This year I took a trip with Hannah to Belize. As always it was an adventure. We spent the first day of the trip trying to land in Belize city. It was rainy with low clouds and the pilot kept pulling out of the landing at the last minute. We got to check out check out the airport in San Pedro, Honduras and San Salvador, El Salvador. After four failed attempts to land the airline put us up in a nice Radisson in San Salvador.
- Sunrise from the San Salvador Radisson
The next day we made it into Belize city with no problems although Hannah's bag didn't show up. We met our driver out to the Jaguar Paw Jungle Resort. It is a nice mellow place right next to a river cave system.
- The place we were staying was next to the entrance to the crystal caves
They also had a butter fly farm, some squashes, and a monkey named gumbo that liked to eat cigarette butts.
- The place had a butterfly house.
- Hannah holding a caterpillar
- They also had a young howler monkey named Gumbo
From the resort we set up a couple tours to some of the local attractions. We first went to Caracol, Belize's largest Mayan ruins. It was pretty impressive site. I guess the Mayans that lived at Caracol used to attack the nearby Tekal ruins in Guatemala.
- Caracol
- This was the biggest thing they built.
We visited Caracol on the solstice but we didn't make it for sunup. We had to have an army guide for the long dirt road trip out to the site because there was a robbery in the past. On the way out our guide Fidelio confessed that he was on the road when the robbery happened. He didn't stop he just told his passengers to duck and he gunned it. I guess the tourist in the passenger seat got shot in the arm. Fidelio took us into Saint Ignacio so Hannah could buy an extra pair of underwear.
We went on a couple cave tours. The coolest one was to the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave. You had to swim into it and wade up this river for 45 minutes before climbing up to a chamber full of stalagmites and tites. It was cool because it had a lot of Mayan artifacts that had been calcified into the cave including lots of pots and human ramians. It is also known as the cave of the crystal maiden because of this skeleton.
We took another cave tour by our hotel. Here is Hannah with our guide Isreal. We had a lot of cool guides on the trip.
- Hannah and our guide Isreal
After the jungle we headed out to Caye Caulker. Hannah still didn't have her bag and she was told to just fill out the claim forms because she probably wouldn't get it back. Here is our place at DaRealMacaw. We had the upper cabana and spent a lot of time sitting in the hammock.
- Our place on Caye Caulker
We went out on this sailboat and got to snorkel with the sharks and rays. We also went to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve an saw a couple eels and a lobster. We had lots of rum punch and conch ceviche. :drunken:
- We went on a sailing snorkeling trip
We hung out with Steve the captain of the boat for the rest of the trip.
- Steve the sailboat captain.
We also went out manatee watching and saw lots of noses.
- Manatee nose
On the manatee trip we snorkeled around this small island. It was the best snorkeling we did.
- The snorkeling was really good around this island
We got to the airport a little early so Hannah could fill out the forms to get money for the 2Gs of stuff she lost in her bag. Before we got on the plane the guy she was working with came up to us and told us that they had found her bag in San Salvador. It was waiting for us when we arrived back in San Francisco. :banghead:
