3one6

Our Belize Trip – Part 1

patrick — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:46:50 +0000

NOTE: you can click on all the pictures to see larger images…some of the images are really BIG also, disregard any words that are spelled incorrectly as we do not know how to spell some of the local animals/plants

It was a difficult decision that we started nearly a year ago……where to go and what to do for our 10 year anniversary! Needless to say we decided on Belize located in Central America. Aaron did all the planning and I have to say she did an absolute wonderful job! This was the trip of a lifetime.

Here is a map of where Belize is located.

: Belize Location

Day 1 in Maya Beach, Placencia Belize

We flew from Spokane to Seattle to Houston to Belize City through the first night. We landed in Belize City and went through Customs. Then we waited for a “Cessna Caravan” airplane to take us from Belize City to Placencia. Below is a picture of the Cessna we traveled in.Tropic Air Cessna Caravan Airplane.

: Tropic Air Cessna Caravan Airplane

This is the airstrip we landed on in Placencia. The Cessna used every single inch of the strip to land and take off from. The take off’s were a little uneasy cause you barely get over the water.

: Placencia Airstrip

Below is the turn around on the airstrip….I wasnt kidding when I said it used every inch

: Wingtip over the ocean inlet

Once we landed in Placencia we were only 5 miles from the Maya Breeze Inn that we were staying at. Below is a zoomed in map of Placencia. The 5 miles consisted of a terrible unimproved road, eating dust, and no air conditioning….our first taste of the next 5 days.

: Placencia airstrip to Maya Breeze Inn

Keep in mind we had to do a last minute switch, due to a change in ownership and remodeling, from our original place of stay called “Singing Sands” to the Maya Breeze Inn. We Chose Maya Breeze Inn because it had a fresh water pool and a “cabana” right on the beach … supposedly. Needless to say, as you can tell in the following google maps image, we were a little ways back and our view of the ocean was blocked by a big bush and two other cabanas.

: Maya Breeze Cabana location

In addition to the disappointing view, the pool was open to the public, they added a pool side bar that was playing “another gringo in belize” music until 4 am every night. The second to the last night I finally went out at 2am and asked the owner to turn it down. Needless to say, although it provided a convenient hub to do the tourist activities, its not the relaxing place we were hoping for. And it was a little sad to see the owner consumed by alcohol every minute of every day. Here’s a few pics from the Maya Breeze Inn:

: The side of our cabana…this is the same path that the public took to use the pool and bar….that window was our bedroom window

: The porch of our cabana

: The pool … our porch entrance is to the right….the bar is the thatch roof past the pool

: Beach Chairs

Looking from the ocean back on the Maya Breeze Inn. Our cabana is hidden back in the far left corner behind that bush

Now that I have the only “disappointment” out of the way I can move on to the rest of the absolutely most incredible memorable, and blessed trip we have ever been on. The first day was a kick back and recoup from the red eye flight day. We had dinner at the infamous Maya Beach Hotel and it was pretty good food. Here are a few pics.

: Maya Beach Hotel Restaurant – from the ocean looking in

: Maya Beach Hotel Restaurant

: Us at the Maya Beach Hotel Restaurant

: Maya Beach Hotel shot

: Fresh fish, beans of course, and mashed potatoes

Day 2 in Maya Beach, Placencia Belize

The second day we kind of vegged around, checked out the lagoon on the western side of our penninsula and tried for some barracuda, crocodiles, and whatever else would bite a fly. Nothing took except little fish smaller than the fly I was using. We scheduled our tourist activities for the following days and decided to do the Jungle Zip Line tour, jaguar preserve with river tubing, waterfalls, and rocks sliding.

We decided to take a “bus”, actually a converted school bus, to the city of Placencia. I didnt take any pictures because I was a little nervous to pull my camera out on the bus It was an experience, for lack of better words.

Prior to loading on the bus we decided to take the kayak out to a little island. Here’s an aerial shot of the distance we had to row. We rowed out, snorkeled for a few, and rowed back.

: An aerial shot of how far we rowed out

Here are a few pics from Days 2. The “Purple Space Monkey” restaurant served a Mango & Teriyaki glazed snapper that was hands down the best fish I have ever had!! I didnt get a picture of the dish but I did get a picture of the Purple Space Monkey

: Fishing the Lagoon

: the Purple Space Monkey restaurant

Just one of the many crabs we saw. The sand was alive with crabs once it got dark.

We finished the 3rd day with fresh lobster caught right out of the ocean in Placencia and bbq’d by some people we met at Maya Breeze Inn.

