April 11, 2014
Yes, the travel blog is back. Where are we off now? Belize. However first thing is first – have to run around like a mad person and finish our bloody taxes the day before we go. Oh, right, we have to send them off because we are out of the country on the 15th. So I convince my boss to leave early so we could finish our taxes on Thursday. Got home around 3pm and Rebecca and her Colorado kids arrived safely; they were off with Fiona to pickup the long hair.
Managed to print off Pintastic Parties LLC taxes that the resident bookkeeper finished earlier in the week. Our personal taxes are due too. So off I go to the post office. I get back and it is a mad house already. 5 kids running around. Haven’t seen the colorado kids for about 2 years, and Seville looks like a girl – amazing. I pick up PF changs @5 and have my Alaskan Amber while going thru the mental check list of everything we need. The kids are super excited and are looking forward to the beach with Amah and PopPop the middle of next week. The kids are in bed and I’m trying to find the long lens. Needless to say, I never found it. Hopefully the 17 to 120 will work ok. However, I packed all the other gadgets that we will barrowed or own – not sure why we have 5 gadgets for 4 hands, but always need more ;).
My brother, Mark, sent me a great birthday gift. A mini whiskey casket to make your own whiskey. I started the process a week ago by putting water to expand the casket barrell. I drained the water and poured in the spirit so it would turn into whiskey last night. I look forward to trying some upon my return while looking over the thousands of pictures and videos we take on this little trip.
The limo guy arrived on time and we are now sitting waiting for the plane; hopefully for an uneventful flight. We forgot to tell rebecca about feeding the fish and the training collar (for the dog not the fish), but hopefully she will figure it out. Till the next update.
Made it to Houston! Yeehaw. Had some tex-mex from the legendary Pappasitos Cantina. A beef and chicken hard taco with rice and beans for a grand total of $14.06. Fiona had a bagel. We are now at the gate and I’ve downloaded the correct version of Game of Thorns for the kindle reader. Not sure why, but I guess they have to check out passports again before we get on the plane to Belize. Off to download more music since I’m not sure if we will have wi-fi at the places we are staying.
Arrived in Belize! We left 30 minutes late because some joker lost their passport (even though you have to present your passport when you check your bags). So the airlines had to remove the luggage since the person was not on the plane. Good and easy flight. I didn’t pack ear buds for my travel buddy so I got the evil death glare because “I” was in charge. So I watch Walter Mitty. There was sound only in my left ear and the screen was a horrible size. I got the jist of it but Fiona didn’t miss much – I’m going to keep it on my DVD queue as I would like it see it again even if she falls asleep!
We arrived and it was raining, but since we sat in row 26 we got to exit from the back of the plane. Down the outdoor stairs and into the warm rain. Then we stood in line for an hour waiting to be seen by the custom official. We didn’t have a pen on the plane but managed to borrow a mechanical pencil form our row mate. Anywho, I filled out that we had merchandise but apparently that was only if we planned to sell it so I should have put zero on the form. However customs was easy even if we were at the back of the line. We got out bags and then tried to go through the ‘nothing to declare’ line. However, everybody had the same idea so we bust up to a new line to get out stuff checked. However the customs guy said to listen to Fiona more and let us pass without too much grief.
We came out and saw a man with the correct logo on his shirt. So we put out stuff in this van and learned we had travel buddies to Duplooys. Nice people Laura, Camden, Lisa. Laura is a microbiologist living in Mexico (2 hours east of Mexico City) traveling with her son, ~8, Camden. She came with her long time family friend Lisa. We chatted for the 2 hour ride to the lodge. Belize is a cross between Costa Rica and Mexico, but people speak 4 languages – English, Spanish, Creole, and Myan – or a hybrid of all 4 with is pretty cool. We arrived and are in Hut 5. The driveway to this place is insane – if I had my own four wheel it out be great. On the way here I figured we would smash into a bus or another large thing or someone else. Firman checked us in and called up Pax to book the ATM tour. We have to get picked up at 6:30am – geez.
