Belize trip: day 7

I was up early to get ready for the Mayan sacred cave tour. I had eggs, beans and fry jack at Hanna's and got packed for the trip to the cave. I met the five other women going on this tour in front of the Pacz Tours office, two Americans from Colorado and three women from Sweden. The van that we were supposed to go in wouldn't start so we waited for Pacz to find another van for us. the half hour delay proved to make a big difference.

It took almost an hour to drive to the head of the trail to the cave. Our guide Ben sat in the back with me so I got to ask him a few questions. I asked him about the different ethnic groups in Belize, what exactly was the difference between Kriole and Mestizo. He said Mestizo were handsome, like himself (Mestizo are Mayan and Spanish, Kriole are African and European, usually English). I saw a clearcut and asked Ben if they did tree planting here. Ben said that people who cut trees don't like to plant them, just as people who plant trees don't like to cut them. So no, they did not do tree planting here. At the trail head we parked and Ben handed out helmets and lunches and directed us to an outhouse before the half hour hike into the cave.

The cave is called Actun Tinichill Maktun and the tour is referred to as the ATM tour. We walked along a path through the jungle, fording several streams along the way. Ben pointed out some buttressed fig trees, which are some of the oldest trees in Belize. He said the oldest trees in Belize are around 500 years old. The soil is very thin, hardly any humus and very shallow roots, so trees are easily damaged or toppled by storms and hurricanes in the rainy season.

Eventually we arrived at a picnic spot full of people. It was Saturday, a day when schools often send students on this tour, so it was a busy day at the cave. Our half hour delay meant we were right in the thick of it now. There wasn't even room for us to sit down to eat our lunches. But some of the schoolkids moved out to give us space.

After eating lunch we donned lamps for our helmets and Ben took all our cameras and valuables to go in a drysack that he would carry for the first part of the trip into the cave. The mouth of the cave has a small river coming out of it, the only way into the cave is to swim. By Belizean standards the river water is very cold, for us it was about the temperature of a Canadian lake in the summer. We would be swimming and wading half a kilometer into the cave before we climbed up higher out of the water. Then Ben would give us our cameras. Ben was concerned about the time so he wanted us to go quickly, even passing some of the school groups ahead of us. We had to be careful about what we touched, some of the rock formations were very delicate and should not be touched.

Actun Tinichill Maktun was used by the Maya as a sacred cave in what is known as the Post-Classic period (around 1000 AD?), when Mayan civilization was going into decline. In those days there was drought and this cave was dedicated to the rain god; sacrifices were made here to the rain god to bring back the rain they needed. Before the drought the river at the mouth of the cave would have been too high to get into the cave at all, but during the drought they could and did get in. After the Mayan collapse the rain came back and for many centuries the cave was once again inaccessible, so the artifacts inside were untouched until relatively recently.

We emerged from the water into a huge cathedral-like cavern. Dotted through the cavern were the remains of large pottery urns that would have held sacrificial materials. But there were bones as well, human sacrifices to the rain god, even children. The last part of the tour in the cave we had to take our shoes off and proceed in our socks to avoid doing damage.

Artifacts were scattered on the floor of the cave, with bits of reflective tape marking them so you didn't step on them. In some places tourists had already broken artifacts and remains by stepping on them.

I asked Ben how long Mayan civilization lasted and he saluted me: "We're still here." Good point.

Pots were for the most part plain, undecorated except for a spider monkey on one pot. The pots stood right side up, sideways and upside down representing heaven, earth and the underworld, and smashed to release the spirit power of the sacrifice.

Some of the stalactite formations were like pipe organs; when you hit them they gave off different tones. ceremonies in this cave were probably accompanied by flute music and drumming.

Rock formations in the cave were black manganese rock (hard and rounded edges), white dolomite (chalky), and calcite crystalline stalactites and pillars.




At the end of the cavern we ascended a ladder into a smaller chamber containing the bones of a child and the Crystal Maiden, a female skeleton spread-eagle on the floor.

