Bye Belize - Top Ten and Superlatives!

Can't belize two weeks have gone by... Alas it's time to say goodbye! Nikita and Florence are snugly sleeping on their flight back to the US (napping is something we've all become good at) and I am en route to Chile for the next weeks... The last touching fairy standing. 

As is tradition, our top ten for Belize, in no particular order include:

1. Off road and overloaded golf carting as an efficient and questionable tranportation method. 

2. Snorkeling the pristine waters of Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley

3. Family dinner time hangouts at caves branch. 

4. Caving adventures... Bouldering, climbing, and squeezing between spectacular formations. The glittery underworld. 

5. Marie sharps hot sauce on everything. All. The. Time. 

6. Never knowing what day it was.

7. The moonset so close to the equator. 

8.  Nighttime jungle soundtracks, including the roars of howler monkeys at 3am, and bird wake up calls. 

9. The Belizean need to make puns all the time. ("My kinda country" -Verna) and how incredibly relaxed, kind, trusting, and familial everyone genuinely is here. 

10. The beans. Dear god, the beans. How the heck are they so good here?!?!

Superlatives!

Best Cooking: Ms Jen on Glover's Reef

Best New Friend: Milo, our island puppy

Best New Skill: Belizean dominoes!

Best Medicine for insect bites: Lime wedge

Most Accident Prone: Nikita

Strangest Injuries: Nikita

Most dramatic stories of the ocean: Krisna

Number of boats / water taxi rides: 27

Most questionable bug bites: Verna

Winner of the Mayan Ruins: Florence 

Number of Deet bottles consumed: 4 

Best Creole inspired phrases:

Mine yo head

Sandy feet? Dig dem deep

Relax it up!

Pump up de boat! 

Are you off the calendar?

And finally, a brief list of Nikita's injuries:

1. Bloody knee

2. Scraped and bloody thigh and calf from unnecessary dock clinging

3. 1-2 gnarly splinters

4. Bruised back from tripping on stairs 

5. Landing on recently recovered ankle at least twice

6. Swollen eyelid 

7. Phantom and real insect attacks 

8. Decreased lung capacity for diving 

9. Monkey bite on face (kidding)

10. Too much hot sauce

La Isla Bonita... Aka where the heck are we!?

After a few epic days in the jungle, and bidding adieu to Krisna, we moved on to our last stop, Glover's Reef, a tiny atoll in the middle of nowhere. What's an atoll? Basically an island made up of a coral reef, that has parts now exposed above water. We stayed at Isla Marisol, located on the teeny tiny southwest isle of Glover's Reef. You can walk from one end of the atoll to the other in, oh, 5 minutes. Our boat pulled in around sunset...

A Gilligan's like adventure for 3 nights and 4 days, our stay featured three strange California girls (us), a paleontologist from the east coast, an old French couple who first visited Belize 50 years ago (!) and the crew and staff... which included Belizeans, a couple of fly fishermen from the US who work here every year in January, Ms. Jen (aka best cook ever) and the ever present security guard, Milo... A 9 month old puppy who spent most days in the water chasing fish and boats, or leaning his sandy body against us with no regard to his actual size. All in all about 15 people... A big family. 

(Milo sleeping on the job)

Our days included beautiful snorkeling, reading and relaxing, ocean kayaking, and hanging with our new friends. Things we learned from reef living:

1. Belizeans love it when people say "we saw a blue wrass!" Wrass are a common breed of beautiful reef fish. However, the Creole word for "fuck" is also "wrass". They will giggle forever if you happen to say you saw a "slimy wrass" - yes this is a real fish. 

2. What looks like a murky mangrove lagoon by day turns into a teeming bed of eagle rays, sharks, barracuda, and black snapper by night. Florence even saw an electric like squid gulp down a fish. 

3. One never knows if a Belizean is pulling your leg or stating the truth. Usually it is a combination of both. 

4. Do not trust a fly fisherman to make a good margarita. Instead jump behind the bar and make yourself one (and him too)

5. If there is no one on duty at the bar, you are told to "just help yourself"

6. Belizean dominoes are serious and competitive. They take strategy, cunning, trickery, and at least 4 shots of rum. We have become experts. 

7. If the moon at crescent shape appears slightly tilted rather than the crescent looking like a broad horizontal smile, it is sure to rain in the next day or two. This is a fact. Captain Douglas's dad has never been wrong. (This proved true while we were there)

8. There is a such thing as a moonset. It is incredible. 

9. No matter what time of the year at this latitude and longitude, the sun will set sometime around 5, and will rise at 6ish. There is no daylight savings time. 