We have a welcome drink, pinapple and the local rum, Barrel Rum, and what I really wanted was the local beer. There was a sign that we saw on the way in it said – No working when drinking – Belikiin. So I had the Belikin beer – which is like a light beer with 4.8% alcoholic volume. It was good but really wanted to try the stout. I had a Belikin Stout, 6.5% and it was great. Dinner was good too – a thai salad and curry veggies. Both Fiona and I had it. There were kids the Saturday with an 18th birthday so we got chocolate cake. Actually I got birthday cake. Anywho. Fiona is all tucked in with her white wine. People seem very friendly even if the driving may kill us. In bed by nine.
April 12th, 2014
Boy these beds suck ass. I tossed and turned 6 times, but it is an eco-lodge so will give it a little slack. We have two fans right above 2 queen beds. The hut has a screen in porch on the outside. The sink is off to the left as you enter and the potty/shower if off to the right. The porch as a kerosene lamp and a hammock. We got up at 6am, but on our swimsuits, quick dry shirts, water shoes, and got out water bottles. For breakfast Fiona has a small fruit and I had granola and peach yogurt with a large fruit plate. The large fruit plate is massive. I only ate the granola and yogurt. Fiona dug into my large fruit plate but only but a dent into about a quarter of it. More food for the marsupials. Oh, we saw a marsupial last night – a cross between a monkey and possum. Anywho, Oscar picked us up and we were on the road at 6:40. It was going to be a 1.5 hour bumpy ride to the ATM. We stopped to pick up lunch for us (two coolers), to pick up our tickets, and then to pick up lunch for Oscar at a local yokel who only sells bbq on the weekends. We arrived at 8:15 to some grumpy people from a Nat Geo tour who wanted Oscar to their tour at 7:15. Hummmm. The guides can only take in a max of 8 people at a time and Fiona and i made 10. To bad for Tim and Fiona. Ah, whatever. So we waited for another guide we learned from the locals what we could so at the ATM and the rest of our trip. Francisco showed up at 10 with two very nice people Lad and Kristy from Hawaii. We also went on the tour with 4 other people from Seattle of all places. So the 8 of us and Francisco got our helmets and flashlights, and out lunch ready to go.
Ok – so no cameras in the ATM. So I hike .5 of a kilometer through the same river three times up to my waist to the start of this cave. The river water is warm. We eat out lunch even though we are not hungry. It is 11am when we eat and understand it will be a 4 hour tour in the ATM. This cave is the best cave I have been in ever. Period. Ever. It is freggin awesome. Too bad no pictures. It was a rigorous hike, climb, swim, boulder hoping, spelunking, super dark adventure. Francisco was amazing and took alot of time explain the history and basically it is as a church is for us as it is the the Mayans.
We get back to the van, change into dry clothes, and are off. We stop and get oranges thrown at us from the local farmers on the way out, and again for a beer, a Belikin Stout. We drop off Lad and Kristy, and then take our 30 minute drive from San Ignasico to our lodge. Had another Belikin Stout at the bar before dinner. Dinner was blackend chicken with butter sauce with some lettuce. It was GREAT chicken from the BBQ. it went really well with a Belikin Stout. We are back at bar and I have another Belikin Stout finishing up the post. Another early night as we have another adventure tomorrow to the ruins in Guatemala.
April 13th, 2014
Man these beds are hard. Was in bed by 10ish. Met out travel partners in the bar the night before – Liz and Casey from Washington DC. Liz is a candy lobbiest – who knew, and Casey is a PR slut. Had a few more Belikin stouts prior to heading to bed. There is only wi-fi at the bar and the office. Alvin was the bar tender and drinking a Mackleson, a Caribbean dark beer, but they do not sell that at the lodge. Woke up at 6:30 so we could make the bus with plenty of time versus the morning before when we were rushed. Had a two egg omelette and some corn bread. I gave my toast and bacon to Fiona – who says I don’t give her anything 😉 We needed our passports and a fist full of money (~50 dollars each) to cross the boarder.
