Culture

I thought I would dress up every night for dinner, but it was so hot and humid that I only dressed up one time!  So since it was a rare occasion, I made Todd take some pictures of me.  :)

 Belize is truly beautiful.  It is the perfect background for the incredibly laid back lifestyle of the people who live there.  5 minutes before a thunder shower they will assure you that it's not going to rain; they will smile and assure you that you are totally safe even though the place you are at (Mayan ruins for us) is guarded by men with machine guns; and they only use their car brakes if absolutely needed.

Todd ate alot more seafood than I did.  I'm more of a coconut shrimp and salmon girl.  But here Todd is enjoying some fresh snapper will papaya salsa.  I didn't think I would like it, but it was delish!

The traditional meal of Belize is stewed chicken with rice and beans, and grilled plantains.  Sounds simple.  But it is seriously soooo yummy!

We totally lucked out and ended up in Belize on their Independence Day!  They have only been their own country for 30 years, and the party was nonstop.  They don't do a set parade that starts at 10:00 and runs down one street like we are used to.  They parade ALL day.  Apparently the party started at midnight, and the parade was still going strong in the mid afternoon.  There was lots of drumming and dancing, and TONS of sirens and horns.  It was extremely loud and fun!

One thing I was really excited about was eating all the fresh fruit in Belize.  I ordered a tropical salad and got this beautiful thing.  Pineapple, oranges, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce covered in melted cheese and a light dressing.  I know, it sounds so weird!  But it was honestly the most tasty and memorable thing I ate all week.  Thank you, Belize!

Snorkeling the Reef!

Many people have asked us why we chose Belize for our destination, and this video shows one of the main reasons.  Yes, we originally saw Belize on an episode of "The Bachelor", which spurred on our initial interest.  But after researching it a bit, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to snorkel at the second largest coral reef in the world.  And it did not disappoint!

We sailed in style on a Catamaran boat.  We were served fresh pineapple, fresh chips and salsa, and got to see the underworld up close and personal.  It was one of the greatest days of my life!

We went to two popular snorkeling sites:  Hol Chan (right along the reef) and Shark Ray Ally.

The reef was amazing.  We were out in the middle of the ocean, and the water was only several feet deep!  When we got to the edge of the reef, you could see a drastic dip in depth.  Amazing.

Monday in Belize

Since it gets dark (and I mean DARK.  No light pollution on a deserted island!), we decided that sleeping in wasn’t really an option.  So we are going to bed “earlyish” and waking up “early”.  Today we rolled out of bed at 8;30 and immediately grabbed a kayak and headed for the ocean.  Neither of us has ever kayaked before, but it didn’t take too long to figure it out.  It was really fun, and hopefully helped balance out the 4 pina coladas and 2 ice creams cones we ate today!  

After we kayaked, Todd kicked my trash at a game of horseshoes.  So after that, I needed to do something I was better at than Todd. 

SHOPPING!

We hopped on the ferry and headed to San Pedro for a local lunch and gift shopping.  

(The shore of San Pedro.  The only city on the island we were on.)

We found a fun restaurant right next to the water.  We saw several HUGE stingrays swim by, and we even got to feed some tarpons. And thus began our pina colada binge!

This is a video of me attempting to feed the tarpon fish.  I was excited until I saw their huge mouth with pointy teeth...

 San Pedro itself isn’t too impressive.  It is small and poor.  There are only 3 streets.  I literally saw advertisements for businesses, and for the address it would say middle street!  Most people ride bikes or drive golf carts.  And pedestrians definitely do NOT have the right of way!  We found some great gifts for the kids, and thoroughly enjoyed eating coconut ice cream to cool down.

 (Hmmm... is that coconut ice cream or a pina colada?)

 Belizean beaches weren't as nice as we had expected.  They are small, and because the water is clear, tons of plants grow along the ocean floor.  That also means they wash ashore in huge piles of dead plant.  We hardly spent any time just hanging out on the beach.  But we spent hours in the warm ocean water!

I snapped a picture of this boat because it is named "Gi Gi", which is what our children and our nieces call their great grandma.  Coincidentally, grandma Gigi passed away the following morning (more on that in a different post though).

Did I mention that Belize is really hot and humid?  We have been sweating our faces off!  

Our First UnBelizeable Day! (Sunday)

My love of biking isn’t just because it keeps the kids contained and entertained.  Today we rode bikes along the coast of Belize, and it was so much fun!  Because of the large coral reef and being close to the equator, there is no tide in Belize.  So the sand is always packed down, and really easy to ride your bike on.  The “tropical wave” (torrential downpour!) washed up a lot of junk along the coastline.  If you have ever lost a flip flop, I’m pretty sure you could find it along the Belizean coast!  We also saw lots of shells, coconuts galore, wild flowers, lizards, and one snake. 

We found a great place for lunch, and finished the afternoon with a dip in the pool.

A tropical wave not only sent us to our room before dark, but covered our front room with water!   

Mermaid Hunt

Our girls are really hoping we see some Mermaids on our trip.  So far, no mermaids.  But here is the evidence we have found.  :)

I had planned on doing my blog in order, but I can't resist telling everyone that today I was stung by fire coral.  It definitely feels like FIRE!  It kind of freaked me out because I didn't know what had happened.

My legs are a tragedy!  Covered in mosquito bites and now this mess.  Granted, it already looks alot better than this picture.  Still though, they are a sad mess.  Despite the legs, the trip is great.  We have been kayaking and swimming in the ocean today.  Tomorrow we snorkel and Thursday we will see some Mayan ruins and do cave tubing!  Can't wait!

BELIZE!

When Todd and I got married I had an emotional breakdown. Up until our wedding day I was SO excited to be married. I seriously couldn’t wait. I thought I would marry him and never look back. After our wedding reception, we swung by my parent’s house to pick up the last of my things. And then it hit me…

I would never walk into this house again. My parents were set to move while we were on our honeymoon. I was so caught up in the wedding, I didn’t even realize how hard it would be to actually leave everything behind. So I cried. I cried and cried and cried. It wasn’t really what I expected for my wedding night. Fast forward ten years to Friday night when I had to say goodbye to my kiddos. It was so hard! I seriously thought it would be my wedding night all over again. I pulled it together to get through a dark, rainy, road construction filled night to get to Salt Lake. We got to our hotel a whopping 5 hours before we had to be at the airport!

My emotions were much more level by Saturday morning, and I was pretty pumped to get to Belize. I seriously wanted to dance all day. One big problem though is there was no music in the airport. But once we landed in Belize there was LIVE MUSIC, and the air was full of excitement and adventure. The excitement dulled as we found ourselves sweating our faces off in long lines for immigration. There are 2 huge problems with the airport in Belize, the first being the lack of AC. Not cool. The second is no one tells you what you need to do, so you walk around feeling like an idiot. We finally made our way out to our commuter flight to the island we are staying on. The man in charge told Todd to get in the plane and for me to wait at the side of the line. No explaination, nothing! I finally figured out that they were distributing the weight. Sure would have been nice to have a small clue what was going on.

So 14 of us loaded into a small plane and headed to Ambergris Caye. Here are some of the beautiful views we saw along the way….

Ummm.... In Belize, this qualifies as an Airport!

After cleaning up a bit, the first thing on our agenda was DINNER! Huge coconut shrimp seemed like the perfect meal to welcome us to paradise. So yummy, I forgot to take a picture. Then we headed to our villa when I was distracted by the beautiful night sky. I parked myself in the hammock on our porch and looked at stars. It was so relaxing and wonderful. The Milky Way was in full view, and I am pretty sure how I will be spending a lot of my time at night!