Trips, Pics, and Tales

Arenal Hanging Bridges, Walking in the treetops!

2010-11-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

We arrived at the Hanging Bridges with our guide, ready for a great hike and hoping to see some wildlife. We had the same guide as we had for our morning hike at the Observatory Lodge the other day, but this time it was a hike with just the six of us so maybe he would be a bit more talkative with a smaller group. The Hanging Bridges is a hike through the rainforest in Arenal, and is a combination of hiking on paths and suspension bridges. Some are quite long and very high up in the sky! While others are just short and not too high up in the air. It was another beautiful day, with the sun shining and a beautiful view of the volcano.

Even though we got a bit of a late start, we did see quite a bit of wildlife! We got very lucky and our guide ended up searching high and low for us! We saw a poisonous blue jean dart frog, which he heard and spent a good five minutes searching for by sound until he found the little guy!

We saw a few lizards, some howler monkeys, many birds including a toucan, and even a eyelash pit viper - up close and personal!

We had beautiful views and all of us, the kids and my parents included really enjoyed the walk, spotting wildlife and learning about the ecosystem!

Zipping Along!

2010-09-09T11:25:00.001-04:00

Our afternoon was going to be spent flying through the sky! Ziplining that is! Sky Trek is the best known zip line in the area, and they also have the Sky Tram which I thought would be a nice way to ride up to the platforms! We all pile into the rental and head out on the bumpy road. The good thing is that Sky Trek is close to AOL. My mom is already talking about backing out. She's asking all kinds of questions about what it will be like. The kids and I zip lined on our last trip at Los Lagos and loved it! But it wasn’t at Sky Trek. So, even though we've done it before, we don't know exactly what this zip line will be like. We get there for our 2:00 scheduled zip and while we're filling out the paperwork, my mom and Keith are watching the video in the waiting area. That's it for my mom. There's no way she's doing it. Not a chance. My dad tries to convince her that once she tries it and does the first line she'll like it, but there's no way she'll even get the gear on. Keith says he could do some of them, but he sees that their longest line is nearly half a mile. He doesn't think he can do it, but he does gear up and agrees to take the tram up. My mom doesn't even hold the ticket. Alex is a bit annoyed when they tell him he'll have to go tandem with a guide. He'll be 11 years old in two weeks, he tells them. He went without a guide at the other place 2 years ago, what's up with this! I tell him to stop pouting and be thrilled he gets to go at all. Better to go with a guide then be stuck half way in the middle of a half mile zip line! Suck it up! The tween years, so much fun! Megan is thrilled to go with a guide - she wants no part of being alone out there! But she's looking forward to it! We had beautiful views of Lake Arenal going up on the Tram and of the Volcano once we were up at the top, where the first zip line was!

The guides get us all set, safety seems to be a huge priority, our hooks and straps and gear are checked more than once. We go to the Sky Tram and they convince my mom to ride up, and then she can take the tram back down. She paid for it after all! We're met at the top with a refreshing glass of fruit juice. We're in a group of about 15 people, which is a bit large, but there are 4 or 5 guides. We get our instructions and it's nice that we don't have to use our hands to break at all. There are two "practice" lines, which are just really short and don't give you a feel for the actual height or speed, but more for how your body feels hanging there. One girl in our group decides this isn't for her at all. Keith doesn't even do the practice line. He sees the length of the first real line, which is the 3rd longest line. He immediately takes his gear right off. He says he's un pollo grande! No way! If that's not even the longest or the highest, he's not going!

My mom and Keith watched us take off on that first real line. Megan and the guide were the first to go. As I went all I could think about was how glad I was that Keith didn't do this. He would so NOT have liked it! But me, I thought it was great! The lines were very fast and long. Alex, he even did get to do a couple on his own afterall, which thrilled him. My dad had a blast as well. There were 8 zip lines in all I think and they were all very high up in the air and they were very fast. It was a really great afternoon! In retrospect, if Keith could have conquered that first one, maybe he would have enjoyed the rest, but I don't think he would have gotten past the first one! My mom, I don't think she would have liked it one bit. So good decision for her. As we got to the last platform, it started to rain. The last platform is short and you climb down a metal staircase a bit to get to it. There was a snake on the stairs, which everyone enjoyed checking out.

Hiking and Waterfalls!

2010-08-31T17:22:00.001-04:00

Our first stop was Arenal. Keith and I have been here twice before and no matter how many times I see the volcano I am still just amazed at the sight of it! Some people come here and never get to see the volcano....it is often clouded over. When we pulled into the town of La Fortuna I felt so fortunate that the rain had stopped and we had a clear view of Volcan Arenal! Even if my parents didn't get to see it the rest of the trip - which was a possibility - they'd get to see just how spectacular it was!

We decided to stay at Arenal Observatory Lodge on this vacation. This was a great choice for us. We were in the midst of nature here! There were spider monkeys in the trees and we had a perfect view of the volcano from our patio!

There are hiking trails and waterfalls on the property! This was a perfect beginning for our trip!

On our first morning we decided to take the Morning Hike on the Arenal Observatory Lodge property. It was a big group that was going, but our guide was good. He pointed out several birds including toucans and hawks. We saw monkeys too! The walk even took us down to the Waterfall.

Alex and Keith had a great time climbing on the rocks and cooling off.

We also discovered how beautiful the Eucalyptus tree is! So colorful!

It was a great first hike for everyone!

Back to Costa Rica - Family Style!

2010-08-25T12:38:00.001-04:00

I have been a horrible blogger! I'm sorry for that! I hope to get back to posting on a much more regular basis! We just returned from a fantastic trip to Costa Rica. This trip was a bit different for us because not only was it my husband and I and our kids, but we also brought along my parents for the adventure! We were gone for eleven days and had an amazing time! This was the third time Keith and I had been to Costa Rica, the second trip for our kids, who were 9 and 11 this trip and it was the first trip there for my parents, who are in their early 60's. It was a very active vacation, and I think that everyone had a great time!

We started our adventure by having our driver take us from San Jose to the beautiful Volcano town of La Fortuna. That would be our first destination. However, one of the benefits of having a driver is getting to stop at some of the more hidden gems in the country. On past trips we've mixed it up a bit. Keith and I have done self drive - we've rented a car and driven from location to location at our own pace and really enjoyed that. We've also hired a driver in the past for the ease of getting from one place to another. On this trip, with six passengers and luggage, we decided a driver with a van was the best way to go!

Our first stop was lunch in a little town on the way to our destination. The rain had started, but we had an amazing view from our table in this tiny little restaurant! There was no menu here, but just platters of fresh food brought out to us family style. We had fresh fruit juices made from the fruit on the trees right outside the windows!

The women in the family who owned this lovely restaurant were at one of the three or four tables here making homemade cheese empanadas. They were making the dough, mixing the cheese and showing the youngest of the children how to do this process. They even went outside to pick banana leaves to lay the empanadas on to cook them. We were happy to get a lesson ourselves on how to form and fill a perfect empanada!

Lunch was wonderful - it was a perfect introduction to the country. We all were feeling great as we continued on our journey to Arenal.

Walking in the Trees!

2010-02-26T10:49:00.000-05:00

When you're in the rainforest, you learn that there are different types of environments to explore. You can be down on the ground or up in the trees. Up in the trees is called the canopy. In Arenal there are the Hanging Bridges. There are fourteen bridges suspended up in the trees of the primary rain forest. We chose to go with a guide so that we could learn about the ecosystem. This was our first real exposure to the rain forest and boy did we learn a lot! The hike was about three hours long and it wasn't difficult.

We saw many howler monkeys and we even saw an eyelash pit viper! It was down below one of the bridges in a ravine! We saw so many frogs, including a blue jean frog, which was another highlight! We learned about the leaf cutter ants which was just fascinating! Our guide pointed out so many different birds.

Doing the hike with a guide was a great idea, we would have missed out on much of the wildlife we saw had we not had the guide. He found so many hidden gems! And we learned so much about the ecosystem and the history of the area. It was well worth the extra cost for the experience! We also got to hear the volcano rumble while we were there! It was very cool!!!

Our first adventure in Costa Rica

2010-02-18T15:47:00.000-05:00

Costa Rica....what was it going to be like? I'd read so much about this country, done so much research and spent so much time at online travel forums learning about where we'd be staying and things to do while we were there. But, we'd never been on a vacation like this before! This was the first time we'd be in a foreign country totally on our own. We weren't going with a tour and we weren't just going to one hotel as a home base and doing excursions from there. This trip was all self planned and it was going to be an adventure!

What did we have planned? Three different hotels in three different regions, renting a car and driving on what some rumors were said to be horrible roads and one flight within the country on a small plane. Add to that a couple of transfers between the flight and hotels where we didn't have the car and some strict luggage weight limits for the small plane and we were good to go!

We were ready! We landed and got through customs and immigration with no problem. We found the airport in San Jose to be very efficient and very clean. We were met outside by a representative from our car rental company and off we went. After we picked up the car, we set out with some directions we had printed out from the hotel we were heading to and a map I had picked up before leaving home. Once we drove a bit and were away from the airport the scenery was beautiful. The roads were windy and became a bit mountainous but there was nothing we considered to be horrible, at least not yet! They were fully paved and sometimes we had to pass a slow moving truck, but the ride was great. We were heading for the town of La Fortuna.

The main attraction in La Fortuna is the Arenal Volcano. I've heard that some people visit La Fortuna and never get to see the volcano because of cloud cover. Yet some people are lucky enough to have a clear view all the way to the perfect cone top. Some people are even lucky enough to get to see lava trickling down the sides. Would we be lucky enough to see the volcano? Would we get to see the lava or maybe even hear it rumble? Well, as we turned the corner and faced the charming town of La Fortuna we saw the volcano and it's magnificant!

I felt like if we didn't get another peek at the volcano the entire time we were there, at least we had this amazing view just this once! However, we wouldn't be let down. The entire three days we spent in La Fortuna we had a perfect view of the volcano. We even did hear it rumble! It sounded like a train roaring by. One night we joined a crowd of people on the bridge by the Arenal Observatory Lodge and watched the lava come tumbling down the side of the volcano. The crowd "oohed" and "ahhed" just like watching fireworks on the 4th of July.

We found so many amazing things to do and explore in the Arenal area.....I was hooked already and our journey had just begun!

Pura Vida!

2010-02-07T13:25:00.002-05:00

It was about four years ago that I first started to get the idea to plan our first trip to Costa Rica. For about a year before that I kept hearing about people here and there that had been there, or had known people who and went there and they just had such wonderful things to say about Costa Rica. The people there were so kind and loved talking with the tourists. The wildlife - like nothing you could imagine! The diversity of the types of places you could visit - there's rainforests and beaches, mountains and even volcanos, cities and rural areas. I heard about the roads - not so great. I heard you should do a tour and then I heard you can plan a trip on your own. I was so intrigued! Up until this point, the only foreign trips we had taken were pretty traditional Caribbean vacations - mainly staying at one resort and doing excursions, or staying at all-inclusive resorts in Mexico. This sounded like a challenge I was ready to take on!

I began my truly obsessive research and initially thought about doing a package. I began to look at the different options available, I bought some travel guides and started online shopping. I sent out for several quotes. While I was waiting for prices to come back, I was starting to become involved in an online travel board - Fodors - and realizing that people here were planning their trips themselves. They weren't using agents or getting packages. So, I started to look at the individual hotels that the packages were using and priced them out with what the combined deals were and the packages were so much more expensive! I dove in and decided with a little help from who I would soon come to rely so much on - the on line community, and some internet research I could do this on my own!

Costa Rica is a very easy country to "trip plan" on your own. Most of the hotels are online and will give you price quotes very quickly by email. The hardest part is deciding which parts of the country to visit! As I soon realized, the country is not one that you usually settle in one spot for the duration of your trip. Travelling within the country takes a lot of time because of the mountains and the roads. Many people pick two or three regions for their vacation. That's what we did for our first trip. This will give you the chance to see a bit of the different parts of the country and how different it can be.

So, four years later, I'm planning our third trip back and we haven't come close to seeing and experiencing all there is in this amazing country. Our first visit was just Keith and I and I can't wait to share that here! It was so amazing that a year later we brought Alex and Megan back with us and went to some places again, but also to several new regions and saw some pretty wonderful things. And then this summer, we're taking the kids again, and also my parents. This is part of the lure of Costa Rica....some may attribute it to Pura Vida....simply translated as Pure Life, but it means so much more to the people of Costa Rica. And when you visit you feel that meaning. It's almost a feeling you get, some may feel it as spreading cheer or appreciating life and what you have in life. It could be a philosphy of community or of enjoying life and celebrating good fortune, no matter how small or large, and when that is a philosphy of an entire country - how could you not want to keep returning?

Planning is half the fun!

2010-01-18T17:43:00.002-05:00

One of the things that gets me through the winter is planning trips. It's also what gets me through busy seasons of work and the daily grind. If I'm not travelling, I sure better be planning where I'm going next! I don't even have to be the person going on the trip - I can live through other's travels - although, it's much more fun when I'm the one going on the vacation for sure!