The guide that took us to the ATM, was at the office this morning, and Fiona got her water bottle back (which I forgot to grab somehow as someone told me to grab it but I didn’t hear this order). Anywho, Fiona is happy since she found her water bottle. So we are about 30 minutes from the border, and the driver stops. We get out and it is good friday so everyone and their cousin is crossing the border. There are money changers walking around, but they border people take US dollars so we are confused why they are there, maybe for the tourist who are confused? So we check out of Belize for 15 US dollars each, and then get stamped that we are exiting the Belize. On the other side is the Guatemalan tour guide, Christian, waiting for us (the 6 of us) to make it through. Oh, the the water bottle that we managed to salavage from the yesterday’s tour, we left it on the bus! Ha! We told the driver and he left in the office for us! We all make it through and then Christian takes our passports to get stamped to go into Guatemala! Oh, we have to give him 10 dollars each to go into this ‘new’ country. Bingo-Bongo we are through and it is a 2 hour drive to the Tikal where the Mayans built their pyramids.
We stop at a tourist spot and pick up from things for the kids, I have some real authentic Guatemalan coffee, and we place our lunch order a combo of beef/chicken fajitas. I determine the local beer is Gallo. Sounds tastey but I have to work for it. Man did I work for it. We walked something like 12,000 steps according to Fiona’s little walking meter. The Mayan pyramids are great – very similar to the Teotihuacan ruins about an hour outside Mexico City. For some reason these temples and pyramids feel taller, but that could just be me at the here and now. Man it was hot. Fiona was puffy which means it is pretty hot. I guess about 96 in the shade. We drank lots of water. The various trees and ruins at we got to climb up were pretty great and would recommend to other to see it. The drive to them was long as we stopped to see how people did laundry on rocks. On the way back we stopped and had lunch. I had my Gallo beer – pretty good. Good for the hot day kind of beer, like a Budweiser. Then Fiona got the sewing bug and picked up some clothy things. Back across the boarder – very painless. Oh on the drive home I drank a Gallo Dark, and Fiona had the Gallo Red. Both limited editions for Easter. These are not as good as the original or as good as the Belikin. When we picked up the clothy things our travel buddies managed to snagged Brahva which is only made in Guatemala. It was a Brazilian Beer, but the people didn’t want to pay tax on the Brahma, so changed the name and brewed the beer from the local factory – pretty good. This beer was not as good as Gallo – pretty much the worst beer I had to date. Anywho, we made it back through to Belize and I’m ready for my Belikin beer. There is lamb and fish for the main course – I’m thinking the veggie option is the way to go tonight! It will be an easy day tomorrow as my left foot is being a sissy and swelling a bit – stupid foot. Anyhow, a beer and shower to fix things. Tomorrow is an easy half day of tubbing down a river and then tubbing into a cave. Apparently the guide will tow us! Ah, lazy Americans got to love them… not.
April 14th, 2014
Boy these beds are getting harder I think or I”m just getting softer. I’ve actually lost track of the days so am just putting down the next day so hopefully this will all line us with then we leave. The power went out a few times during dinner last night and again really early this morning. Had to get up to go tubing at 6:30 cause our dude was going to pick us again at 7:30. it was going to be a half day so nothing to stressful with time to get back and mellow out. Had french toast this morning, OJ, and it was tasty. We asked about doing our laundry and Albert said he would take care of us. When he was picking up the laundry he asked is I was willing to sell or leave behind my flip flops. They are not the thong kind but the slide kind with a bog loop over the foot. They only sell the thong kind and he wanted the slide flip flop for soccer. He has been a great guy, but we are in the middle of our trip so can’t part with them at this juncture. Packed up the GoPro, put on the swim suit, and quick dry shirt. The stupid water shoes gave me an awesome blister on my right foot so I took some socks with me to ease my way into the water shoes for the hike to the cave. Apparently about 3000 cruise ship people come into town and this is the ‘adventure’ they can pick – one of four. Luckily we arrive well before the cruise ship people.
It was an easy walk – nice and flat. The bad part was we had to hoof the inter-tubes ourselves to the last cave. Apparently for the more adventurous there are 7 caves along the river that people can float through, and we just hiked to the last one of the route. The cave we hiked through had a name, but the van ride was actually further than the ATM cave tour. The ATM drive was longer because of the rough road. The road into the cave today was not as rough and somewhat paved since cruise ships use it. Anywho, we heard that if you let the guide pull you that was the best option. So we let Ishmael tie our 4 tubes together and off we went. We went with an older couple, a school teacher from buffalo, and a sales guy from Toronto (who lives in Mississauga). I was the lead tube, with Fiona behind me and the school teacher, and then Steven in the back. The water was very low as this is the dry season so we got stuck on some rocks. The cave was long – it took 30 minutes to float, and there was a open area in the middle was an under ground spring that dumped into it. Then it was another 30 minutes to float down the river in the open. the train split up into couples after the cave. It was nice floating with Fiona except for the fact that at one point I had to get out and walk to get some momentum. When I jumped back into my tube we floated into a deep calm part of the river – deep like more than 6 feet as I could not touch the bottom. So i tugged Fiona and out tubes out. So the hike and swim was not as nice as a hammock and beer, but it was still pretty stress free compared to the last two days.