10. There are only 20 or so magnitude 0 and 1 (brightest) stars visible to the human eye in the sky. The Big Dipper looks upside down and near the horizon line here. You can see the southern cross and other constellations only found in this hemisphere. Florence and I apparently have the propensity for amateur stargazing. 

11. Your American hips will never adequately shake enough for Creole music and drumbeats. Doesn't matter how big they are. Just sit at the bar and drink your freaking beer. 

12. When in doubt put hot sauce on everything. Including in your pineapple rum shot. We invented a drink. If you ever go here, you can order it off the board! 

(Clean your feet every time you step into a dock or house)

(Sunrise on our last morning. Photo doesn't capture that the sun was a neon red orb) 

(Coconuts for lunch)

(Beats from neighboring boat captains and Creole folk songs on Friday night!)

(Verna rewrites the drink menu with some fancy chalk fonts... Nikita volunteers her services) 

(The edges of the reef from our back porch. All of the black and gray stuff is dead coral "land")

In the jungle, the mighty jungle

After five relaxing days on an island our brains were in full vacation mode. No one ever knew what day it was so we were lucky to be aware enough to leave when we were supposed to. We squeezed in some last minute wandering about town and are now all proud owners of clam chairs! Don't worry, they're not the ones Ariel sits in - we have better taste than that. Getting them home is another story. In our rush to catch our water taxi combined with our vacation brains, we gave them our money and left, no receipt, nothing, AND we missed our water taxi! Oh well, hopefully it all works out. We've learned that Belizeans are very trusting and everyone seems to be good on their word. We Americans are too skeptical. Anyhoo, we left Ambergris Caye on the next water taxi and headed west to the Cayo region where we lived in the jungle for the next few days. Thanks to Andrew's recommendation the next part of our trip was filled with epic adventures and great company on stunning grounds at Caves Branch. 

Here we visited the Mayan underworld, or so the natives believed the caves to be. Florence, Nikita and Krisna chose the waterfall caving adventure to start. This consisted of a bus ride (another top of the line school bus) where we drove through orange groves, forged a river (who knew school buses could do that) and entered a secure area where the bus had to be sprayed down upon entering (pesticides we think). We reached a trail in the jungle and this is where we started our hike. Our guide Marvin, with machete in tow, warned us of the 9 poisonous snakes we might encounter and the bot fly. You think mosquitos are bad, this fly lays its eggs onto a host, aka you, where they get embedded into your skin. Mosquitos can also carry the larvae and deposit that into you when they bite so once again mosquitos are the devil. To rid yourself of this pest who's making you his new home, you must suffocate it with vaseline and duct tape, once the eggs die you pop it like a zit. Lovely huh? Bring on the poison and parasites! Thankfully we reached the mouth of the cave unharmed. Once in the cave we traversed through the water, up to waste high at times, and through very low ceilings that we had to crouch and crawl under to reach the waterfalls. The cave formations were spectacular, crazy stalactites and stalagmites, jellyfish, brain coral and a number of other formations we can't remember the names of.

Hiking to the waterfalls with the slippery rocky terrain was one thing, climbing the waterfalls was another. Think rock climbing with water rushing down your face so you can't see. 

The only way back was the way we came so we had to jump the 4 largest waterfalls to get back. Sounds a little scary and challenging but we all made it and it was really fun! After our descent from the falls the guides had lunch set up for us in a cave. It was an amazing and unique experience. The only downside was that we all came down with what we've coined the "Mayan Ruins," that cave water man...deadly on the tum. 

Verna visited Actun Tunichil Muknal (aka ATM cuz who can actually say that?), an archaeological Maya site located in some deep caves also in the area. It's one of the rare sacred sites of the ancient world and they meant serious business with what you had to wear (try wading through cave systems and swimming underground in long pants and hiking shoes) and what you couldn't bring in (aka anything. No cameras... Not even a Chapstick!) Similar to the waterfall adventure the rest of the group went on, you hike, cross rivers, wade, swim, crawl, squeeze, boulder, and climb into some pretty enchanting geological and archeological finds... Stoneware, pottery, and glittering skeletons. Glittering skeletons you guys! So Indiana Jones. At one point you had to squeeze your head through two rocks with only an inch to spare by your neck to get down a waterfall. Deep in the cave near the remains and artifacts we even had to hike barefoot for a couple of hours. 

