Belize

Our 2nd stop on the trip was Belize. We had no idea what to expect, knew nothing about Belize before we arrived. We were very pleasantly surprised. We loved Belize! A few interesting facts: Belize was colonized by the British, so everyone there speaks English as well as a smattering of Creole, Spanish and other languages. Belize also has the 2nd largest (longest?) barrier reef. Our ship had to rest a good 2 miles off the coast and we were brought to Belize on tenders.

Upon arrival, we boarded a bus for a ride to see Mayan ruins. We were so excited about this excursion. The traffic on this road was heavy. Although this looks like a rather small road, it was really a major highway.

Going over the Belize River.

We arrived at the ruin site: Altun Ha. It was another warm, breezy Caribbean day.

The ruins are very cool! They were built from 200-900 BC.

This dog just decided to join our tour. The guide said these dogs are called Potlickers. Their term for a mutt, basically. :-)

Altun Ha means Rockstone Pond. There is a big pond about 1/2 mile away from this area, but it is so full of crocodiles they can't take anyone near it.

A side view of the main structure

Nick climbed to the top of this building, the biggest structure which is called The Temple of the Masonry Altars.

Nick waving from the top

We had a great time exploring the ruins. There are tombs here and a lot of jade has been excavated here too. There was a lot to see and we probably could've easily spent another hour here, but we had to get back on the bus for the next portion of our tour.

We stopped for lunch at a riverside cafe. We had already heard from our guide that habenero hot sauce is very popular in Belize. They make 7 differents flavors, the 7th being the very hottest. We were eager to taste some and to our joy, the cafe had a big bottle of it on each table!

The Belize chicken burrioto. Delicious, especially with the hot sauce!! It was so delicious, we purchased hot sauce as gifts for several people. Guess who gets the bottle of the very hottest? Nick's dad of course! :-)

The next half of our tour was a 25 mile long boat ride along the Belize River. We took the boat on the left...the one that has no roof.

We had a blast! The boat driver would go really fast and speeding along that river was so much fun. Then he'd stop abruptly when he spotted any wildlife. We saw a ton of crocodiles, monkeys, iguanas, bats, birds, and even a manatee! The manatee just poked it's nose up to take a breath of air, but it was an official manatee spotting nonetheless! :-)

A monkey hanging in the tree

A big croc!

An iguana

Halfway through our river adventure, the camera ran out of batteries!! Arg!! It was just as well because we eventually came to the end of the river when it ran out into the ocean. Our guide told us to put the cameras away, put anything we didn't want to get wet under the seats, and hang on tight while we sped out into the open ocean. That was a lot of fun! We bounced and zoomed very fast along the coast until we reached the pier. At that point, we had to rush straight to a tender to get back to our ship on time. We LOVED Belize!! What a great country, great people, really beautiful. We'd go back in a second!

A view of Belize from our ship. We're pretty far away! It was a long tender ride back, but so much fun. Just look at that amazing water!