We got back to the parking lot and changed. A nice man we picked up on the road to the parking lot was trying his best to sell us a piece of slate with carving on it. It was pretty nice, but we have seen those around quite a bit. I think we will just stick with pictures and the gifts we purchase yesterday 😉 Back at the parking lot i had some coconut water – a little women with 3 kids sold a little coconut to us for 3 bucks which is was too much but it was a tourist trap and wanted to support the locals so bought one. It was pretty good. Then our guide broke apart the coconut and had pieces to eat. It was not dried out enough to really taste like coconut, but the flavor was certainly there. It was too much work to try and get the coconut off the shell without a proper knife so gave up. Man the car ride back was boring. About an hour and a half back by car – der, der, der. In the middle of the tube the gopro ran out of juice. I guess it works for about a day and a half and then poops out, oh well, am charging it up now! We stopped in town, San Ignacio, on the way back to eat at Hana’s. We got served a MASSIVE chicken and cheese quesadilla with jalapeños. Fiona as about a quarter and I ate three quarters – it was awesome. i tried the lighthouse beer (which is a local lager, but is in a short fat bottle with an ounce less than a Belikin beer) it was good, but switch to a Belikin Stout. We heard about a good jewelry shop so stopped in and took a peek, but nothing really in jade so moved over to the ice cream shop, Westin’s Dairy, a Mennonite owned shop. Apparently there is a huge Mennonite and Amish influence around the area with Amish farms. I had the local favorite, cheesecake, a nice yellow looking ice cream that was actually pretty darn good. Back in the van for a 30 minute ride to to the lodge. We got back in around 3. I’ve loaded up the pictures to the computer and some look ok. I’ll probably load them up. Started typing this in front of out little cabin, but now am out on the look out with an awesome breeze listening to a leaf blower – haahaa. No, it is not that bad – there is another little resort at in the middle of the dirt road that goes over the a Chaat Creek. With all the jungle I can’t see them, but it is sure nice to hang out in a hammock looking over this river. We are off tomorrow in a tiny little plane to then get on a water taxi to take us to the beach. We are still undecided on what to do – beach yes, snorkel yes, diving – not sure. It will be fun, but hope the beds are a little more forgiving for my old fat butt.
April 15th, 2014
I’m now sitting on a bed of clouds but I’ll get to that later. We slept in today as today was a travel day. Got up at 8:00 am, oh yeah, living it up for sure. Anywho, the beds have not improved at the jungle. We got up, I had some French toast, bacon, and OJ. Fiona had her toast and bacon. We splurged and I had my own set of bacon. Then we walked the grounds as we had 3 hours to kill until we had a plane ride. That is right – you heard me – a freggin plane ride from the jungle to the beach. Amazing. Pretty happy about not riding on in a van for 2.5 hours, waiting for a ferry, and then taking a 1.5 hour ferry ride. Instead I got to write a few postcards and leave some notes to the staff who made our stay so enjoyable. Oh, and I got to have a Beliikin Stout which helped. Anywho, we finished out letters and packed out things and drove to the airport. The airport was a little strip of asphalt in the middle of a field. The plane seated 16, and there were too any people so families got to go one the first plane (the ones with red boarding passes), then out pilot showed up 25 minutes late and we got on a non-stop flight! Yahoo! We met a nice couple, Angela and Kevin, from PA who teach high school Spanish to girls and commercial banking. They were on day 10 of being marred and we said we were on year 10 so good luck! The flight was good, except for the fact that a loud alarm start sounding as soon as we took off – probably too heavy. Got up to about 4,500 feet and then came back down 40 minutes later on an island of Belize. It was unbelizable. I don’t Belize it man. Oh, right, we are in tourist town and eveyone says it – very annoying, so we asked the waiters here if it is a game and who ever says it the most gets a buck. I think I’m going to win and say it as much as I possible can, you will not Belize how many times I’ll say it. We landed and walked 60 minutes down the street to Ramones. It is very resorty here. Air conditioning, WiFi – deluxe. We are in room 206 which is right across the street from the airport – pretty much the worst room in the resort. We can hear the traffic zooming by and the planes taking off – we hope the air condition will tune it out, but will probably ask for a new room. The honeymooners got a place right on the beach which is really nice and we are about as far as you can get from their room. However, we only need to sleep so am not sure how noisy it really will be? The bed is nice and soft, the pillows are great, the room looks awesome, we have a microwave, mini-fridge – all very nice except there is the road, airport, and construction next door in the day time… hum…. We wills see. I had some shrimp on the grill, and many cocktails and beer. I’m pretty happy camper. Fiona is alseep with the light on so I’ll need to go turn it off. We booked a dive / snorkel at the blue hole tomorrow which will be great. Hoping to take the gopro to take some shots. I read and it is rated to 197 feet deep, but will only be going about 120 feet so that will be neat. It is a 2.5 hour boat ride so will see how sick Fiona gets 😉 nite nite – and happy diving tomorrow.