The next day we all went cave tubing and zip lining. Cave tubing involved sitting in a tube and floating on the Caves Branch river, which went through five caves and the jungle. 

With the water level being a bit low the day we went, this meant less floating... And mostly paddling with your arms for 7 miles. So we're all pretty buff now. Don't be jealous. During a short mid tubing hike we also saw jaguar paw prints in the mud near the trail.

Finally we have to mention that every evening at Caves Branch ended with a big family style dinner with all the rest of the guests, some of the staff, and Ian himself (the owner who discovered and starting caving in Belize) - we met amazing people and traded stories of our days over incredible food. And on one night a bunch of us hung out late poolside while one of the guests entertained us with his guitar... it was an incredibly clear night and you could see thousands of stars out! It was unbelizable!  

Mundo Maya

No, we were not sacrificed to the Mayan gods, we simply were without wifi. Which turns out to be a beautiful thing as we were able to enjoy many adventures. Bear with us as we catch up on our post. 

First off, our daytrip to Lamanai (submerged crocodile), an ancient Mayan city.

Fun fact: Mayans were sports fans. They played a game akin to basketball that went like this: 

1. You toss a "ball" into a hoop, with no bouncing of the ball however as this "ball" is really a human head. 

2. If you are the captain of the winning team you die!! :)

3. This is an honor 

4. Great job, you've now automatically surpassed the 9 levels of the underworld.

As we were climbing the temples we heard what sounded like velociraptors coming out of the jungle. Turns out they were howler monkeys. One troop invaded the feeding grounds of another. You don't won't to mess with these seemingly cute and fuzzy animals. So next time you hear dinosaurs in the jungle, they're just monkeys as dinosaurs don't exist anymore. 

It was hot as balls but we trudged on and conquered the tallest temple on the site. At the top... It was pretty magnificent. We were looking at the same view the Mayans would have seen... A carpet of green made up of the tops of tropical jungle trees and hundreds of dragonflies circling us in a beautiful, lively dance. (Val - dragonfly visitation lol) 

Here's us looking not as sweaty as we really are:

At the end of the day, we took our boat, a school bus ride, and another boat back to San Pedro. The bus ride involved our excellent guide Gustavo passing out some pretty delicious coconut tarts. "Hold it still," he said, as he poured rum into the crust of the tart. He even refilled our rum punch cups (FYI do any activity in Belize no matter how outdoorsy or intense and you are rewarded at the end with a rum punch). On our last boat ride, we saw an epic sunset. The sun was huge and electric red! A photo doesn't do it justice. You'll just have to come to Belize and see for yourself cuz seeing is Belizing. :) 

Just keep swimming

Baaaaa dum, baaaaa dum, baa dum, ba dum, ba dum (think Jaws theme). 

Yup, we volunteered as shark bait and jumped in during feeding time. This was not without hesitation though. It took some coaxing from Captain Danny, "just you go girls, dey don do anyting. Dey lazies shahks in da sea." So we jumped in with the nurse sharks. The babies were around 3-5 feet the adults 8-10 feet. Humongous sting rays skimmed the ocean floor. Danny pulled one up by its teeth with a wingspan of 4-5 feet. 

This spot is known as shark ray alley. We didn't know what we were getting into but turns out the name is pretty obvious.

Captain Danny might have been wrong about the nurse sharks though, Verna came back with a shark nom.

Turns out they like hot pink pedicures. Danny laughed and said, "ees very lucky, yu hev gud luck girl."

Next stop was Hol Chan marine reserve, which is part of the barrier reef. This was by far the best snorkeling EVER. We made friends with a few horse eyed jacks that joined our tour. First thing we saw was a sea turtle, right when we got in. Danny kept pointing at Florence to tell her that the turtle was right behind her but being the oblivious person she is, had no idea what he was trying to signal. Oh well, we all still saw the turtle having his sea grass lunch, nom nom nom. 

Then a green moray eel came slithering up. We all instinctively swam away as fast as we could but Captain Danny decided to play footsie with it. After that, we weren't quite as scared but eels are still creepy, snakes of the sea. Especially 5 ft of electric green of them. 

