A Time of Change
Well, today (Friday) is a time of change here for us at this fledgiling blog in Belize. For one we’re actually writing on this blog, for a change. And yesterday, we sadly said goodbye to Doug & Donna (who flew back to the US), two crafty veterans who were not only the senior-most members of ‘You Better Belize It’ but also our largest financial backers to date. And finally, we find ourselves in the beautiful yet uber-touristy island/town of San Pedro for the remainder of our stay this weekend.
Since we last updated the blog, we were wrapping up our stay in Caye Caulker last Friday, still riding high from a rollicking two days on the water w/Carlos tours. On saturday we rented a car in Belize City, and headed inland to the town of San Ignacio, a town in western Belize and the capital of the ‘Cayo District’. We posted up at the Aguada Hotel for a two night stay, the highlight of which was a cave trip with MayaWalk to explore the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave, filled with ancient Mayan Ruins. Cheryl & I had done a cave trip previously in New Zealand, however this trip was MUCH different and not at all what we expected (in a good way). This was a full on, swimming in cave water, crawling/bending/contorting through narrow passages, ancient Mayan artifacts (and in some cases, bones) all around us cave adventure. It was surreal and fantastic. It was about a 45 minute mellow hike to the cave and Doug, Donna, Cheryl & I had a great guide, Danny, who was a true local who definitely looked out for us and really knew his stuff (the company we went through was a great outfit called MayaWalk Tours)
Hard to fully describe the cave trip other than it may have been the highlight of our trip here in Belize…I will hopefully be getting pics up here shortly and let them do most of the talking.
From San Ignacio, we headed out early Monday morning to the cozy little beach town of Placencia, with the noble intentions of seeing the great and mysterious Whale Shark (check the link to learn more about the Whale Shark, they are pretty interesting and tough to see). We have a semi history with the Whale Shark, as we attempted to see them in Honduras as well but were unsuccessful. Anywho, we loaded up on a tour boat (the company was Splash and they did a good job) with a predominantly scuba diving group (ourselves and another couple of people were snorkeling). The good news was that the Whale Sharks we finally spotted on Tuesday (they hadn’t been seen yet this year, and once they appear they’re basically around for a 3 or 4 day window)! The great news was that our trip was on Wednesday and we probably would see them! The disappointing news was, yes they were out on Wed. but only the scuba divers (who went deep enough) could see them, and us snorkelers were too high to see any (the scuba people were actually trying to get them to swim up closer to the surface so we could see them). The horrible, add insult to injury and literally make us want to vomit news is that we (basically Cheryl/her mom/me and kinda but not so much Doug) had a staggering case of motion sickness on the boat, as well as in the water, that rendered us largely useless, if not worse. I cannot for the life of me ever recall being so ill due to motion. We took a good hour and a half boat ride pretty far out into the ocean, and this particular patch of water was pretty rough as far as we’ve seen (in our limited experience). Swaying back & forth, BIG waves in the water…it definitely gets to you. And the bonus for the scuba people is that you go below all these swaying waves, whereas the scuba guys are just rocking up & down up on the surface. In summary, we didn’t get to see the Whale Sharks (again, we think it’s just not in the cards for us), and got pretty ill. But we did have a nice mellow snorkel around another cool reef at lunchtime, saw a bunch of cool fish and coral (again), so it wasn’t a total loss. Can’t complain.
So this is where we are now (actually I just remembered that on the way to San Ignacio we stopped by the Belize Zoo which was very cool), we dropped off Cheryl’s parents on Thursday at the airport, and we made our way to San Pedro, where we’re going to have a pretty tame couple of days until we fly out Monday. San Pedro is a big, tourist town, but nice. Definitely built up, tons of restaurants/bars/shops/college kids on spring break (Cheryl & I feel about 100 years old) feel to it. After all these small cool little beaches/towns, it kinda does feel like we’re not in Belize anymore at times. But we’re definitely enjoying it, just going to sort of wander around the town, eat, drink, sit on the beach, buy souvenirs, etc. It’s actually pretty crazy busy here this weekend, it’s Easter which is HUGE here and tons of people are on holiday. Probably going to have some odds & ends posts over the weekend (hoping to get another photo album up of all this stuff sometime this weekend soon) so check back soon. Until next time, Cheers!
Tags: San Pedro
mischaefe
We miss Belize and you two sweet guys. Doug wants you to know he did not get seasick at all-probably because he is off balace most of the time anyway. Your writing is always so witty. Donna and Doug
First off, who is Caye Caulker, sounds like a porno name. I hope the two of you are having a wonderful time. If you see the penguins down there, tell them they need to win four games not three and to get their ass to tampa to do their job. Sounds like you two are having fun, thats great. Have a good time and be safe. Love Matt P.S. What the hell with Kern