Belize - Day 13 - Snorkeling

We spent Day 13 on Raggamuffin’s sailboat tour that stopped at three snorkeling spots. We had beautiful sunny weather and some wind, so it was an ideal day for being on the water. Our captains and guides, Kevin and Ramsey, were warm and entertaining, Kevin in particular as he sung along with his own reggae music.

Our first snorkeling spot was Coral Gardens. The fish life here is not as dense as in Bonaire, but we did see some different specimens. We saw some grey angelfish on this snorkel as well as some cornflower blue pencil coral. There were plenty of boulder corals, fire corals and sea fans.



At our second stop, Ramsey chummed the water and up rose a bubbling sea full of nurse sharks, jacks, and southern stingrays. We quickly put on our gear and jumped in to see them close up. It was a bit petting zoo-like, but it was still a thrill to be in the water with so many nurse sharks and rays. We even got to touch them (we needed Kevin to capture one of the sharks to feel its skin). Later, when Quentin was swimming around underwater, one ray tried to cuddle with him.





The last stop was near the cut at Hol Chan Marine Park. Unfortunately, you have to go with a guide when snorkeling in the Marine Park. Ramsey wanted to take “the family” because he was nervous about letting the kids swim out near the break in the reef where there was a lot of current, but also more possibility of seeing big creatures like eagle rays. We convinced him that the kids are strong swimmers and so off we went. No eagle rays, but we did see a some large and curious groupers, a queen angelfish, a couple of tarpon, a rainbow parrotfish, a green moray and three massive turtles. We also saw schools of grunts, blue tang and black margates.

The wind picked up on return trip home (on which Gerard got to take the helm) and it whistled all night long. We had dinner at home and treated ourselves to another Belizean ice cream at one of the stands after dinner.

Belize - Days 11 and 12 - On the water

Day 11 was a travel day. We had to travel by van from Caves Branch to the Belize City water taxi and then we took the boat to Caye Caulker. We arrived around noon. Caye Caulker is a very small and very quiet island. It was split in half by Hurricane Hattie in the 1960s and only the bottom half is inhabited. The inhabited part is a mere half mile wide by two miles long. People get around the sandy roads by foot, bike or golf cart. We feel very far away.



The afternoon was spent playing in the pool, getting some groceries and checking in with the dive shop. In the late afternoon, we strolled over to the split for a short snorkel. We found seastars, stingrays and a couple of guitarfish, a species we had never seen before. Sadly, Quentin got stung by something in the water that caused him to have tremendous pain in his feet for several hours. He found some relief when he kept his feet in the pool. Fortunately, the benedryl kicked in and he was able to fall asleep. By the next morning, he was fine and ready to go diving.



Day 12 was our diving day. Beth spent lots of time and thought communicating with the dive shop since January to set up an arrangement that would work for our four certified divers in the family and the two who are not yet certified. Despite her efforts, the dive shop reneged on our agreement. Instead, they proposed a different plan which mostly worked for our family. In the end, we came up with yet a different plan once Gerard saw the waves on the outer reef and Xavier turned green after the first dive.



On the outer reef dives, everything was big. 8-10 ft. waves rolled the boat. It was like a never ending amusement park ride to the buoy. Under water, we saw some enormous and very friendly groupers, a triggerfish and a few large eagle rays. Beth spotted a lobster on the first dive. The outer reef is a series of canyons with sand channels in between, so the rays must love this spot. On one dive, we saw one 5 ft. eagle ray glide by followed by yet another. On the inner reef dives/snorkels, we saw big turtles, nurse sharks, tarpon, eels and schools of fish like grunts and snappers.



For dinner, we sat outside at a picnic table at a local eatery and enjoyed a simple dinner by the sea. Afterwards, we treated ourselves to an ice cream before heading home to soothe sunburns and get rested for the next day’s sailing and snorkel tour.

Belize - Day 10 - Wishing Well cave

The rain finally stopped in the morning. Fortunately, our guide to Xunantunich, Alex, mentioned to us a couple of days ago that there was a nice cave on the property called the “wishing well” cave. They don’t use it for tours but it is a dry cave and doesn’t require a river crossing, i.e., it was feasible to do! We convinced the Cave’s Branch people to let us be the first guests to tour the cave and Alex was our guide. (Ironic that our Alex suggested the solution to Tropical Storm Alex!)



The path to the cave was barely a path (Alex had “cleared” it in the morning), but it wasn’t too difficult a hike.



