ODO: 319,281
Today was a work day for everyone with lots of meetings. Luckily for us, this campground has very few bugs so we can have the windows open and the screens up. You would be surprised at how much airflow screens block. Our adventure for the day is moving from one camp spot to another, one much closer to our tomorrow adventure: Lamanai Archeological site. To get there we drive through the town, or community, unsure which, of Shipyard. This is one of the three large Mennonite communities in Belize. This one is partially modernized, so there are a lot of horse and buggies alongside farm pick ups and big tractors. We find our spot down by the river, aka crocodile territory. We keep a look out, but when we see a local family come down to play in the water we relax. But just a little. There are lots of butterflies, and we enjoy a quiet evening by the river before turning in.
We ease into our day, pack up slowly, and head over to the archeological site. We arrive at the same time as a large tour group arrives by boat. These ruins are set up in a loop, so we head off in the opposite direction of the tour. We start by speed walking because when we try to stop we get swarmed by mosquitoes. Our fist stop is the Temple of the Mask, so named for the two giant masks on either side of the temple. We work our way around to the next stop, where an EMT gives us some history on the site. Everything is extremely well preserved, and they are still excavating new parts of this area. On the way to our final stop a family of coti cross our path and run off into the jungle. The final stop, along with a super cool temple, has a giant tree growing out of some of the ruins a la Indiana Jones. After our adventure we head towards Belize City. Our plan is to catch a ferry to the Cayes tomorrow or the next day. Instead, our plans change drastically, sort of. We got a call to come back to the Bay Area for a quick 3 day client visit, so now we are on the last ferry to Caye Caulker tonight. There are no cars on the Caye, so while we wait for the ferry we book a hotel. One hour later we are on the island, checked in, and off in search of an evening.
We get an early start exploring the island in the morning. It’s a small place, so it doesn’t take us very long. Our first stop is the Tarpon dock. Tarpon’s are a giant fish that hang out near this dock where you pay $5BZD ($2.50USD) to feed them. They are GIANT, and these are just the adolescent ones. You hold a fish by the tail, between your fingers, palm flat, about a foot above the water and then you wait. But not for long. Once the fish see the food they jump out of the water and snatch it from you. Terrifying. Next we find a bar in the ocean. Yes, the tables are in the ocean, it was glorious. The best stop of the day is the sting ray feeding beach. The sting rays are fed intermittently so they don’t forget how to hunt for themselves, but they still show up every evening just in case. We wade into the water and stand in a swarm of rays. They glide over your feet and come for pets, and do loops looking for tiny fish. After all this activity we head to Italian in a tiny place that only makes two things a night: Meat or Veggie with hand made pasta. We got one of each, and both were possibly the best pasta ever (seriously, why is there so much amazing pasta down here?!? We’re going to be ruined if we ever go to Italy). We capped our day off with some karaoke before turning in for the night.
The whole reason we came to this island is to go on the snorkeling tour. Belize has the world’s second largest barrier reef, and we want to see it.
Coral Gardens is our first stop. Our boat mates are a mother and her adult son, two guides, and a group of four Italians. Coral Gardens is the easy stop to let us get used to our gear, but we are already used to our gear so we dive right in. And see our very first nurse shark of the day. There are also lots of beautiful fish and cool coral formations, but the shark is really cool. We end up seeing two at this stop.
Shark and Ray Alley is up next. This spot is bananas, nurse sharks and medium size fish and rays EVERYWHERE. It takes us a minute to get over the shock before we get in the water. And the sharks are zero precent interested in us, they’re just hoping the boats will feed them. Which some unfortunately do. Our guide takes us to a more private area where we find an adolescent green turtle, and an eagle ray.
Hol Chan Marine Reserve, the location KoKo is most excited to see, is stop number three. This area is a break in the barrier reef, where the mixture of cold water lures in bigger fish. We see a lobster and a barracuda. The reef is much taller here, and has a very strong current.
Conch Shell Graveyard, stop four, turned out to be our favorite stop. This was created by fishermen dumping their waste conch shells here for years, and eventually it turned into marine habitat. The water is barely deep enough for us to flow over the shells, but there is so much here! So many tiny fish swim in and out of the shells. We see sea pearl algae (looks like shiny marbles!), and a crazy weird starfish that is round and yellow with 30 red legs. We also see tiny electric jellyfish! Before we saw them light up, KoKo was very stressed about getting stung. Afterwards we couldn’t stop trying to find them. For whatever reason, no one else gets in the water so we have the whole place to ourselves, which made it feel extra magical. This is also our lunch stop, where our boat ran out of water because we used it all for rum punch. Luckily one of the other boats comes to our rescue.
Shipwreck is a literal sunken barge we can explore. This is our least favorite stop. The fish aren’t as exciting, and the current is stronger. The barge itself is also a little boring, but maybe it’s more exciting if you scuba dive and can go inside. On the way to Shipwreck we hear there might be a manatee in the area, and we found it! Sort of. We got kind of close in the boat, but the manatee wanted nothing to do with us, and casually swam away while we sprinted to try and catch a glimpse of it.
Our final stop is the Tarpon dock, but since we had already been there, we let everyone else get close to them. Then it’s back to the ferry, back to the truck, and into a hotel for the night so we could clean up and get settled.
The next morning we have a very slow breakfast. So slow in fact, the waitress asks us if we’re ready for our cheque before our food has even arrived. After we finally get some food in us, we head for the peninsula town of Palencia. The landscape changes to jungle covered hills and we start seeing animal crossing signs for tapirs and jaguars. The peninsula is a mix of very fancy homes and resorts, and a town where everyone who works in the resorts lives. And a super cool campground. It has a small parking area, room for five vehicles if they get cozy, a delicious restaurant, and great pool, all right on the Caribbean Sea. We passed a small bus earlier in the day, and when we arrive in the campground we find it waiting for us. It is piloted by a lovely couple from, of all places, Washougal! This is about 20 minutes down the road from where we started our journey in Vancouver. We have dinner together and became fast friends, one of the best and worst things about this journey. It’s like summer camp where you meet your new best friend and then part ways too soon over and over.
Starting in the morning, between the two of us we have almost a full day of meetings, so we spend the day lounging around the campground. When work is done we cool off in the pool, and then swap house tours with our new friends. They live in a short school bus that they have renovated to include an almost full kitchen, and indoor toilet and shower. There are lots of personal touches, like knobs they brought back from a trip to India, and tiles on their entry way made by their grandchildren. Being the rainy season, it once again rained inside the tent. This time we remembered to put the rain awning out, but the wind was blowing it in both side windows and up under the awning which was impressive. We also enjoy thunder we can feel and extremely bright lighting for many hours.
As we drive away from the campground in the morning we realize just how much it rained the night before. The campground pool is full to the brim when it had been several inches lower the day before, and we pass by several flooded looking fields. Our plan is to visit the inland blue hole. Yes, Belize has two blue holes. Ledged says that they are actually connected, because no one has found the bottom of the one in the ocean yet. Its over 400 feet deep. When we arrive, the weather is a little cool, so we didn’t feel like swimming. Instead we head up into the mountains for the Pine Forest Reserve. It is very cloudy and cool as we pulled into our spot near the Big Rock Waterfall. This should be a good nights sleep now that we wont be sweating.