So, it's official - we're going to Mexico in March. I can't wait. This has been one heck of a January. I own a payroll company which means that January is the busiest time of year for me. So the trip to Mexico is going to be a time to just relax and do nothing after the nonstop pace of this month.

The Mexico trip will be fantastic. Just Keith and I, relaxing, a few excursions. The beach, a great pool, great food and drinks...a week to regroup.

Now this summer I'm planning a big family trip. This one involves a lot more planning, which is what I thrive on! We're going to Costa Rica. Bought the plane tickets last weekend! This will be our third trip there but this time we're taking my parents. I love this type of trip. Multiple destinations, flights within the country, renting cars, hiring driviers....and in the end - it's all going to come together and be an amazing experience for us all! My kids have been there once, but they'll be two years older this time and will love it even more. My parents have never been to a place like this and I just know they will love the eco-adventure. The volcano and the wildlife are things most people never get to experience. A lucky few can even hear the volcano rumble and see the lava flow! I just can't wait to share it with them.

My next entries will be from our past two trips to Costa Rica....a trip down memory lane for me so that I can share it with you!

Big Plans for 2010!!!

2009-12-30T07:21:00.000-05:00

I haven't forgotten about my blog, and I hope my followers haven't forgotten about me! December is an incredibly hectic month for me, as I'm sure it is for everyone. I was a bit shocked when I saw my last entry was almost a month ago! I will certainly get back to posting about some of my previous travel adventures with some of the photos from those trips....but here's whats on tap for 2010....

I'm currently trying to figure out where Keith and I can head out to for a couples trip in March. Nothing too exotic, like our Belize trip was. This is going to be a Mexico trip. This is a trip for him. This is a relax at the beach, drink in hand, sleep at the pool and read a lot of books type of vacation. Maybe we'll toss in a few excursions, go snorkeling or see a ruin. But this is a get away from it all type of trip. The big decision here is which resort to go to. We'll pick an all-inclusive resort where there are no concerns for the entire week. That's my latest obsession. Right now I'm toying with Apple's Square Deal. This is when you book a trip based on the number of "apple" ratings and then find out where you are staying when you get to the airport. Now for an obsessive trip planner, this is pretty difficult! However, from what I understand, there are deals to be found with this! But - it's hard to let go of the control. We'll see....will I do it???

Also, another trip to Costa Rica is in the works. I hope. Every year our family, including my parents, goes to the NJ beach - as my last few entries shows. But last summer we had really bad weather. And it's not an inexpensive trip. To be stuck in a beach house with bad weather and pay all that money - have to do your own cooking, clean your own house, make the beds....etc....Well, last summer we talked about heading out of the country and taking my parents to Costa Rica. I know my parents would love it there, and I'd love to show it to them! Keith and I have been there twice and we took the kids there on our last trip. Those trips will be future entries. I've been doing some research on where we'll go and how to best show my parents the amazing beauty and adventures of that country!

And other big travel news - my son, Alex, is going to England and France in the summer of 2010 with an educational trip, called People to People. He has to attend some preparation sessions to learn about the country and the people and also to meet the other student ambassadors who will be going. It's a big trip for a ten year old! But very exciting! He'll be doing his own blog with his pictures and adventures when he goes.

So - there's a lot brewing here on the travel front and I have a lot of past travels to talk about....just finding the time - that's the hard part!

Thanks for your patience!! Happy New Year to everyone!

The Boardwalk!

2009-12-07T09:34:00.001-05:00

It wouldn't be a week at the beach without a trip or two to the boardwalk. The Wildwood Boardwalk that is! For those of you familiar with the Jersey beaches, you may be familiar with this boardwalk, but for everyone else it's about two and a half miles long, and filled with games, and piers of rides, all kinds of food, and it has the widest beach ever! We usually don't go to the beach here - but for sure we make it to the rides! Oh, and there are a few different water parks as well that we usually try to get to!

Walking the boards on the boardwalk...the sights and the smells - it's everything summer should be!

Close to home, but still amazing travelling!

2009-11-23T20:04:00.002-05:00

Not every trip has to be far away, or on an airplane. We don't always have to go to exotic destinations for a vacation to be special or for it to be unique. Some of my most memorable vacation memories growing up were family vacations to the beach. Now we have continued that tradition with our children...we love to go to the beach, almost every year. Even if it's just for a weekend....but most times, a weekend isn't enough - we try to go for a week at a time. There's something about the beaches in New Jersey and also in Delaware. No, the water isn't that crystal blue you see in the Carribean or even the beautiful beaches of South Florida. But the waves are FUN! The crashing of the ocean as you sit on your deck...The kids riding their boogie boards in the rough surf.

In recent years, Sea Isle City, NJ has been the beach town of choice for us. It's a great family beach. There is enough to keep the kids busy, enough for the adults to do, yet is still a quiet town as well.

There's always something to do, in and around Sea Isle City.....

Dolphins!

2009-11-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

At Atlantis one of the most popular activites is the Dolphin Encounter. Our kids were so excited to get up close and personal with one of their favorite marine animals. We decided to go ahead and do the Dolphin Encounter where you get to feed, pet, hug and get a kiss from the dophins. I know there can be very mixed feelings about this kind of program, however the program we did was very educational and the dolphins were not kept in small pens. They were in a large lagoon and only brought into a smaller area for the purpose of interaction. I have always felt that this type of program can bring awareness to children and adults the beauty of marine life that they would not necessarily get otherwise. Dolphins are amazing animals and one of my children's favorites in part due to this close encounter.

We had a great boat ride to the lagoon and after arriving had an educational program about the dolphins. And then we learned about the program. Afterwards we went out onto a platform and the dolphins swam up to us and we could pet them. My kids were shocked at just how big they were! At this time the kids were only three and five years old. So the size and noise that the dolphins made was a bit surprising in comparison to the size of the kids! The kids were tentative and a bit hesitant at first. With some guidance and patience from the trainers, they finally did get to touch the dolphins. And then when it was time to hug the dolphins, the size of them was just amazing. They are such graceful and beautiful animals.

We then got to feed them. They gently took the fish from our hands and swam by a few times.

We were in the water with them, on a platform for about thirty minutes. It's still something our kids have wonderful memories about, and talk about five years later....

And even more fish!

2009-11-11T16:19:00.000-05:00

Atlantis has so many unique aquariums. And some of them are floor to ceiling! They are inside the buildings and outside on the pathways. There are some that you walk through as if you are walking through caves. These had some of the sharks and sting rays in them. These were some of the most fascinating aquariums, especially for the kids!

In some of these aquariums, it was as if we were standing right there with the fish!

Around every corner was a new adventure, a new discovery.....it was great!

The Dig!

2009-11-06T14:33:00.000-05:00

Atlantis is more than just a resort, more than just a hotel. It's an aquarium around every turn. Everywhere you go, wherever you look there are fish to be seen! Every night after dinner we'd walk through the Dig. This is a beautiful underwater habitat that takes you through a journey that represents the lost world of Atlantis. The aquariums are beautiful. Our kids could spend hours just watching all of the fish. Just floor to ceiling glass with all different kinds of fish swimming. Different pathways, different caverns...it was set up just like a lost city.....the city of Atlantis!

Journey to Atlantis!!!

2009-11-02T23:01:00.001-05:00

In 2005 we took our kids on their first big, out of the country vacation. We surprised them with a trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas. They were just four and six years old at the time and this was quite an adventure! Once again, a long, holiday weekend called out to me to start looking for a travel journey so the planning began for Labor Day weekend. It was my son's first week of First Grade and he'd have to miss one day of the first week of school, but certainly a trip to the Bahamas was more exciting and more educational than the first couple of days of school! We went for five days and it was amazing.

We stayed at the Harborside Resort, which are the time share condos that are part of the Atlantis property. At the time that we stayed there the prices to stay in the condos were less expensive than staying on the actual Atlantis property, yet we were able to use all of the perks of the Atlantis resort! However instead of just a small hotel room, we had a kitchen, a bedroom and a separate living area with a sofa bed that the kids slept on. Harborside has it's own pool if you care to use that as well. It's located just across the harbor, a short walk from the main area of Atlantis.

When we arrived the kids were amazed. Just the size of the resort, the color of the ocean, there were so many pools, and best of all the aquariums just about everywhere you walked.....it kept us all busy for the duration of our visit! We had a lot to explore.....

Not here for a long time!

2009-10-22T20:33:00.000-04:00

Just a quick getaway. Sometimes that’s what we need isn’t it? As a person who loves to travel, a four day weekend screams to me "plan a trip!" Some people look at a long weekend as a time to catch up on things around the house, or maybe a time to just hang out at home and relax. Not me. The first thing I do is start checking airfares and bouncing from one website to the next to see where we can go and how many days more than those four days Keith can take off from work.