Danny guided us along the reef, trying to swat away our horse eyed jack friends but with no avail, they were part of our group. We had never seen such large schools of fish, different types of fish, coral, daddy long leg looking crabs, and probably a dozen other creatures we can't remember the names of. Danny would point at different fish and sea life then educate us on their names - fish we had never heard of: blue headed wrass, yellow striped wrass, sergeant majors, a variety of snapper, trumpet fish and so many more beautiful fish we can't remember all living in beds of fan coral, elk horn coral, brain coral - it was amazing! The area that snorkelers are allowed in is sectioned off by buoys. Danny took us to the edge, kind of looked back at us and said, "stay in snorkel position, don get scratched by coral." And kept going so we followed. This was truly amazing - the reef here was so lush. We saw an even bigger variety of fish here, more colorful, plentiful and varied then in the main snorkel area. This was truly special. We looked back at one point an saw all the other snorkelers by the boats and just our group in this secluded area. Captain Danny was the best. We wish we had some photos but you'll just have to come out on a trip yourself to experience it first hand. 

Seariously seaduced

Belize it or not, Florence and Verna are in Central America, once again, but this time without trusty Val pal :(. Hopefully our posts live up to her standards. We've got a curmudgeonly brother type though (Krisna) and an accident prone dock clinger (Nikita). They're pretty great though. 

After a 1am departure Tuesday morning, 2 hour layover in Houston, 2.5 hour flight to Belize city, half hour ride to the water taxi dock, then 90 min boat ride to Ambergris Caye (pronounced key, weird I know) we checked into our condo with this view. 

Worth it, don't you think? 

We've consumed so far: 

4 conch 

1 dozen eggs 

84 shrimp 

6 billion grains of rice 

1 lb beans 

3 mosquitos 

several oz Deet 

Bacon 

After our initial day of essentially not doing anything but wandering aimlessly up and down the beach and having 3 ladies massage us for 90 minutes in the open air, today we set an ambitious agenda: 

1. Go snorkeling (unsuccessful)

2. Buy a bowl made of some indigenous wood we cannot remember (also unsucessful). 

So....we ended up renting a golf cart. Wheeee! There is no better way to explore the island than by extreme 4x4 golf carting. So we headed north! 

Side note: 

The main mode of transportation is via golf cart, bicycle or small motorcycle  with bicycle helmet worn unstrapped (no helmet worn when riding bicycle). 

Where we were going? No idea! Had any of us ever driven a golf cart? Nope! So naturally this was going to be a great trip. 

After manuevering the questionable unsigned streets of "downtown" and turning down the wrong way on a one way street, we finally crossed a toll bridge where we did not pay the toll, we got ourselves out of the southern part of the island. 

First stop, after taking a right at the local "Marbucks" coffee shop. We found an open bar! 

One must go, obvi. It was great.

Bonus: Florence saw a sting ray leap out of the water and we witnessed a man spear his octopus dinner while towing his kayak around. Very impressive. 

Next, we found ourselves at a yoga retreat that sells alcohol with a pretty beautiful beach. After some reading and sunbathing times, a quick dip in the ocean, unfortunately curtailed by Mr. Jellyfish swimming around, a local captain told us how to find this "secret beach" at the northern point of the island. 

So off we went! 

The appropriate vehicle for this road would have been anything but a golf cart. 

For the next 30 minutes we hit: 

An alarming speed of 20mph

34 pot holes

16 boulders 

3 ditches 

1 "hill"

7 ropes (better known as speed bumps)

3 mosquitos 

Almost 1 dog

But we made it! 

Secret beach, not really a secret (can be found on trip advisor, turns out) but a gem nonetheless. 

The water was waist high for hundreds of feet out. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the dock. As soon as the sun started descending the mosquitos started making an appearance so we packed ourselves up (we had to get the golf cart back by the firm time of 5:30, but time really isn't that important to Belizeans). 

On our drive back we made one final food truck stop (you could find this place in SF) where we caught a gorgeous view of the sunset and 10 mosquitos bites (7 of those on Florence). 

Meanwhile, Krisna has been hard at work getting scuba certified. During the writing of this post we received this message: 

So we better go to bed. Until tomorrow! 

Comida

The food in Mexico City deserves a post to itself. YOMMM!

Flautas, tortas, y tacos with salsa verde:

Pescado tacos y a fried cheese-stuffed pepper taco con salsa roja:

A relleno hot off the street with salsa verde Y salsa roja:

Chicharrones:

And of course some mezcal margaritas to wash it all down: 

And this is me after eating all of that: