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...
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