We tried palm nuts (which taste like coconuts) and Alex captured a botfly to show us the larvae inside it. For those of you who don’t know what a botfly is, be prepared for the following. A botfly places its larvae on mosquitoes. A mosquito bites you and the larvae drops off the mosquito onto your skin. It burrows into your skin and then eats your flesh as it grows into a botfly. When its metamorphosis is complete, it breaks through the skin to emerge as a botfly to start the process all over again. Think the movie Alien, but fortunately the alien isn’t quite so big. Gross, nevertheless.



Another highlight on the way to the cave was the “ant experience”. Alex struck an ant mound several times with his machete to stir the leaf cutter ants that lived inside. When one of the large soldier ants emerged, he grabbed it, let its mandibles grab onto Quentin’s shirt and broke off the body leaving the head. This, apparently, is how the Maya made stitches for deep cuts. Can you imagine having a long gash on your leg lined up with dead ant heads? On the way back from the cave, Quentin got brave and caught a couple himself, attaching them on to Papa’s t-shirt.



The cave was definitely worth visiting. Lots of cool formations and Mayan pottery everywhere. We didn’t see a crystallized skeleton (like we would have in one of the caves that we missed) but overall it was a good experience.

Belize - Days 8 & 9 - Rain, rain, go away

We chose to take Day 8 off. On the day itself, we enjoyed some rest and relaxation. Quentin, Annick and Isaac spent hours in the pool. Gerard edited photos. Beth and Xavier played Scrabble. There is a group of archeologists staying at Caves Branch and Isaac was able to join them washing shards of Mayan pottery. That was a thrill for him.



By the next morning, it was clear that we made a bad choice taking the day off. The night before, rain pelted the roof. We had planned to go to two river caves on days 9 and 10, but Tropical Storm Alex decided to form off the coast of Honduras and proceed to march over Belize dropping buckets and buckets of water. The torrent of water dramatically raised the height of the Caves Branch river, which prevented access to the two caves we were hoping to see.

The consolation prize on day 9 was to go to the Belize Zoo and a zipline place. The zoo was nice enough and we did see some new animals, but it wasn’t what we wanted to do. However, three of us got to experience the sting of fire ants on our feet as we were admiring a butterfly. They are small but they swarm and their bite is really nasty!



The zipline had 8 platforms and we probably finished the entire course in 40 minutes (including suiting up, walking up to the first platform and unpacking). In New Zealand they use one cable and you do everything on your own. Here, they used two cables, did not include any obstacle course challenges and had two guides to do all of the hooking and unhooking. Fun, but it wasn’t what we wanted to do. (And no pictures because it was raining the entire time.)

Belize - Day 7 - Rappelling down a sinkhole

Today we went on a hike to the “Black Hole Drop”. It was a steep and rocky climb for over an hour through the steamy jungle. We were all soaking wet with sweat when we arrived – we mean, soaking wet! Black Hole is a large sinkhole in the middle of the rainforest filled with large trees, vines and caves along the edges. The following is a view across the sinkhole looking directly at our rappelling site:



We were fitted with helmets and harnesses and one by one, we had to rappel down over the edge without being able to see the bottom below. The first 10 or 15 feet of rappelling were the scariest because you had to walk backwards off a cliff.



After that, you sat in your harness, enjoyed the view and descended to the forest floor about 300 feet below. What a thrill! The following a photo Beth took while hanging on the rope looking at the people below:



And this is a photo, taken from the bottom looking up, of another person on our tour:



After we all made it down, we enjoyed a picnic lunch and then it was time to head back home (via a ladder at the shallowest part of the sinkhole). Instead of dealing with the heat again, the skies opened up with pouring rain to provide some cooling relief.

Belize - Day 6 - Maya ruins

Xavier was thrilled to have the upstairs bedroom to himself but it didn’t work out so perfectly. After the waterfall caving trip, Quentin changed in Xavier’s room but left his wet underwear in Xavier’s bedroom floor. When Xavier went to pick up the wet undergarment a “huge” cockroach jumped out, crawled on to Xavier’s arm, advanced up his arm to his shoulder and then scooted down his back while Xavier did desparate contortions to try to remove the disgusting vermin from his flesh. We were all downstairs when this happened – if only we had a recording of Xavier’s panicked scream!



But it wasn’t totally over for Xavier. During the night, some creature scritched and scratched on his roof, keeping him awake. He has the bright idea to clap to scare the beast but all that it did was move to another part of the roof. Tonight he vows to go outside with a flashlight to see what beast he is dealing with.

Although this is out of sequence, we have another bug story. Beth was in the shower at our place at Lamanai shampooing her hair when she looked down and saw something squirming on the shower floor. She had no glasses on, so she flew out of the shower dripping wet and soapy and put on the glasses only to discover that she was sharing the shower with a three-inch scorpion! She yelped and asked Annick for a sandal. The first whack only made it squirm more and finally the second harder whack destroyed it.