April 16th, 2014
I think I must have woken up a few times, but it was from a bad dream. At one point in time in a hazy fog I said, ‘Hum, no more traffic’, and then before our alarms went off at 5:10 I heard a gasoline golf cart putter by..oh well. We did get up early and made out way down to the dive shop. The lobby was not open so we could not get a beach towel so Fiona ran back to the room. Everyone was on the boat by 5:30, the captain, Mark, gave a nice overview of the day and we were off on our 3 hour cruise. Yes, think Gilligan’s Island. It was sometime between 2 and 3 hours when we got to the first dive site. There was only one other snorkeler named Harry who was 8 that Fiona got to snorkel and see the various sea creatures from the top looking down. The first dive shit, The Blue Hole. it is about 1000 feet across in near perfect circle. The circle itself has a depth of 480 feet, but is now around 450 feet since sand and sediment is filling up the hole. We however are not going down that far. This was the deep dive, 130 feet, one of the deepest dives I’ve been on. You loose positive buoyancy at 80 feet, and it is a sheer cliff down. Man it was cool. The total dive time was about 25 minutes and you have these massive stalactites that are over 7 feet big hanging down from the over hang and then you can go between them. There was one older guy that banged his head into the bottom of one, always good to leave a little piece of yourself behind. The pictures I have are blurry except for the ones facing up. I saw a tiger fish which was pretty neat, but other wise it was just diving in and among the stalactites with us slowing coming up and then hanging around 20 feet for 5 minutes getting the nitrogen out of my blood. It was a good dive.
The second dive was not at deep, around 50 feet, it it was off Half Moon Caye, at a spot aptly named the Half Moon Caye Wall. The pictures are much better as there was more light and got a good one of a big fish. This place was teaming with sea creatures. The reef went out to forty feet and then dropped off down, and down. Sort of the the beginning of Nemo, but no clown fish. However, I did see 5 black tipped reef sharks (not sure if it was different or a couple of them just circling), A big see turtle, 2 sting rays (these were different) as one was black and the other spotted, and teams of fish – blue parrot fish, yellow stripy things. One of the best dives I’ve been on – about 40 minutes long. Fiona and Harry got dropped off in the middle of no where with a little dive float and the boat took us to wall and then came back to get Fiona and her snorkel buddy. The saw a massive stingray (bigger than the Fiona), a barracuda, and other happy fish.
We had lunch on Half Moon Caye (pronounced Key), and saw the red footed booby. No not Fiona. A white bird with red legs and feet. There were also many different sized hermit crabs too. Lunch was rice/beans, coleslaw, and stew chicken. We ate on a park bench prior to out little 10 minute walk to see the birds. Got back on the boat and went to our 3rd dive site. It was about 15 minutes away and think it was still part of the wall. This was about 30 feet deep, and I saw a lobster, and a shark. This place was called the ‘aquarium’ since there were eels, and schools of fish waiting to be feed the left over rice and beans. It was pretty neat to see all the schools of fish and hear the coral popping. We finished out dive around 1:30 and it was a 3 hour tour back. We took a little detour to pass through another dive site. Anywho we arrive back around 4ish, took a nice shower and now am drinking a funky monkey – a chocolate/banana/rum drink. Very exciting. The white person I went with has turned a nice shade of red. We didn’t bring out long sleeve sun shirts for swimming that we got last year at the lake – dumb. I’m only a little crispy, the Fiona has been in the over a bit longer, but I still like her. We will probably do some easy snorkels tomorrow morning.
April 17th, 2014
Slept in till 8:30am, To do something or not do something. Fiona is red and is undecided. Ho hum a vacation. We get up around 9am and start walking south along the beach. We are not sure what we are looking for but are out for a walk. Lots of nice houses and private places along the beach – we walk for about 40 minutes one direction and then cut back over to a street and walk back. We decide to try the middle of town to see interesting things by foot. On the way back we find a jewelry shot that sells black coral – not out thing, but the dude was pretty nice. The black coral was pretty interesting looking too – grows around 150 feet deep, and a three quarter inch around is about 300 years old. The jewelry does not take live coral, but only what is washed up on shore from storms. We keep walking. We stop so Fiona can get a coke; it is around 10 something. I get a small OJ bottle. Fiona also picks up riccado, a red cooking power. Not sure if we can pick up this power in the states, so she gets a big chunk of it, a big as my fist. We keep walking, not sure what we are looking for… just exploring. We make it back to Ramons and we see some red golf carts. We go an inquire and they are for rent – 50 US dollars for 4 hours. We keep walking, stop at another golf cart rental place – 42 US dollars for 4 hours, we keep walking and the next place is 37 dollars for 1-3 hours. We think about going out on a golf cart tomorrow for a bit as it would be fun, but we keep walking. I then ask Fiona what she wants to eat or where and she doesn’t know. So I have a brilliant idea – why don’t we get a cart for 2 hours and drive for 30 minutes and have lunch up North along the coast? She agrees and thinks it would be a good test to see how carting would bee compared to walking. We do not want to walk back to the last cart place. We are almost to the middle of town and see the clock tower and pass a guy that says, ‘hey you want to rent a cart’? We jump on it and sign out life away for 30 dollars US for 2 hours of carting. Off we go. Zoom, Zoom. Walking is for losers. Just kidding. We drive north. I made a detour and dive on the beach for 2 blocks, and Fiona is grumpy because I’m not sticking to ‘the plan’ for driving North. So I turn left and get back to the road and we come to the bridge. We are now leaving concrete roads for monster swallowing golf cart road.
We zoom by the bridge, not quite sure if we are suppose to pay leaving or going – it is not very clear. Fiona says we are too pay, but I say we pay when we come back. No one stops us, so that is good, and it does not look like they are stopping people from leaving, only coming back into town. The road is full of puddles, and bumps. We are not sure where we are going, but Fiona sees a sign for Las Terrazas. We know have a destination goal and perhaps lunch? Oh, out golf cart rental started at 11am and we have to return it by 1pm. We pass half mile markers signed on the way to this place but have not idea how far it is up this road. Man it is bumpy. On, the way we get stopped by a nice guy at Captain Morgan’s who is trying to sell time shares, and gives us a business card for 2 free drinks at the bar. This was at mile 2ish. We Ask about Las Terrazas and he says it is a big white building – just keep keep driving. We reach mile marker 3.5 and we have arrived. We get out and look around. A very nice pool, a nice bar, and lounge chairs on their little beach. Boy what a drive to get to this place. I thank Fiona for not booking it and we get back in out cart and head South.
Boy this road is bumpy. I’m driving the entire time and we stop at Palapa’s for lunch. This place is a hoot. There are people’s scrawling all over everything, the tables, bar stools, the eaves, up in the rafters, with kitschy sayings and doings. Pretty good place out on the end of a 300 foot dock. Oh, you can sit in an inner tube and buy a buck of Belikin while sitting in the inner tube. We had some chips and salsa which was awesome, and a chicken quesadilla split between us. Two Belikin Stouts and white wines later it was 12:50 so we had to get back in a flash. Fiona drove and I helped navigate. By helping I mean directing fiona down a one way street and getting stopped by a police man on foot asking to see Fiona’s license. Better her than me since I didn’t have my license 😉 We turned around with a grumpy Fiona and too three lefts to get back on the main street with the clock tower. We arrived 5 minutes past one and Jamal said it was ok, and give me back my damage deposit. A golf cart here costs 11,000 about the same as back home. Then we walked back to the hotel and got ready to go snorkeling. We got back to hotel and pretty much everything is going to shut down from 1 to 6 in the town for a big easter parade – it might be fun to go see. But no all day snorkel stuff, bummer!