On the way back we retrieved our shoes and then had to descend a steep cliff. It seemed much harder to descend than to ascend, you didn't want to look down too much. Ben showed me where to put my hands and feet with each step, and then directed me to show the next person, and so on. We each directed the person behind us how to come down the cliff. We swam and waded back to the cave entrance and hiked out to our van. We arrived back in San Ignacio just around 5pm. The American women were staying at a lodge outside of town but the Swedish women were at a hotel just down the street from me so they invited me to have dinner with them at Cafe Cayo, across from Hanna's.

I very much enjoyed dinner with the Swedes. Another American couple from New York joined us and we compared notes about our ATM tours. They had gone on Friday and had a better tour in the sense that it was much less crowded and their guide took more time to explain things to them.

They learned that the archaeologists studying this cave allowed these tourist visits because they needed the money to continue their research, but they ran the risk of doing damage to the caves. Apparently they have secured a substantial grant to do their research so it is likely that the tours will be stopped because they won't need the money any more.

Certainly you'd never see such a tour in the US or Canada, where artifacts are left on the ground in the open and anyone can walk through, touch them, even break them. And, parts of the cave are somewhat dangerous, there are no guard rails or security measures, we North Americans would never allow such tours due to liability issues.

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Belize trip: day 6

We packed up all our stuff and had a buffet breakfast of eggs, bacon, beans, fry jacks, fruit, yogurt and coffee. After a quick round of group photo taking we got into the little motor boat that would take us all back to Dangriga. It was maybe a half hour trip. We pulled up right on the beach in front of the Island Expeditions office.

All our dry bags were unloaded onto a big tarp and we quickly transferred our stuff from the dry bags to our own backpacks and suitcases. Everyone except me was catching a flight to Belize City, so after trips to the washroom and hugs and goodbyes they got into the van and headed off to the airstrip.

Sam had arranged for me to go to San Ignacio to see a Mayan sacred cave, while he went off for the weekend to Caye Caulker. I would be taking a bus to Belmopan, the capital city of Belize, and then catching another bus to San Ignacio. Sam would be flying to Belize City and then taking a water taxi out to Caye Caulker. I would be joining him there in a couple of days and then we would return to Belize City together to catch a flight home.

Sam drove me to the bus depot in the Island Expeditions van where we thought we might have lunch, but as it turned out the bus was about to leave so I got my ticket and boarded the bus.

The bus was an old school bus but it had a video screen at the front and for the entire trip played music videos, mostly Spanish American, although there was one reggae tune at the beginning. I had a bench seat to myself and could watch the scenery go by on the Hummingbird Highway. There was one man driving and another who was the conductor, he collected money from the passengers. I was the only white person on the bus which made me feel a bit strange.

At one point we had to take a detour from the highway. The bus went off the paved road onto a very rough dirt road into the bush. It drove very slowly along this road until we came to a river, and then we drove right through the river to the other side, getting back onto the highway very shortly after that.

In Belmopan everyone got off the bus. The depot was chaotic, with young boys and women running around selling food and drinks to people already on the buses there. They walked around the buses, calling out and waving what they were selling, and people on the buses would reach through the windows for what they wanted. A beggar woman on crutches at the doorway of the depot kept coming after me for money, lifting her skirt and pointing to her knee to indicate her crippling disability.

There were some Mennonites waiting for a bus at the depot. They all wore heavy cotton clothes in blue or green, the men had beards and big straw hats, the women had long skirts and kerchiefs on their heads.

I thought I was waiting for a bus that had "San Ignacio" on the front but that turned out not to be true. A bus came in and many people, including all of the Mennonites crowded onto it. I stood by, taking pictures, and then finally asked someone when the bus to San Ignacio was coming. He pointed at that bus. I quickly put my camera away and ran over with my backpack. A man took my pack and indicated that I should get on the bus.

There were no seats left and the aisle was full, but still people crowded on. Seats that normally held one or two people now held two or three. The aisle was so packed that you didn't really need to hold on, the tightly packed bodies would hold you up. And of course you couldn't see out the windows at all. No music videos here! But I was glad I got on at all.

The conductor had a sidekick, the two men wended their way through the packed bus to collect ticket money. A very large woman was standing near me, it was quite the feat for the two men to get by her. There was no place for her to get out of their way, the seats were so packed that she couldn't even have sat in anyone's lap! But somehow it was done and the conductor collected his ticket money.