Returning to day 6, we woke up to drenching rain tumbling down on our metal roof. What a racket! Other than a brief shower on the boat ride from Lamanai, this was our first rain in the rainforest. The rain cleared out and the sunshine poked through by the time we went down to breakfast. Soon after, we headed out to two Mayan sites, Xunantunich and Cahel Pech.



It was hot. Very hot. Very hot and steamy with no shade. We climbed to the top and admired the view across the Mopan river valley and over to Guatemala. The main temple at Xunantunich is the second highest in Belize. It is a towering structure overlooking a huge site filled with some noble houses and a ball court.



After melting at Xunantunich, we went to San Ignacio to have lunch at a restaurant. Fortunately, it was a casual outdoor restaurant as Gerard and Beth were completely drenched in sweat. It was embarrassing, but what choice did we have? The wait staff obviously noticed our situation and strategically place a fan blowing right at us. Eventually, we dried off before heading off to the next Mayan site.

Cahel Pech was also punishingly hot – what a surprise! It is not as well excavated as Xunantunich but it had some cool structures and there was a team of archaeologists working a site. We watch them do their thing for a bit and then we were on the ride back to our lodge.

Belize - Day 5 - Caving

We signed up for the waterfall cave adventure. Very cool. It starts with a very bumpy ride through an orange grove, then a 40 minute hike to the cave entrance which had a bunch of cool bats.





The walk through the cave was fun but not adventurous. However, that changed when we got to the waterfalls. First, we climbed up them – one was tall enough to require ropes and harnesses for safety. Then we came back down, but instead of climbing down, we jumped off the bigger waterfalls into the pool at the bottom. The jumps were thrilling and scary!

Belize - Day 4 - Traveling around

Another 5 am rise, but at least the howlers were nice enough to put off their howling until 5:05 am. We headed to Dawson’s creek in canoes, the scene of our crocodile experience. Nothing dramatic to report with respect to wildlife but a pleasant outing.

“Back at the ranch” we packed up and just before taking off we had another howler close encounter, a howler charging Gerard trying to take pictures and best of all, we watched the little baby hitch a ride down our path in front of our cabin.



The travels to Caves Branch was relatively smooth. We unpacked and headed to Blue Hole, about a 15 minute walk from our lodge, for a cool dip in a jungle pond.

Belize - Day 3 - Manatees and crocodiles

Woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to go on a Jungle Dawn walk with Mauricio. Didn’t get to see the toucans we were hoping to see, but we did see a large flock of big colorful parrots. We also spotted a variety of other birds as well. We stopped by the old Sugar Mill for a few minutes to explore around.



Ate breakfast and spent most of the day resting and reading. The howler monkeys were still swinging around in the trees on the property. Gerard spent about an hour observing them and taking pictures.





At one point, the teen male fell out of the tree and Gerard was standing there in between the monkey and the trunk of the tree. The howler got slightly angry that Gerard was blocking the way and ended up chasing him down. Gerard backed off, but the howler continued to intimidate him a bit before relenting. Beth and Isaac were there to watch the scene and it freaked out Isaac who went running from the attack monkey at mach speed.



Later, Xavier was hanging out on our front porch when he heard a loud “whoosh” and looked down to the water where he saw a manatee. We all raced down to the dock and spent some time observing this shadow in the water that would occasionally surface to take a breath and then quickly descend again. We didn’t get to see much more than his nose until Gerard got in the canoe with Isaac. The canoe really frightened the poor manatee and he made a powerful swoop with his tail making the water boil and the canoe rock. Consequently, that frightened Gerard and Isaac. Needless to say, the manatee took off in a hurry to the deeper water.



In the late afternoon, we boarded an airboat and drove out to the marshlands. We saw loads of birds including snail kites and ibises. It was a thrilling ride through the grassy marshes with the late-day sunlight making everything glow. We stopped for awhile for snacks and drinks before turning around and heading back to the lodge. The funniest part of the ride was Quentin’s hair!



After dinner we headed out for another spotlight tour. Fewer big crocodiles tonight but we had a close encounter nevertheless. In a narrow creek Mauricio turn the boat sideways to point its front into a small “hole” in the marsh vegetation. He asked us to hold on to a branch to keep the boat in place and he disappeared off the front of the boat into knee deep water. He returned after a couple of minutes with a baby Morelet crocodile!



He (or she) was small (about a foot from head to tail) but he still had very sharp teeth so Mauricio didn’t want us to hold him unless we could tie his snout. Annick volunteered her hair band and the close encounter was complete. The highlight of the tour.

