. So Eddie floated over to the poor thing and put his bare hand on the top of it and started pushing it around - the poor thing turned WRONG SIDE OUT, like a contact when you accidentally flip it wrong side out. I guess if you touch its head it can't sting you. Gavin approached and was about to touch it on the tentacles, and Eddie gave him the "get back" and "it will hurt your skin" hand signs, and I had to laugh through my regulator again. :) Another thing I observed about the current through the channel is all the different temperatures of water; I could be completely still, and I would feel the water suddenly get as warm as bath water, then just as suddenly it would turn into ice water! The coral itself was not all that colorful; we have been to the Great Barrier Reef, so pretty much no coral has impressed us since then. :) But we did get to swim with so many creatures that we had never seen SCUBA diving before: the eels, sea turtles, stingrays, jellyfish...

After the dive, we got back into the boat for a few minutes to travel over to Shark Ray Alley, a place where fishermen used to clean their catches, which attracted sharks and stingrays to pick up the scraps. Nowadays nobody cleans fish, but enough tourist boats arrive and feed them that many still approach every boat that arrives... Eddie didn't actually chum the water, he just encouraged us to snorkel over to the next boat over where the boat captain was throwing all kinds of stuff into the water, attracting a feeding frenzy of sharks and rays. The sharks at Shark Ray Alley are the "harmless" kind, just nurse sharks that aren't interested in eating humans, so they said... Eddie followed us over to where the sharks and rays were feeding and continued his trend of messing with the marine life. He actually CAUGHT a shark in his arms; the nurse sharks are about three feet long. He told us to only pet it behind the gills, otherwise it will bite. No crap, Eddie. The shark felt rough and scratchy, almost like sandpaper. The next thing he caught was a stingray, which we also got to pet; it felt soft and slimy like a wet mushroom. (Eddie told us not to pet the stinger. Thank you, Captain Obvious...) The stingrays were all around us, having stayed around to nibble the fish bits that were continuously being thrown into the water. These were HUGE stingrays - the biggest we saw was around four feet or more in "wingspan!" It was really amazing to be surrounded by so many of these beautiful, dangerous, graceful creatures.

After the snorkeling/diving trip, we went back to town and decided to try out DandE's Custard, a highly recommended custard shop by Lonely Planet. Basically, custard is soft serve ice cream on crack, and this was no exception! I had some really tasty scoops of mint-chocolate chip and coconut flavors. The perfect treat for a hot Belize day!

After custard, we went to dinner at a beach restaurant named Lily's Hidden Treasure, which had been highly recommended to us by a couple that snorkled with us. Sea food is supposed to be fresh and amazing here, so I tried out their shrimp ceviche, which had RAW habanero peppers as a garnish! Now I can take a decent amount of spicy food, but I was definietely "feeling it" after a few bites with raw habaneros. but the funny thing about habaneros is that they hit you hard, but the heat is gone quickly. I also had some fresh snapper, which would have been really good had I not already been full from the large portion of ceviche... But this is typically how our eating goes on vacation; we eat until we're stuffed, then keep on eating. :) (it also doesn't help that doing any kind of water activity makes me RAVENOUS!) Being completely stuffed and not in the mood for drinking, we took the romantic, moon lit walk along the beach back to our cabana to dream sweet, Belizan dreams.

You betta Belize it!

The title phrase of this post adorns many a sunburned tourist wandering down the streets of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. But despite the abundance of tourists and tourism industry, San Pedro is still charming and lovely. After a couple short plane rides, a water taxi ride (that miracle of all miracles DIDN'T MAKE ME VOMIT!) and another short taxi ride dodging lazy tourists riding golf carts through a town that is not more than a couple miles long, we made it to Hotel del Rio n the north side of San Pedro. We are staying in the Dream House cabana, which would be pretty dreamy with its thatched roofs, colorful hammocks and refreshing ocean breezes, but the Dream House became the stuff of nightmares when my first welcome to Belize was from a cockroach that scuttled out when I opened my suitcase... Gavin said probably everyone on the property probably heard me screaming. :) I told him they are probably used to tourists and their altercations with the local bug life.

We had the rest of the day to walk around and explore, so we walked down the beach into the main downtown area for dinner. The oceanside area here is not a traditional beach; the tide doesn't appear to go in and out, but stays at the same level. So there is a hard packed sand road that runs along the coast most of the way down the island, lined by sea grapes, mangroves and palm trees on one side, and resorts, shops, bars and restaurants on the other side. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Crave. Gavin ordered one of the most ridiculous meals I have ever heard of: steak wrapped in chicken breast which was then breaded and deep fried and then smothered in thick, creamy gravy! I could only take one bite of the gravy, and that alone was too rich for me! My shrimp tacos were really tasty, though! And the black beans were to die for! I also had a yummy "islandy" drink called Crocodile Juice, and then one that was not so yummy - a coconut mojito. All I could think of as I drank it was a nail polish I had as a kid that smelled like coconut when dry; I imagine if I had ever taken a sip of that nail polish, it would probably have tasted like that drink... We rounded off the meal with chocolate tres leches cake - still can't beat the tree leches from Costa Rica, but this had hot pepper in the chocolate, which is one of my FAVORITE flavor combinations! After dinner we went to a thatched roof bar on the beach called Fido where there was live music and more tasty beverages. There was also a nice gift shop with Belizan arts and crafts; we got a nice, carved vase. After listening to the music and finishing our drink, we took the moonlit walk back down to beach to our Dream House cabana to dream sweet, island dreams.

Also, a note on this Belize trip: Gavin forgot the cable to connect our camera to our iPad to download the pictures, so I'll have to post pictures after we get home! :)

Get out and see the world!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog! My little corner for the web came about because I always write travel journals of all the fun places we go, and various friends and family have enjoyed reading them, so I may as well put them online! My hope is that my little blog will inspire you as the reader to get out and experience the wonderful world we live in; there is so much more out there than the familiar and comfortable. I hope you will, gasp, cry and scream along with me as we drive, fly, walk, swim and stumble our way through some of the most amazing experiences of our lives!