Eventually enough people got off that I could sit down. There were three young Mennonite women sitting near me, they seemed like teenage girls anywhere, chewing gum and whisper-chatting the way young girls do. The Mennonites got off in different places, they usually had a horse-drawn wagon or buggy tied up near the bus stop to continue their journey back into the jungle to their farms.

I got off the bus at San Ignacio, it would continue on to the Guatemalan border. Sam told me to look for Pacz Tours, they were taking care of my accommodation as well as the Mayan sacred cave tour. I got directions to the street Pacz Tours was on, then asked again where their office was but couldn't find it.

Eventually I stopped a woman on the street and asked if she knew where it was and she said she was walking that way and would take me to it. I had walked right by it and just not seen the sign. I am so grateful that English is the official language here! And that folks are friendly and helpful.

Pacz Tours had a tiny office on a narrow street, but it backed onto the courtyard of Pacz Hotel. I was shown through the courtyard to a small cabin with a porch.

The cabin was plain, but it had its own bathroom, windows all round, a TV and a large fan. Good enough! It was late afternoon, so after unpacking and showering I went out to wander around and buy some groceries for dinner. I also bought a few souvenirs to bring home.

I got various bits of advice, that I should eat at Hanna's and I should look for Amigos bus company to get a cheaper trip to the water taxis in Belize City. I did both, the dinner at Hanna's was fine (rice and beans and chicken!) but Amigos was closed. I decided to stick with what I knew, the bus depot. The TV didn't work so I read and went to bed early.

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Belize trip: day 5

Today we are up early to pack to leave Water Caye. Breakfast is eggs and fried beans with fry jack, a delicious deep-fried bread. Our trip today includes kayak sailing and snorkelling in a mangrove swamp. I am not really looking forward to snorkelling in a swamp!

Before leaving, Omar gave us a talk on mangroves. There are four kinds, red, white, black and buttonwood.

The red mangrove is the one that grows on the shore, it is characterized by its prop roots giving it a tangled appearance at the base.

The buttonwood has the largest trunk and is cut for lumber. The white and the black are smaller trees with white and black wood respectively. Only the red mangrove grows directly in the water, the others are a little further back from the shoreline. All of them but the red mangrove in particular are able to shed salt through their leaves.

We had a good wind, the kayak sailing worked well. Essentially, we just sat back and sailed to a mangrove island. Sam did the sailing. I let him do the sailing because he has never sailed before and I have.

Sailing a kayak is different from sailing a sailboat, there is no keel so you cannot sail close to the wind and you have to compensate for drift, the wind pushes the kayak as well as the sail. But still a most enjoyable experience!

We sailed into a channel in the mangrove island to a spot where Omar anchored and we tied up to his kayak. We got into our snorkelling gear and out of our kayaks into the waist-deep water. Sam lost his mask! At first I thought he was joking, but no, he really had dropped it and lost it. So we all started looking for it. A tough job in all the eel grass and muddy water, we searched and searched and could not find it. Omar then jumps into the water and picks it up off the bottom immediately. I dunno, eyes of a condor I guess.

We swam to the edge of the swamp and essentially drifted along at the edge, examining the roots of the mangroves. Underwater they are covered in sponges of many different varieties, no bare roots at all. Small worms and fishes. On the bottom, upside-down jellyfishes. They look like the underside of jellyfishes, as if their backsides are permanently attached to the muddy bottom. Very odd. Once we saw them they were everywhere, I could hardly believe we had been walking over them only a few minutes before. I don't think any of us put our feet down on the bottom again after seeing them. It was an eerie world in the mangrove roots but we didn't see anything particularly spectacular there.

We returned to our kayaks and again sailed on, out of the island swamp and into the open sea. Omar had the only single-seat kayak which was not outfitted with a sail, but he of course had no trouble staying ahead of us. At a certain point in the middle of the ocean, he stopped and got out of his kayak, appearing from a distance to be walking on the water! It was a sandbar, only inches below the surface. Here we all stopped and Omar got out burritos for lunch. As we all stood ankle-deep in the water we ate delicious burritos. He pulled out some apples too, but they were soft and tasteless, none of us ate them. Some things, the tropics are just not good for!

After lunch we snorkelled again, our last snorkel of the trip. We saw many fish, including skates and french angelfish (--->).

We saw one amazing sting ray, about three feet in diameter with a tail over six feet long. It was lying on the bottom and at first was hardly visible, being the same colour as the sand. We watched as it appeared to be digging a hole beneath itself by simply flapping its "wings". In short order there was a hole about a foot deep under the ray. I have seen these mysterious holes in the sand bottom before, now I know how they are made!

We took down our sails and continued on by paddle, as we now had to change direction into the wind. We were headed back to our starting point, Cocoa Plum Caye. Omar, Matt and Daisy were in the lead while Josh, Carol, Sam and myself dawdled behind. We were talking back and forth between kayaks when suddenly Josh and Carol's rudder just fell off into the ocean. Unfortunately Carol did not have the paddling skills to steer without a rudder. They careened wildly, paddling in great zigzags as Carol attempted to compensate for the lack of a rudder. Omar, Matt and Daisy continued on obliviously, while Sam and I watched helplessly.

We decided to paddle back to see if we could find the rudder in the relatively shallow water, in hopes that we could re-attach it and they could steer again. Amazingly, we did find it and were able to retrieve it, but clearly the metal had snapped and it was not re-attachable. In the meantime the others finally noticed that we were not with them, so Omar paddled back to see what had happened. Sam and I continued on to meet Daisy and Matt while Omar led Josh and Carol. Daisy and Matt were waiting under a wharf out of the sun, so we paddled in beside them and waited too, like a pair of moray eels watching for prey to swim by.

The final leg of the trip was through a fairly heavy sea and high wind, so Omar switched places with Carol, giving her the single-seat kayak with a rudder and Omar taking over steering the rudderless kayak. Needless to say this was no problem for him! Josh and Omar just took off like bats out of hell, they were at Cocoa Plum a good ten minutes before the rest of us.

Much later at the bar, we commented on Omar's paddling strength, but Omar said it had nothing to do with him, Josh had had enough of paddling troubles and was totally focused on getting back to land. Omar steered, Josh paddled like a driven man with a single dream: solid land under foot! Well, as solid as sand might be.

We were met at the beach by the manager of the Thatch Lodge, a yet more luxurious lodge than the previous one. We settled quickly into marvelous thatched cabanas on stilts over the water, each with its own deck, two hammocks, and a delightful shower. On the door a mysterious sign asking us to ensure that the inner door is firmly closed otherwise Rocky will get in. We each wondered who Rocky was and what he might do if he got in. Our host informed us that Rocky was the resident raccoon, formerly allowed the run of the island but after too many forays into guest cabins was this year confined to a cage.

Thatch Lodge is a work in progress, marvelous cabanas and casitas, a great bar and dining room, and a jungle complete with wild animals, coati mundis and agoutis, rabbits and of course the formerly-free Rocky.


After showers and unpacking, we convened at the bar for pina coladas and chat. Later in the evening a great dinner of chicken and rice and salad and wine. There was also a party of Guatemalans who arrived by motorboat staying in the air-conditioned casitas. An internet connection allowed those of us who wanted to catch up on email, but I didn't. Why go back to the "real world" any sooner than I have to?

After dinner we would have stayed on in the bar but all the good seats were taken by the Guatemalans, so we retired to Matt and Daisy's deck for more chat under the stars on our last night. We have had such a good time and gotten so close, we all regretted that our time was up.

Tomorrow morning a boat will pick us up to take us back to Dangriga, the end of the trip. Carol and Sam and I will stay on for a couple of extra days, Matt and Daisy will fly home to Atlanta very shortly after arriving in Dangriga.

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Belize trip: day 4

On Day 4 of my Belize trip we visited the Smithsonian Institute on Carrie Bow Caye. Just as we were gearing up to leave Tobacco Caye, we saw water spouts! I don't think my camera would have been up to the task of photographing them but basically they are tornadoes made of water. They did not actually touch the ocean, they were floating above the ocean some distance away but headed in our direction. By the time we were on the water though they had disappeared.

Carrie Bow is owned by the Bowman family and named for a Bowman, they let the Smithsonian use it as a base for doing research on coral reefs. One of the Bowman sons switched the family business from bananas to citrus fruit, making a ton of money in the process, and used part of the money to buy this little island, just big enough for a house and a couple of out buildings.

They cut down all the mangroves, to get rid of the mosquitoes that live in them. Now, I can well understand the motivation, I would do the same. Being somewhat of a mosquito attractor, I am all for reducing mosquito habitat wherever I happen to be. However, mosquito habitat is not all that mangroves provide.

If you cut down a mangrove, it grows back. If you cut it down again, it might grow back. If you continue to cut it down every time it shows its head, eventually you will kill it off permanently. The roots will die. The muck that a mangrove produces around its roots will wash away. The nutrients in that muck will disappear into the ocean and no more mangroves or any other plants will grow in the bare sand left behind. And then, the very next time a storm or hurricane hits that island, the sand too is washed away.

Thanks to a misguided development policy, Belize has been losing its offshore coral cayes at an alarming rate. And if all those cayes did was provide a few folks some fancy homes or resorts that might be no big deal, but as usual, nothing is single-purpose, the cayes protect the mainland from the full force of rainy season hurricanes.

Henry Bowman cut down all the mangroves on Carrie Bow Caye, or rather, he had them cut down. Briefly, the Bowmans enjoyed a mosquito-free vacation island. Then the storms came and the sand left. So, Henry Bowman built (or had built) a great concrete wall along the shore to keep the sand in.

From the second storey deck of the Smithsonian research station, the station manager pointed out the concrete wall to us, under water some thirty feet out from the shoreline. He pointed further out to an invisible line that used to be the island shoreline when once there were mangroves there.

He said they were trying various ideas to keep the sand in, but it was as yet a battle they were not winning. They were trying to replant the mangroves, but so far with little success. Without the protection of the strong root system of an established mangrove swamp, the new little mangroves stand little chance against the hurricane season.

The Belizean government has seen the light on this matter and cutting down mangroves is no longer an easy process. Much paperwork, much bureaucracy. In fact, as we learned during our short visit to the Smithsonian, the Belizean government is relatively enlightened when it comes to environmental sustainability. They see their future in eco-tourism, they see the value in preserving their natural and cultural heritage.

We asked questions about the coral reef and climate change. The station manager gave us interesting responses. They see it as a very complex system with complex responses to environmental change. Yes, warming oceans are detrimental to corals. But so is pollution, so are shrimp farms, so is agricultural run-off. The most damage they see on the reef is due to hurricanes, which are probably more frequent and stronger than they once were. But storm-damaged reefs recover, grow back.

Later in the day we went snorkelling off Carrie Bow and saw first hand the great elkhorn corals destroyed by storms and now growing back. It is eerie to drift through a dead elkhorn forest, the great coral "trees" lying broken in tangled masses on the bottom. But then you see the buds of new growth on the broken trunks and you know it is coming back to life.

Again, from my notebook list, here are some of the fish we saw:

donkey dung sea cucumber
queen triggerfish
doctorfish
white grunt
bicolor damselfish ----->
tiger grouper
yellowtail damselfish
redband parrotfish
yellowhead wrasse
bank butterflyfish

We also saw featherduster and social featherduster tube worms, and "christmas tree" tube worms. Tube worms are fun, if you wave the water near them they pull into their tubes very rapidly: now you see them now you don't.

This picture is looking down on a coral fan, as I said before, my underwater photos are not terribly great!

We returned to Water Caye for lunch and then snorkelled again from our kayaks near the barrier reef.

I saw an octopus! At first I didn't know what I was seeing, it looked like a very odd-shaped fish moving across the bottom in a jumbled sort of way. Just as it got itself under a coral overhang I realized what I was seeing. Oddly, it was accompanied by a fish who also swam under the overhang with it. I called out to the others about my find and everyone swam over; Omar dove and poked under the overhang to get the octopus to come out again. The fish came out but not the octopus. But at least Omar was able to confirm my sighting, he saw it too. I was so pleased at seeing an octopus!

We went for a third snorkel after dark. Fortunately dark comes early here, so we were in the water with underwater lamps by 7pm. We just went in off the beach, not very far out from shore.

We saw some very large hermit crabs in conch shells, anemones, more sea cucumbers and several moray eels. The sea cucumbers looked like snakes, they were long and slender, slithering around on the bottom. When Omar poked them they shrivelled up into the cucumber shape we are used to.

We saw a trunk fish and a squid. The squid was swimming near the surface, Sam followed it for awhile and was so close he could reach out and touch it. Which he did.

Then we all saw an octopus.

It was a Caribbean Reef Octopus, probably about 6 or 8 feet in diameter. Its head was about softball-sized, maybe a bit larger. It had diaphanous webbing between its legs, so it appeared to have a body about 3 or 4 feet in diameter. It flowed gracefully across the sea bottom. When it came to a rock or coral outcropping it flowed over it, enveloping it. It was basically a cream colour but it changed colour as it moved, from cream to turquoise and back to cream again.

It was so beautiful, so amazing! Graceful and elegant, like a ballet dancer. Its large eyes watched us as we circled it, shining our lamps at it. I stayed with it for a long time, I just couldn't tear myself away from the awesome sight of it. That one viewing alone was worth the cost and effort of this entire trip!

Needless to say I have no photographs of this, only memories. The underwater camera was a pain to use and definitely not up to the challenges of after-dark snorkelling. Emerging from the water into the cold 27C air (never thought I'd say that!) was bracing! We grabbed our towels and ran back to the IZE for dinner. Nevertheless I think most of the sandflea bites I got on this trip were from that short run from the beach to the dining room.

For dinner we had a wonderful chicken curry with baked potato and a zuchini cake. Our server was a wonderful woman with a stern librarian kind of face; when Omar flirted with her, calling her "baby girl" she gave him The Look over the rims of her glasses. Later I asked Sam what was on the back of his T-shirt and he got up and did a little dance with his back to me, just as our server was approaching to serve the cake. She gave Sam The Look and we all laughed. When I finished my cake she brought another piece and set it in front of me, then quickly snatched it away and gave it to someone else! As she returned to the kitchen she looked over her shoulder at me with The Look and then an evil grin: Gotcha!

At one point in the afternoon hanging out on our deck, we saw something small and bright blue drifting in the water in the little lagoon below the deck. We watched it drift slowly toward us and finally I went out and around our house and under the deck to retrieve it. Amid much joking about what it was I insisted that it was a real creature, possibly a jellyfish, but certain unbelievers stuck to the theory that it was some man-made plastic object. I was able once again to get confirmation from authority, in this case Jenn the co-owner of the IZE, that it was indeed a Bluebutton Jellyfish. So there!

We also noticed that the one grackle that hung out around our house was one-legged, or appeared to be. As it turns out he actually has two legs, but one is damaged and unusable as a leg so he keeps it tucked up under his belly, only occasionally extending it for balance.

A very full Day 4! Tomorrow we leave Water Caye, we will be sad to leave, it is such a beautiful place and we love our little house.

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Belize trip: day 3

[click on pictures to see larger images]

On the morning of Day 3 we had pancakes and bacon for breakfast at the Paradise Resort on Tobacco Caye before setting out to Water Caye.

The idea was to sail from Tobacco Caye to Water Caye, with little sails that fit onto the kayaks.

However the wind was low and we mostly paddled. I got a sunburn.

We arrived on a gorgeous sandy beach at the south end of Water Caye in time for lunch.

Omar setup a table in the water on the beach, and we had tuna salad and some kind of foccaccio bread for lunch.

Daisy and Matt remained on the beach lounging in the water, while the rest of us explored and ended up at the bar of the International Zoological Expeditions lodge (IZE).

Very pretty, very cool.

We went snorkelling off the beach and once again I had mask problems, Sam switched masks with me.

Later we got ourselves installed at the IZE.

Wow.

The accommodations were awesome.

We had one building with three bedrooms, each with its own en suite bathroom, a common lounge and a common deck overlooking the water.

Very airy and beautiful, and it was nice to have the building to ourselves and the shared deck and lounge, with a wonderful breeze coming in from the ocean.

Unfortunately Sam once again got sequestered in a dorm next door. Way better than the horrible room at Paradise Lodge, but still not great.



We loved our deck, we sat out there and read or talked, enjoying the wonderful wind coming in off the ocean, and the view through the mangroves on either side of our little lodge.

Omar led us on a tour of the Caye. A large part of it used to belong to some nuns, they sold it to the Bowmans, an American family involved in fruit plantations in Belize (first bananas and later citrus). They use it for private vacation property.

There is another lodge with luxury accommodations (glass windows and air conditioning) that is empty except for the caretaker staff.

The IZE is used by Island Expeditions and groups of sport fisherman who stay the night and fish all day from their yachts. It has a classroom with lots of books on coral reef life and culture, and a lovely airy dining room and great food.

Again I was starving though, I was not doing well with the scheduled meals. My previous trip to Lighthouse Reef in 2006 got me used to unlimited access to food and I just wasn't prepared for scheduled mealtimes.

The IZE bar was casual and on the honour system, you made your own drinks and marked down what you consumed to settle up later.

Sam and I saw Atlantic flying fish while kayaking to our snorkelling spot. They are small but it was very cool to see them. Sam was a great kayaking partner, we paddled well together I thought.

After dinner we congregated in our lounge and had a great conversation. What a wonderful group, that was at least half of what was great about the whole experience.

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Belize trip: day 2

Day 2 was the first big day of snorkelling. I checked my notebook, I have a list a page and a half long of all the fish we identified. Don't know how long I will remember them all though. Right now I think I can put a face to a name, so to speak, for all of the fish on my list, but my memory is not to be counted on for very long.

I had a terrible time with my snorkel mask. I got very frustrated with that, it leaked terribly. Omar had a replacement for me, but it fogged up. In the end he gave me his own mask.

In the morning we went in the water off the wharf at the Reef's End bar, in the afternoon we kayaked out a ways and snorkelled from our kayaks. Josh was ill, turns out he is susceptible to motion sickness and the rocking of the ocean waves did him in. Fortunately Matt and Daisy had some really good motion-sickness medication that they got at a dive shop, they gave Josh some and that seemed to help.

Here's my list:

spotted eagle ray
yellow skate ----->
southern stingray
squirrelfish
french grunt
yellowtail snapper
red hind
stoplight parrotfish
needlefish
4-eye butterflyfish
sergeant major
tarpon
blue tang
banded butterflyfish
grey angelfish
blueheaded wrasse
spanish hogfish
cocoa damselfish
trumpetfish

Late afternoon I went snorkelling in the shallow water in front of our cabins to try to sort out my mask problems. I was not successful, but I did manage to cross the path of the spotted eagle ray that patrolled that stretch of water. We were only a few feet away from each other in the shallow water! He continued on his was without even noticing, I was in total awe of seeing a ray up close and personal like that.

I think that is one of the amazing things about snorkelling, you almost feel like an eavesdropper or a fly-on-the-wall, the fish appear to ignore you and just continue on with their lives as if you weren't there. You feel like you're part of it, in a way that you don't get from a walk in the forest. Imagine walking in the woods with all the deer and foxes and raccoons and wolves and birds and frogs just carrying on as if you weren't there, calmly walking along, hunting, eating, whatever they do in a normal day at home. Being able to see all the different fish and other living things on the coral reef living their lives in full view only a few feet away from you is really amazing. Of course the beautiful colours of the fish and the corals and the wonderful experience of floating in warm turquoise water aren't too shabby either.

I took a lot of underwater pictures over the course of the trip and very few of them turned out at all. Many of them show nondescript grey little fishies, so if I do this again (and I sure hope I do!) I will not bother with photos. Google the fish names and look at internet pictures that do these gorgeous little guys justice!

The reefs of Belize are in remarkably good condition I'm told. Carol scuba dives and she's been all over and she was certainly impressed with what she saw here. There are three kinds of coral communities: barrier reefs, atoll reefs and fringe reefs. We explored barrier and fringe reefs, on this trip I don't think we saw any atoll reefs. Glover's Reef and Lighthouse Reef are examples of that. So besides fish we saw several kinds of coral, but I didn't keep a list so I can't really tell you all the names. I remember brain coral, fan coral and fire coral, that's about it.

We were not ecstatic about the accommodations on Tobacco Caye. I was starving all the time, although Omar did ask for second servings for us. But waiting for it to be dinner was hell, snorkelling made me so hungry!