Belize - Day 2 - Howlers and night safari

Our afternoon was spent hanging around in hammocks reading books and listening to music. We all took turns swimming off the dock in the New River. Xavier and Gerard took out a canoe and had a paddle around the lagoon. Quentin went up to the bungalow alone late in the afternoon and came down to the dock all excited. There was a troop of five howler monkeys climbing trees and eating fruit right in front of our bungalow!



Beth, Annick and Isaac raced up to watch them with Quentin. Gerard and Xavier were still out on the water, but made it back in time to enjoy them too. There was a large dominant male, a smaller male, a female with a baby and a male teen. At times, they were only about six feet away from us. In fact, one of them climbed down a tree and crossed our steps before running up another tree to eat. We followed the howler monkeys around taking pictures and videos for about one hour. What an exciting and entertaining ending to a relaxing afternoon.







After another huge meal (the food is delicious here, but the portions are gargantuan), we set out on a spotlight safari. We spotted lots of cool critters, but the camera does not do well with low light, so we’ll have to share the video after we get home. We saw a number of crocodiles. One impressive male was about 8 feet long and we could clearly see his teeth. Unlike the crocs you see in zoos, these guys were energetic. It was surprising to see just how fast they can swim through the water. On our safari, we also saw a fishing bat, long nose bats, various nocturnal birds and a kinkajou high up in a tree.

We went to bed exhausted around 9:30. At 2:30 in the morning, we were awakened by a howler monkey that must have been sitting in a tree right near our bungalows. They make the creepiest howl. You would never expect that this very loud and fearsome noise came from an adorable 30 lb. monkey. It sounded like a tortured jaguar (or the sound track from the Blair Witch Project).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV22Ua3zwN4&feature=related

Belize - Day 2 - Lamanai ruins

We were all awake early due to the jungle noises---lots of birds chattering and howler monkeys groaning. So Beth was up to take a picture of a wonderful sunrise from our front porch.



After a HUGE breakfast, we set out with Mauricio to the Lamanai ruins to see an ancient Mayan town where 60,000 Mayans used to live. We visited three temples and a courtyard. The tallest temple is the third tallest Mayan temple in Belize. It had many steep steps in blazing sun.



We were a sweaty mess, but we did climb to the tippy top and had a gorgeous view of the jungle and New River lagoon below.



But then we needed to go down ... definitely scarier then going up.



We kept hearing howler monkeys, but didn’t see any until the end of our walk when we spotted a lone one lounging on a high tree branch. We went home and jumped in the water hoping for some refreshment, but the water was nearly as warm as the air temperature. We hung out in the water a bit and then went to lunch. Another enormous and delicious meal. The afternoon was devoted to lazing around.

Belize - Day 1

Our trip down to Belize City went seamlessly--the flights departed and arrived a bit early, the flights were smooth and we were immediately met by the Clayton at the airport to take us to the Lamanai river launch. We all thought that he said it would take 5 minutes to the launch, but either this was a “Belizian” 5 minutes or he really said 55 minutes. We were all starting to get tired by the time we got to the launch so it was great to get on the water with the breeze in our faces.

From Belize10

During the one hour trip along the river, we saw plenty of wildlife – “Jesus Christ birds”, bats, storks, egrets, kingfishers, “and more”.

From Belize10

Once we arrived at Lamanai everyone was running on adrenaline. Quentin and Annick took a canoe and started exploring the lagoon. Papa and Isaac followed them in their own canoe – leaving two children on their own to explore in a canoe around a lagoon with crocodiles didn’t seem like a good idea. The paddle to the other side of the lagoon and back was relaxing and killed about an hour. It was then time for dinner – shrimp in a curry sauce.

After dinner we did an evening walk with Mauricio. At our first stop we discovered that ants are very active at night and can crawl up your leg and bite you. Xavier and Isaac seemed the most unlucky in this respect. And if the ants didn’t get you, the heat did – the wind had died down and it was sweltering. We couldn’t tell if we were itchy due to insect bites or heat rash. Throw on top of this the inevitable decline in adrenaline and it is amazing that we managed to have a very good time, thanks to Mauricio’s animal finding skills. On our first stop he found a red-eyed tree frog and basilisk lizards. This was followed by a tarantula which he managed to coax out of its burrow using a twig and his spit. As if that wasn’t brave enough, Mauricio then blocked the spider’s burrow with his hand – so the spider couldn’t get back home – and then picked up the not-to-happy spider to bring it over to us. In particular, while holding the spider upside down, Mauricio poked her until she revealed her ½ inch fangs. Very cool, but not for a million bucks would any of us do what Mauricio did!

The creepy creature tour was not over with. Unbeknownst to any of us, scorpions glow under a black light! So Mauricio used his black light to find a scorpion in a rock wall and again, he coaxed the scorpion out in the open. But this time Mauricio did not attempt to pick up the scorpion.