The boat left at 2pm to Hol Chan and Shark/Ray Alley. Our guide Ricky took us out with one other couple from Fresno. Hol Chan was really, really busy so we opted to go to shark ray alley first. So we get there and they chum the water on one side of the boat and you jump in on the other side – Fiona thought it was pretty crazy. Pretty much the entire time Ricky was feeding the sharks and rays she was a good 15 feet behind everyone. Ricky asked us to stay at least 10 feet away but Fiona was not taking any chances 😉 It was crazy. 4 or 5 nurse sharks sucking at a 3 inch pipe with half inch holes. Ricky flipped a nurse shark on it back and we got to touch it which was pretty good. Felt like wet sandpaper. After that we went to to Hol Chan which is part of a nature reserve, so no fishing or killing or taking things. There is a channel that can pull you right out to sea, but today there we not much pull so we went out to the edge of the reef. On the way there we saw a big sea turtle, a trumpet fish (part of the sea horse family), a yellow tailed something or other (a little blue fish with white dots), and then on the way back we say a baby sea turtle. All along the way Ricky would free dive down and swim through a tunnel in the coral. It was full of sea creatures. One of the best snorkeling trips so see that much wildlife – amazing.
We got back in around 4:30, took a shower and then decided to go eat at El Fogon. I had shrimp with mango sauce and it was pretty damn tasty. Fiona has the chicken version and she managed to eat her entire plate which was a first, and then east three left over zuchini from my plate. She won the dinner eating contest, except that i had some lemon meringue pie which was delicious. Has some local rum drinks which were pretty tasty too. We got back to the hotel around 7, and then just chilled out and drank and looked at the days pictures. We posted the best to Shutterfly, and there are a few good ones. Of the 140 pictures I think there are about 5 really neat ones, and of the 5 there are 2 really good ones. Anywho, we chatted with some lady from Ohio for about 2 hours and then came to sleep in our noisy room with no hot water.
April 18th, 2014
Got up at 7:30 and finished writing half my blog from yesterday, but didn’t post it. Oh, well. Had to go on another snorkel adventure, to bad so sad for me… haahaa. We are off to see Mexico Rocks and Tres Coconuts. About a 30 minutes boat ride. Yesterday it was a 10 minutes boat ride – both much, much shorter than the blue hole! Our guide for the half day was Edwin. He jumped into the boat to go be a water taxi first and then we had to wait for Fiona to come back so we could get going on our adventure. There was 6 of us on the boat today. We went north instead of south – past were we traveled with the golf cart. We did however pass Palapa’s Bar on the way up. Visibility was not as good and it didn’t help that I had a foggy mask, but we say some sting ray’s, and many little fish that ate right out of Edwin’s hand. Edwin would just lift his hands out of the water with fish – there were hundreds of these fish circling him. Then we toured around for 30 mintues and got back on the boat.
A 5 minutes ride back to the south and we were at Tres Coconuts (Three Coconuts) apply names due to all the coconut trees that were being farmed at the time and in the middle of all these cocnut trees stoof 3 really big trees that were used as a point of reference for the local fishermen. Edwin dropped us off and we swam for 15 minutes without a guide as it was too shallow for the boat. Saw many little fish and lots of coral right up to the top of the water. There was a school of really bright yellow fish that I took pictures that were hiding under some of the coral. Anyway, we got back on the boat and headed back to Ramons. Dropped us off at around 11:30 in time for lunch. Fiona had left over pizza and a beer in the room, and I’ve not touched my beer since I’m trying to write this bloody blog. So I’m going to drink about 3 of these things as it is the day before we go back home and they don’t have Belikin at home 😉 Perhaps we are off to see the parade later or just swing in a hammock. Who knows, but it will be fun.