I dunno, on the one hand it was idyllic but on the other it's easy to pick at the failings of heaven.

Sam told me that the general opinion of past Paradise Island trippers was that the accommodations improved as the trip progressed. Better that we start with the less than ideal and improve from there, than vice versa!

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Belize trip: day 1

The trip begins officially today, "Day 1".

I was up at the crack of dawn, 5am. So apparently were many others. The grackles begin their raucous calls at dawn, the sun rises very quickly. For the rest of the trip we all found it very easy to be up at dawn. By Toronto time that was 7am, so it really wasn't an adjustment for me, but even the westerners found it easy to be up at 5am.

We were given waterproof dry sacks to pack our things into for the kayak trip, we each got three 20-litre dry sacks.

We had some great coffee and a filling breakfast (eggs and beans and fruit!), and then got on the bus to head for Dangriga, via the capital "city" Belmopan and the Hummingbird Highway. Wonderful scenery! I tried to take pictures but few turned out well, nothing did it justice. I love the houses on stilts, the many buildings with thatched roofs, the mountains in the distance, the jungle palm trees.

In Dangriga we headed straight for the waterfront to catch our boat to the islands (cayes). Sam was there waiting for us. We all got on the same boat, but we Paradise Islanders would get off at the first stop, almost half an hour out from Dangriga. But we ran aground before we even got out of Dangriga, several passengers hopped out into the water to push us off. Josh, one of the Paradise Islanders, had his passport in a fanny pack and it got soaked.

First stop Cocoa Plum Caye. Here we geared up for the first leg of our kayak trip. Our group consisted of Omar our guide, Daisy and Matt from Atlanta, Josh from Colorado, Carol from Chicago, Sam from Vancouver and me from Toronto. Sam was probably the youngest and I was the oldest. We used the "facilities" and Omar made lunch for us.

Before we left the beach though we had to practice our emergency kayak exits and re-entries. I have done this before but for some reason this time I had a hard time with it, I panicked. Hanging upside down from the kayak underwater, I totally forgot the routine and just flailed wildly. I couldn't get loose! I couldn't find the tab to pull the skirt away from the kayak! I wondered how long it would take for Omar to notice that I wasn't surfacing... and then all of a sudden I was up in the air. Don't know how that happened, I must have pulled the skirt loose in my wild panic. Good thing!

The re-entry was not too hard for me but was very hard for Sam, as it turned out I had left off the waterproof cover on the front compartment of our kayak, which put Sam's end of the kayak way up in the air so he couldn't get himself back in. So other than having survived to tell the tale, I did not perform particularly well on that little exercise.

We bailed and packed and set out in the kayaks, first for a bird sanctuary that was a nesting site for frigate birds and yellow-footed boobies. Omar threw sticks in the air that the male frigate birds swooped in to catch for impressing females with their nest-building abilities.

Then we kayaked several hours to Tobacco Caye, with a short break next to a mangrove swamp.

Tobacco Caye was cute, a very tiny island owned by six Belizeans, each one operating a lodge on their property. A very lively place, popular with a certain type of tourist, the more free-wheeling low-budget kind. At one end the Reef's End Lodge with a bar on stilts over the water, Gavioti's and Lana's and a couple of others in the middle, and Paradise Lodge at the other end, where we were staying.

We had little cabins right on the shore with little decks overhanging the shallow water. A hammock and deck chair on the deck completed the idyllic picture. Sam unfortunately did not get one of the cabins, he stayed in a really awful and stuffy little room in a house. I told him to hangout on our deck as much as he wanted, which he did. Matt, Daisy and Josh shared another cabin with two rooms next to Carol's and mine.

Around sunset we saw a spotted eagle ray swim by our cabins. We saw it several times over the next day or two, it appeared to have a regular route back and forth in front of our cabins.

The entire island is sand with coconut palms. It is at one end of a section of a barrier reef. There is a second bar in the middle of the island by the water, we ended up going there after dinner at the Paradise Lodge, I had a pina colada made with coconut milk right from the local coconuts.

On a walk after dark Sam and I saw a few hermit crabs scuttling around. When we got back to the bar there was a woman there doing fire-spinning on the beach.

Don't know when we went to bed but it was ridiculously early.

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