For Leah’s 30th birthday, we set out for Belize for 12 days of adventure and R&R. It was an amazing time with exciting activities, beautiful scenery, fabulous beaches, lush jungles, and interesting people. Of course, an amazing vacation wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t take LOTS of pictures. Therefore, the next few blog posts will be a description of the amazing time we had, and will share some of the pictures we took with the 4 cameras we brought; that’s right, 4 cameras: 1 waterproof camera, 1 waterproof video camera, 1 DSLR, and one standard point & shoot!
This first post starts with our introduction to Belize at the airport, and goes onto the first day’s jungle adventure.
We walked into the Airport to the sound of Belizean island music-- a perfect start to our vacation! We didn't notic the "NO Photography" sign until editing the picture for this blog!We took a bus from the Airport to where we were staying on the Mainland, 3 miles East of Guatemala. Nothing like getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere, at dusk, hoping the bus driver stopped at the right place!!!Fortunately, the bus driver dropped us off at the right spot, and we had just a short walk up some stairs (which is actually a bit of work when you carry a large suitcase!), and we were able to check in without issue at the Trek stop. The sounds of birds and bugs here was awesome!Waking up the next morning (after a battle with a colony of carpenter ants in the bathroom the previous night), we had a delicious home-cooked breakfast in the Trek Stop restaurant and lounge.After breakfast, we joined some people from "G-Adventures Tours", and headed out for a jungle hike and river cave exploration, called the ATM cave expedition. This picture was taken on the side of the road while waiting for some other people to join the tour. This was our first introduction to "Belize" time, which is a special time zone where things happen when they happen, regardless of schedule 🙂Hiking in the jungle was amazing! We hiked 1-2 miles to get to the ATM cave entrance, along a well groomed flat trail with lots of beautiful overhead foilage and awesome wildlife sounds. It did still manage to get a little hot though...The awesome part of this hike, however, is that you have to wade through 3 creeks, all perfectly timed to prevent you from getting too hot-- 75* water is just the right compromise between warm and refreshing 🙂The entrance to the ATM cave was quite impressive. The mountain seemed to be opening its mouth and spitting out a stream of warm tropical water-- ready to swallow the unsuspecting tourists at any moment.One of the coolest parts about the ATM cave is that you have to swim through the entrance. In fact, almost the entire cave tour involves wading and swimming through the warm stream. Unfortunately, We were not allowed to take cameras any further because a previous tourist had dropped a camera on a Mayan skull the previous week. Our tour guide suspected tours would probably only be allowed for another 1-2 years due to effects of human wear & tear. This was probably the longest we were without a camera the entire trip!We left the cave, having seen amazing cave formations, lots of 1000 year old Mayan pottery that had been calcified and naturally preserved inside the cave, which was a ceremonial Mayan sacrifice ground, and 1 complete mayan skull.This was one of the stream crossings on the way back... still so very refreshing!Did we mention hiking through the jungle was beautiful?Of course, after our adventures in the jungle, we had ample opportunities to sit back, relax, and soak in the sounds of the birds. That's Tarzan, AKA Popeye, in the background, the friendly camp dog who was sadly missing one eye.Since we left for vacation on Leah's birthday, we of course had to bring our favorite wine from back home!