Day 3 – Jungle Zip Line tour

The third day we decided to do the Jungle Zip Line tour. Our “guide”, honestly nothing more than a taxi driver, showed up at 7:30am. The first thing I noticed was the padding in a very “deteriorated” state on the chairs in the diesel van leaving only mostly medal bars to sit on with a little vinyl over them. Something that everyone failed to mention was that the drive time was 3 hours to the zip lines. About 45 minutes down the nasty bumpy rough road we get stopped by some locals telling us we had a flat tire. So we spend 20 minutes replacing the flat tire while consuming oil vapors that were dripping on the exhaust manifold, which come to realize later was giving us carbon monoxide poisoning…..yipppeeee.

Our wonderful non air conditioned oil burning diesel van

So we get the flat repaired and moved on down the road, making one stop every 30 minutes looking for a new spare, a repair on the existing, or just for some reason? After we get all this behind us we finally arrive at the Zip Line tour to find no other tourists which was a relief after running through the previous issues. We bounce through jungle check in, mozy down the path the meet our zip line guides Jesus and Angel…..what better guides to have than two that God would provide to make Aaron feel more comfortable

One of the better parts of the road to the Zip Line tour

Jesus and Angel go through the steps and explain everything at the first platform. We hook up and I go first. The next few pics are of Aaron’s first zip line.

Standing on the first platform

Aaron stepping off the first platform

Aaron arriving at the platform after her first zip line

Aaron's ecstatic appearance after her first zip line

After the first zip line they make sure your OK and then continue on. Following are a few misc shots from either the walk in between zip line platforms or zip lines themselves. It was a blast as you zipped at high speeds through the jungle canopy. Some of the lines you barely miss the jungle foliage as you fly through the air. Some speeds are pretty fast too.

Pat getting ready to drop off the platform

watching Jesus run a zip line

Aaron zipping another line

Pat zipping a line

One of the paths between zip lines

The jungle was full of wonderful vegetation. Here are a few pics that we snapped while running through the zip lines.

the Bird of Paradise flower

Jungle water vines

We wrapped up the 3rd day with dinner at the Maya Beach hotel’s restaurant again. I ordered some form of truffle fish and it was awful…..it was like a fish soup with a truffle over the top. Here’s a pic of what not to order at the Maya Beach Hotel restaurant

Do not order the Boat fish dinner

Us on the dock outside the Maya Beach Hotel after dinner

Another shot of us out on the dock

Day 4 – Jaguar Preserve, jungle river tubing, and waterfall slides tour

The next morning I woke up early and took the fly rod to the beach out our front door. Caught a snapper and missed a barracuda. Had some gorgeous sunrise shots though.

: Sunrise beach shot

Another beautiful sunrise

Belikin beer sunrise shot

Beach chair sunrise shot

Here is the 12″ snapper I caught from the beach. Fun little fight

12" snapper caught on a fly

After a beautiful sunrise Aaron woke up and we headed to the office to eat breakfast and get ready for our Jaguar Preserve tour. We inquired about our guide hoping we would have someone different with air conditioning and non oil leaking van. To our deep gratitude we found out Zeph was guiding us today and he had a 2004 van with air conditioning. He was an awesome guide!! Zeph arrived around 7:30 and we hit the road to start our 45 minute drive to the Jaguar Preserve.

our tour guide, Zeph, came with a much better ride for today's tour.

Jaguar Preserve entrance gift shop

: the modern Banyo

: a dense jungle shot

: entrance to the Jaguar Preserve

: this plant was about the size of a 50 cent piece..a very cool plant

: another close up of some of the flowers

a very cool flower

more jungle plant life.....it was amazing how many different plants and vegetation was in the jungle.

: trekking through the jungle

: More trekking through the jungle. Zeph was an incredible guide and would always be showing us something that we had no idea was there.

More of the jungle water vines....you can hack these open and drink the water out of them if needed

: Termite nest…..Zeph, our guide, actually stuck his finger in one of these and ate some of the termites that climbed on his finger

turtles in the jungle???

Jungle frog

: ANTS ANTS ANTS!!! we never even knew it until Zeph pointed out that there were ants everywhere!! these ants had a very defined well worn path in the jungle floor and we were always walking on them without even knowing it.

: Soldier Ant – Zeph stomped on the ground near the nest and said “watch these soldier ants come out first”. Sure enough they came out like bulldogs and ran right at us

After we ventured through the jungle for an hour and a half, Zeph brought us back to the center of the park and gave us lunch. After we ate our very tastey lunch, we suited up for tubing down a jungle river….something I never dreamed I would do.

: And our tubing journey began

Pat & Aaron’s 10 year anniversary trip to Belize Part 2

patrick — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:06:31 +0000

: upstream shot of our river entry point

Looking downriver from our entry point

: Aaron starting her float….Zeph is up ahead of her

The jungle was pretty thick in some places

Aaron floating

Some of the dense jungle on the river banks

more river bank shots

more Aaron floating

After we exited the river tubing we headed straight for the waterfalls and rock sliding opportunity. We left our tubes in the middle of the jungle and started to hike through some pretty tough jungle trails to get to the waterfalls and rocks that you can slide down. We were pretty jacked to give this a shot.

After a 10 minute hike we came to the first waterfall. Below is a pic of it.

The first waterfall. About 25 ft tall.

We jumped in and swam up underneath the waterfall itself. Very refreshing but kind of dangerous as the water coming down has a ton of force behind it. The deepest part of the pool was probably 10 feet deep.

From here its pretty common to hike the same trail we came in on and head back out. But our guide gave us the option to hike the waterfalls and stream downstream to another trail. Ya, we didnt hesitate to take that route . Here’s a shot of him starting his slide.

Zeph asked if we wanted to try sliding down as there is moss on the rocks and it creates a natural slide. We said sure lets give it a shot. So he sat down and showed us how to do it. As he was going down and literally bouncing off walls we got a little nervous. He looked like a pinball inside an angry pinball machine……i couldnt stop thinking about how bad it must hurt to bounce off those rocks. We couldnt chicken out now so we gave it a go. I went first and I was right….it hurt lol. Aaron went next and ya it hurt for her too

The first "slide" that we attempted. Zeph is getting ready to slide down

Here are a few shots of the stream and areas we hiked down. Some of it was pretty intense having to jump into a pool from a waterfall but having to jump in a certain spot, etc…. It was an incredible experience.

this is a shot from the trail in of one of the sections we hiked down in the stream. It was slippery

some more stream shots. We hiked right down the middle of all this.

After 40 minutes of negotiating the slippery wonderfulness we had explored we came to our exit point. I have to say I was bummed as I love this type of stuff, but at the same time it was good to see the exit as Aaron had Teva’s on and they had no traction at all. I was a bit worried for her safety but God guided and took care of us.

A shot from the trail back on the exit point of the stream

The trail out from the stream back to the jungle...as you can tell not many people walk on this trail

On the way out Zeph took us by a plane wreck that happened back in 1982….all 3 survived the crash forunately.

Plane wreck of 3 jaguar researchers/scientist people. All 3 survived

Another angle on the plane wreck

Day 5 – Heading to Thatch Caye Resort, a private 13 acre island of paradise!!

The morning of day 5 came quickly. I started it out fishing as usual on the beach. Caught another snapper and some more wonderful sunrise shots.

another wonderful sunrise

sunrise in Belize

Spike...sad to see us leave

We loaded up in the van with no air conditioning and headed to the Placencia airport to catch a quick flight to Dangriga. We arrived at Dangriga and were met by Travis, the owner of the island. Our first impression of Travis was a very good one. He was very friendly, happy, and made us really feel comfortable, unlike the previous resort owner.

We loaded in his newer van and drove to a private gated lagoon. At the lagoon we loaded into a nice boat and headed out of the lagoon. Here’s a shot of the boat ride out of the lagoon.

Lagoon ride

From the lagoon we had about a 20 minute boat ride on fairly calm ocean….which was good for me since I am a little sally when it comes to the ocean, boat rides, and leaving my lunch in the water during the rides. Approaching the island got us all giggly as it was such an incredible site!!

approaching the island

The Marina on the island

A distant picture of the main beach on the islandThe Marina entrance

the green/blue water....aw I miss it

This is the entrance to the restaurant, bar, etc...

inside of the main cabana, this is the center kiosk area

This is what you see when you walk straight in. To the left is the bar, straight ahead is the breakfast/lunch eating area, and to the right is a hallway leading to the private dining area. Seating areas are along all the walls. It was beautiful, everything made of local woods and hand crafted by locals.

This is the bar

breakfast/lunch area

Breakfast area looking out into main area

one of the side seating areas

Center island inside bar/restaurant

Computer we used to keep in touch....aaron at the computer

After we met Balin (the bartender/hospitality director), he took us to our own casita.

coming up to our casita

Casita steps leading to front door

this is the morning "nook" that you could sit on....if our luggage wasnt on it This is directly to the right as you walk in the Casita

as you enter the Casita this is the far wall. The wood door is to the outside stairs that lead to the roof top hammocks

This is our king size bed...its directly to the left as you walk in the room. It had an oscillating fan on each side of the bed and an overhead fan if needed.

looking back at the entrance door to the casita

I am certain that I will not be able to even begin to explain the wonderful Mayan breeze flowing through the open and airy main floor of the casita, the incredible smells of the ocean, the sounds of the island, or the breath taking views, but believe me when I say we had to lift our jaws off the floor before we headed out the door to the long anticipated roof top hammocks.

These are the two rooftop hammocks on top of our Casita. Directly behind them are the stairs you take leading back down to the main level of the Casita

This is looking east from our roof top.

This is a trail on the island. They all look like this, beautifully maintained and surrounded by lush foliage.

boardwalk that ran along the west side of the island. In the distance you see the dock with two palapas, each with a hammock and our casita in the distance

closer view of that dock.....beautiful place to relax and to swim...our casita overlooks this side of the island

close up on one of those palapas...i love this picture!

sting ray we saw below the dock on opposite side of island, school of sardines swimming over it

Pat's first attempt at fishing on the island (same dock we saw the sting ray under)

another view of Pat fishing

This is looking directly south from our roof. This is our neighboring casita.....that was unoccupied the entire trip

a sunset rooftop picture as best as we could do by resting the camera on the ledge The roof was quite simply one of the most magnificent places we could hang out at.

beautiful sunset from our rooftop

The second day Pat went fishing in the morning with the resident boat captain while Aaron relaxed on the docks and listened to music. Later in the afternoon we took the boat out again to do some snorkeling. Pat actually got to do some spear fishing while Aaron snorkeled. He got quite a few fish and had a blast doing it!! Except for the time he saw the nurse shark right by where he was trying to spear a fish!! Yikes! There are actually quite a few critters on the island (coata mundi, racoon, monkey, lizards, crabs and other things I can’t remember the names of.

Resident raccoon, she is only chained up because she gets into peoples things ....she is totally tame (like a house cat)

Coata mundi..there were a lot of these and they just walk all over the place and play in the trees..very cute (although they did tease the raccoon that couldn't get off it's leash

This monkey was tied up when we saw it (thank goodness!), because we were advised to run the other way if it came at us as it is apparently mean and would try to beat us up!

Little lizard peeking up through the crack..cute how it has it's hand resting on the dock...

This is a "water duck". It let us get within a foot of it before it "pooed" and flew off.

Pat relaxing in the hammock

Aaron relaxing in the hammock

Pat enjoying the view from our rooftop

on our rooftop

On the last full day there we went scuba diving. What an amazing time! We saw a sea turtle, many colorful reef fish, corals and sponges, a nurse shark, barracuda and a school of dolphins swam right above us (which is apparently rare)! Pat also did some fishing and caught a rather large barracuda and a bonito (small type of tuna). Then we wandered around the island taking pictures of the areas we hadn’t seen yet. Much of the southern part of the island is kind of undeveloped with nothing much more than paths to walk along….beautiful though.

Aramais (our boat captain's assistant) trying to catch some bait for fishing (little sardines)

South Water Caye. In the distance you can see waves breaking..that is the reef. This is where we snorkeled and went diving.

Pat fishing after we got done diving

This is the barracuda being reeled in

Pat and Chico (the boat captain/divemaster/fishing guide) and the barracuda

barracuda's nasty mouth

bonito fish

This is the north end of the island...that is a mangrove plant...they are all over in belize and many of the island are made completely of mangroves.

This is the dock at the north end of the island, you can see the neighboring island (coco plum)

Us on the dock at the north end

Our feet in the sand (Aaron wanted to take this picture

going towards the south end of the island the vegetation is much lower, less dense and the cabana's are off to the right

this is one of the cabanas...they are right on the water with a dock out to them, cute.. but much smaller than the casitas

: neat little thatch umbrella just off by itself

: never really expected to see bunnies on a tropical island, but they were all over

looking down the path toward the south end of the island, all the white ground on the left is actually shells (crushed and whole), there are tons!

another neat umbrella down at the south end of the island, really unused beach area

sailboat we saw from the island

enjoying the beautiful evening, our last on the island

As our 10th anniversary trip comes to a close, we thank the Lord for the amazing time He allowed us to spend together.

Pat & Aaron’s 10 year anniversary trip to Belize Part 1

patrick — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:55:57 +0000