Category: Vacations and Travel

I cannot stand to be locked up at home. I want to get out and explore the neighborhood, the state, the country, and the world. I want to experience new cultures and eat new foods. I want to discover for myself the wonders of the world I live in. And as I go, I want to record–both with pictures and words. Here is where you will find those travels, and share in my thoughts and thrills as I travel both locally and abroad.

Modes of Transportation

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After a a walk to the store and a hearty breakfast, Sarah and I took a pair of the resort bikes into town. These were not as nice as the one I had rode into town earlier–which wasn’t that nice to begin with–but they worked as transportation. Plus, bicycles have the added advantage of not having to pay to cross the bridge into town. On the way, Sarah spotted a large lizard. We don’t think it was an iguana, but it looked similar.

Once we arrived, we stopped at the Blue Water Grill to make dinner reservations, and get a little refreshment–the ride had dehydrated us. Sarah had an iced tea, and I had one of my favorites, a watermelon juice. We also ordered a large plate of fruit which we shared between the two of us.

We then walked over to a store near the small airport which sold swim suits, but they were closed on Sundays. We checked out a gift shop, and then went to the town’s largest grocery store. They did not have oranges, but they did have a horchata concentrate mix that we purchased.

We went back to the condo and did some more reading–I’ve finished both magazines I brought along, and am about a third of the way through my book. At around 4:30, our golf cart arrived. We had reserved one for a 24 hour period so we could go into town for dinner that evening, and do some exploring the next day.

We left for dinner at around 7:00. It was dark, and so we had to figure out where the key hole was by cell phone flashlight. All golf carts use the same key, so there is a bar that locks the steering wheel, that has a padlock on it. As apparently standard for the area, the key had to be in the lock and turned for the lock to be closed. Shifting is done by a knob under the seat, but there were only three “gears”: forward, reverse, and neutral. We found that we had one of the slower golf carts, and since the road was full of bumps and I didn’t want David and Anita to fall of the back, I was slowing down to almost a stop quite often. We actually got stuck on a speed bump once, and I had to back up and take it a little faster to make it over. The break was not particularly good; stepping on it with full force would gently slow you down, but so would taking your foot off of the accelerator. All in all, it was an adventure, and kind of fun.

Dinner went well, and we were able to get back to the resort after some confusion on the unmarked one-way streets through town. It was a good day.

Another Lazy Day

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Today was another reading day. I am getting antsy to go out and do something, but we sat around reading again. It is nice sitting in the warm weather, despite the constant wind, but I still want to take advantage of being in a foreign country, on an island that I will probably never visit again.

Sarah and I did look into diving, but the wind is too strong and the seas too rough; all of the diving trips are being canceled. I was hoping to do Shark Ray Alley and possibly the Blue Hole, but was told that they probably will not be taking people out diving again until Thursday or Friday. We go home on Thursday.  Parasailing was also canceled because of the wind, although we were told that Jet Skis would be great right now with the waves. They are pretty expensive, but we may have to look into them. We did end up reserving a golf cart for tomorrow (at $90 for a 24 hour period–ouch), and will do some exploring on Monday. 

We have dinner plans coming up in just a little while, and the restaurant is going to send a boat out to our resort to pick us up. It sounds like a fancy place, and the food should be good.

Just off the coast, maybe a mile out, we can see the surf crashing against the barrier reef. There are huge waves, and the reef is the second longest in the world. I would love to get a kayak out to get a little closer, but today was too windy for that as well. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

Update

We were picked up for dinner by a pretty fast speed boat, and taken along the super-highway that lies between the coastline and the reef. It was dark when we left, and the stars were bright in the sky. The boat was quite fast, and it was a thrilling trip. Coming into the dock, we barely missed ramming a dark boat that was running with no lights. Our captain was quite upset at the other boat, and reasonably so. Dinner at Portofino was good. Sarah and I shared a lobster with angel hair pasta and Aglio Eolio. We each took haft of each dish. The wind was still blowing on the way back, and we had to dodge waves crashing through the cracks of the dock, but the boat ride itself was relatively smooth, with just a bit of spray.

Belize Navidad

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First off, I have to apologize for the punny title, but I couldn’t resist.

I have spent several Christmases in tropical places. In Hawaii, we tend to go to the beach and snorkel. In Viet Nam, there was a Christmas Eve show. Here, we hardly noticed that it was Christmas. We had no gifts to exchange, and there were minimal decorations. Although it sounds like there was a white Christmas back home, we had a white sand Christmas here. The day was lazy, and I have no pictures to share. We read outside for most of the day, with the ocean waves and some island Christmas music as a back-drop. The resort restaurant had a special turkey dinner, and we watched Frozen before going to bed.

It was a quiet and restful day.

Island Hopping

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 We woke up early again today, and I once again watched the sun rise over the horizon before packing up all of my belongings. The wind was blowing, and waves were splashing up on our front dock. We ate breakfast and said our final good-byes, before boarding the boat for the last time.

We got to the airport about 20 minutes before our flight–which was plenty of time to do everything we needed to. We took the island hopper again, and flew the 25 minutes to Belize International Airport. After letting Seth and Mai off–they were headed for Costa Rica–we flew another five minutes to a smaller airport, where we caught a flight to San Pedro. Done was our all-inclusive. We had to start tipping by the job, and we had ground crew, a driver, a boat driver, and the concierge all looking for a tip.

When we were showed our room, it was incredible. It was a two bedroom condo with a kitchen. The floors were hard-wood and marble, the family bathroom was tiled, and the master bathroom had a soaking tub with lounger for two people, and a stone shower. There was a walk-in closet that was bigger than all of our closet space at home. David and Anita were kind enough to let us take the master bedroom. (I know, pictures of a hotel room in a vacation blog is not the thing people want to see, but I was just too impressed.)

 

After settling in, we went to lunch, and then I rode a hotel bike the three and a half miles into town. I had accidentally left my swimsuit at the resort where we went cave tubing, so I needed to buy a new one. I also needed to pick up a few groceries for our stay. The store I was told to go to had just closed, so I found another store where I could purchase swim wear. After that, I got groceries and raced back to the hotel. The bicycle was supposed to be back by 4, and I got it there by 4:15–close.

While typing up this blog post on the veranda, the power went out for about 10 minutes. Something must have happened in town, but we got it back pretty quick. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. 

Cave Tubeing

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Today was another early morning. We got up at 6, ate breakfast, and then boarded the boat for shore once again. Today, we were headed out to do some cave tubing. After dropping a couple off at the airport, we headed up to Cave River Resort, where we boarded the old bus once again. This time, instead of repelling gear, we took along inter tubes. We took a short hike through the orchard, and then got into a slow moving river and started paddling upstream. It wasn’t long before we reached the mouth of a large cave system.

 

Our goal was to tube and hike deep into the cave, exploring and examining Myan artifacts. The river was higher than normal, and the current was stronger. However, Sarah’s mom and dad, Seth and Mai,. and Sarah and I were able to make our way into the mouth of the cave, where we saw stalagmites and stalagmites, and large columns. It was a large cave, with lots of things to see. The ceiling must have been 30 to 40 feet up, and the river may have been up to 5 feet or deeper in places.

We traveled upstream past where you could see light from the exit. We were shown brain suckers–strands of sticky web that would attach to passing bugs. We also saw a scorpion spider–very creepy. We saw fruit bats, but were told there were also vampire bats, centipedes and millipedes that made their home in the cave.

 

We had to climb up onto a ledge to get into one of the chambers. There, we were shown a carving of a Myan fertility god. Our guide told us about how the Myans would come and make a sacrifice to the fertility god, and believed that by the time the woman reached the entrance of the cave, she was already pregnant. However, she had to sacrifice her first child to the god, or it would die of sickness, and she would never be able to get pregnant again. If she did sacrifice the child, she would have as many children as she wanted. Archaeologist dug for the bones of the children in the room next to a stalagmite that was carved to look like a pregnant woman, but found none. Another chamber, deeper in the cave, contained several bones from human sacrifices, and this is where the archaeologist believe the children were buried.

We went back and ate a nice lunch next to the underground river, and then boarded the tubes to float back out of the cave and into the jungle.

We purchased some cheese at the resort, and then headed back to our island. We had to pick up a few other people at the airport, and the planes were late, so we stopped to watch some children perform a tribal dance, and for some unknown reason they decided to pull me into it. They all had cool masks and shells, and I just had bare feet. Somehow I managed to make it through the ordeal–I wish I could say my pride was still in tact, but I am sure they were laughing at me behind those masks. We picked the late arrivals up from the airport and headed for the docks. The crossing was the roughest yet, but we made it and had another great meal. It was our last night on the island, and we were a little sad that we were leaving. However, tomorrow we will be heading to la isla bonita–San Pedro.

Snorkeling

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Today I got up early and watched the sun rise from our deck. The family met for breakfast, and then we boarded a boat for an ocean adventure. Sarah and I were going to do a three tank dive, and the rest of the group was going to snorkel. We got as far as the next island over before the boat broke down. They pulled up to a dock, made a few calls, and decided that for safety, they needed to cancel the trip. We were all disappointed as we headed back to our island, however it was better than getting stuck in the middle of the Caribbean.

 When we got back, one of the members of our party got Thatch Caye to comp us a snorkel tour. We went out to a reef called the Aquarium, and snorkeled for an hour. We were going to go to a second place but had to cut the trip short due to one person getting sea-sick. The time out there was fun, however, and the boat ride was a good sight-seeing tour. 

Once we got back, we had lunch, and then I decided to try paddle-boarding around the island. The west side went just fine, and I was at the northern point in no time. However, the wind was kicking up around here, and paddling was difficult. I eventually had to kneel on the board. As I went around the northern point to the east side of the island, the wind really kicked up, and I had to start dealing with chop. It was a struggle making it from the north point to the south point on the west side, and by the time I got there I was exhausted. I jumped into the water on a particularly white sand-bar, and cooled off before hopping back on the board, standing up, and traveling back to my starting point.

To celebrate my exertion, I went to the bar and had a Zombie. Omar, our bartender, liked the idea of the drink so much that he made it the drink of the day. I have a feeling that relaxation is big in my immediate future. I have a good book and a hammock that I intend to make use of. Perhaps I’ll share that hammock with another Zombie.

Island Day

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Today was an island day. We decided not to do any tours, but instead try out all of the amenities that the island has to offer. And relax. Relaxing was the emphasis for the first half of the day. I was able to get caught up on my blog posts, which I was far behind, and take a leisurely walk around the island. Everyone else did some shore snorkeling, but I decided to focus on taking pictures and lounging around.

After dinner, there was a local African drum circle with chanting. I am writing this as I listen, which is why you don’t have to uffer through as much text. Just sit back and enjoy the pictures.

After lunch, we took some paddle boards out to test our balance. I was happy that I was able to get up, and when I dove into the water after a bit of paddling, I was surprised at how warm the water was. I was expecting at least a little shock from the chill, but it was a perfect temperature. We swam and paddled and played for an hour or so. I even made a sand castle on my board from the pure white sand from the ocean floor.

After paddling around, I took a quick shower, and was going to go read on a hammock, but just outside my door I saw a spotted eagle ray. We watched this swim around our hut for about thirty minutes before it decided to try another hunting ground. I continued my attempt to read, but got caught up in talking to Omar, one of our bartenders. More people showed up, and eventually I gave up on all pretenses of reading. 

The Black Hole

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Today, Seth, Mai and I ventured off to do the Black Hole–a 300 foot repelling expedition in the Belizean jungle. I got up at 6:30, showered, and grabbed a quick breakfast. We then boarded the boat for the mainland. The resort van was waiting for us, and took us an hour into the mountains to a jungle resort. From there, we boarded an old stereotypical run-down bus. We took this a ways into an orange orchard, heading towards the jungle, where we promptly got stuck. Although it is not the rainy season, it has been raining quite a bit over the last couple of days. After five minutes of back and forth, we decided that we had made it far enough, called for a tow, and started walking.

 The jungle was muddy. The jungle was full of mosquitoes. We used DEET. Lots of it. We walked up a steep, muddy path through a dense jungle. It was very slippery, and there were several people who fell down. After about an hour of up and down, we arrived at a spot that they said was the Black Hole. However, we had to wait for the previous group to finish before we could continue, so we had lunch. It consisted of home-made tortillas, carrots, onions, salami, cheese, hard boiled egg, and cabbage–a build-your-own burrito. After lunch, we continued around to the other side.

The Black Hole is a 300 foot deep sink-hole in the middle of the Belize jungle. We were there to repel down into it, and I was up first. I had my harness and helmet on, and was locked onto the repel line. We were using a ladder connection rather than a figure eight, which pretty much meant that you had to force your way down. However, walking down the steep slope to the edge, and then looking down the 300 feet to the jungle below was an adrenaline rush. Walking off the edge, to the “hell-hole rappel”–sitting ,and lowering yourself with nothing to keep your feet on–was also a bit frightening. Really, just hanging there, hundreds of feet above the jungle, surrounded by cliffs and caves, was an amazing experience. I later described the trip as buying drugs. The drug of choice was adrenaline, and I was manufacturing it, but the Black Hole was the catalyst.

 

 Since I am writing this post–Mai-Tai in hand–you know that I made it safely to the bottom. I waited for the other people from our island to make it down, taking some pictures of the various caves. Once those of us from Thatch Caye were all on the ground, we left the second group and joined the first group. We were late for our pickup. We made pretty good time climbing out of the Black Hole, but it was still a long and slippery trek back to the bus. From there it was about a two and a half hour journey back to our island. We were so caked in mud that we had to wear plastic garbage bags so we didn’t get the van dirty.

   We were greeted with drinks and snacks, which I partook in before heading for a nice long shower–that included my jeans and shoes. We spent a little more time at the starfish bar, which is on a platform over the ocean, before heading towards dinner. I was distracted for a while with the slack line, and then enjoyed a nice meal of freshly caught fish. It was a wonderful day.

Thatch Caye

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Although technically this is the same day as my last post, that day was today. Since one post is travel, while the other is our new home, I hope that my readers will forgive me for creating a journal entry starting with our arrival at Thatch Caye. We were greeted at the dock by Sarah. This was an easy one. It didn’t take me long to learn that by the end of the day, everyone that I dealt with would know my name, and to keep from sounding like a complete fool, I made a strong effort to learn their names. By the end of the day, I learned our host’s name, Sarah (think Mr. Rourke from Fantasy Island), our bartenders, Omar and Clarence (think Isaac from The Love Boat), and the head grounds keeper Indie (think–er., the head grounds keeper, Indie).

We have a thatch-roofed hut over the water with slate floor, and a shell faucet. There are hammocks hanging on our porch, which we promptly fell into. Sarah took a nap while I went out exploring. The island is nine acres. Our Enumclaw property was 8 acres. It is a one-mile walk from one end of the island to the other. The north end is still pretty undeveloped, and needs some cleaning, but it also provides the most private beach. The power comes from a combination of a wind turbine and solar power, with a gas generator to take up the slack. The toilets flush with salt water from the ocean, while the shower runs on recycled rain water. Every meal so far has been gourmet.

  

 At night, the weather got a bit stormy. The hammocks were sideways, one chair was blown against our deck railing, and we could hear the sea getting rough. The side of the hut was battered by rain. It was a very comforting thing to fall asleep to.

Travel Day

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Our journey to Belize was a comedy of errors that began nearly two weeks before we ever left for the airport. Sarah’s reservations for one leg of the trip were accidentally made under her maiden name by one of her family members. To correct it cost an additional $400 dollars, and resulted in her having to take a separate flight on the first part of our journey, and us not being able to sit together from LAX to Belize. On the plus side, we both had window seats.

As we were waiting to board the plane to Belize, we received an email from Sarah’s parents saying that their flight had been delayed for three or four hours. This meant that they were now scheduled to be landing ten minutes before we were scheduled to take off. We let the gate agent know they were coming. We let the stewardesses know. We sat on the gangway, refusing to get on the plane so they couldn’t close the door. Two people from her parent’s flight came running down t. he gangway, saying that the plane was unloading at the gate right next to ours, but they had been sitting in the front of the plane. We waited, and eventually had to get on the plane. As we were walking towards our seats, Sarah’s parents showed up. After some quick and relieved greetings, we all went to our separate seats, and settled in for the red-eye flight.

We arrived in Belize at 8 a.m. local time, having left home at 1 p.m. the previous day. However, we were not to our final destination yet. Going through customs was uneventful outside of the power at the airport going out–never had that happen before. All of our luggage, including Sarah’s parents’ bags, arrived safely. We were moved to an earlier flight to Dangriga, and went to sit in the small Belizean airport. We had not eaten since 4 p.m. the previous day, but there were no places to purchase food here.

Getting on the next plane was where our vacation really started for me. It was a small plane that held 12 people, but the four of us and one local were the only passengers. I got to sit behind the pilot and watch him fly. We made about a five-minute jaunt to Belize City, and then flew to Dangriga. In this tiny airport, we met up with Seth and Mai, and boarded a van which took us to the docks. From there, we boarded a boat, and started a rough 9 mile crossing to a private island where the six of us would be joining eight other guests. The entire journey took approximately 23 hours.