Fourth of July, 2008 we did just that. A spontaneous trip to Jamaica. We’d been there once before and it was ok. We really didn’t do much or see much and our hotel at that time was just ok. But this time I’d become a travel junkie. And the internet had become available to obsessively plan trips! I could check out every hotel on the island if I wanted to!

Jamaica became our choice because of the short, no connection flight as well as great prices for the holiday weekend. We wanted to stay at an all inclusive resort, but not a big one this trip. After some extensive research we chose Sunset at the Palms in Negril. It was charming! So different from most of the larger resorts we’d seen on the island. This resort had treetop rooms all made of wood. Like our own little treehouse. It was a very lush jungle property. The resort was across the street from the beach, which was no big deal because it was a small property so the walk was short. They had a nice beach bar and restaurant right on the beach.

We spent our long Fourth of July weekend doing absolutely nothing. The biggest decision we had to make was how long to stay at the pool before walking to the beach and then how long before moving back to the pool again. This was a do nothing but relax vacation and it was perfect.

We looked at several brochures for excursions, we thought about renting wave runners but we just relaxed instead. We recharged and felt great about doing nothing.

I came home with a t shirt that says on it “Not here for a long time, just here for a good time” and nothing could have been more true for our short getaway to Jamaica over our long weekend.

I was glad we went there. After our first trip, many years prior I'd had no real interest in going back. But after this mini-vacation I saw a different side of Jamaica. Even though we didn't really leave our resort, I felt the island vibe. The people we met there were lovely and the drive from the airport to Negril was long enough to get to see the beauty of the island. We'll definitely be back! Another trip in the works!

Reflections on Belize...

2009-10-19T10:37:00.001-04:00

The end of a vacation is always bittersweet. The end of this vacation to Belize was particularly hard for me. I’d really enjoyed Belize. Even more than I’d thought I would. I enjoy travelling, I love vacations, but this one was perfect! From beginning to end. I knew in the planning stage that Belize had everything we were looking for in a great vacation – it had the ruins, it had the beach, it had the snorkeling. We could relax or we could go on great excursions. We did it all, and yet we were totally relaxed. It was perfect to start our vacation in San Ignacaio and end in Ambergris Caye. But for the actual vacation to meet our expectations - now how often does that happen? This one did!

Not only did we get to do some spectacular things, like going to Tikal and the ATM cave. We got to see amazing reefs while snorkeling and I got to scuba for the first time. We met wonderful people and stayed at chaming lodges. We ate great food and had perfect weather. There was more...

For me, waking up every morning and walking out from our cottage right on the beach and feeling the warm sand in my toes was like therapy. All the stress from my real world life just vanished while we were away. And isn’t that really what travelling is all about. Being transported to a place that is just magical and feeling the beauty of that place. Experiencing wherever you choose to go one hundred percent and not wanting to let it go.

We could leave Belize with wonderful memories, fantastic experiences to tell our children about and hopefully return with them in the future. I leave you with some parting shots….

Sailing into the night

2009-10-15T16:20:00.001-04:00

Our last night…part of our package at Portofino in Belize included a Sunset Cruise, but it had been cancelled twice now. Once because there was no sign of a sunset happening. It had rained and when it cleared up it was cloudy. And the second time there weren’t enough people to schedule the trip. Tonight they’d take us one way or another. So, it was cloudy and apparently only one other couple was booked for the cruise. Excellent! Every excursion we went on was either just Keith and I, or with only one other couple. This was one of the benefits of travelling during low season!

We went back into town on the water taxi and found out our sunset cruise would be on a beautiful catamaran! Nice! There was no sunset to speak of, it was a cloudy night, but it was still a great evening out on the sea.

One of the guides told us all about the history of Ambergris Caye and Belize on the way out. We had some rum punch, listened to music and just hung out and relaxed. We sailed out to Hol Chan. As we got out there we saw a spotted eagle ray jump way out of the water. So cool! Some of the night diver boats were starting to come out. Even without the sunset, it was great.

On the way back we had some chips and salsa and just laid back and listened to the crashing surf around the boat…our last night could not have been more perfect.

It's Scuba Time!

2009-10-13T14:58:00.005-04:00

Snorkeling had been great…but all it was doing was making me want more! Ecologic Divers offers a course called Discover Scuba Diving or DSD for short. Today would be the day. We were going to go all in. Of all the trips we’d taken to the Caribbean and to Mexico we’d never tried to scuba, but something about Belize and the reefs here was just screaming to me! It was time to SCUBA!

DSD is a mini course in Scuba diving. It’s not a certification course, but it would count towards certification. And you can use that course for up to two weeks of diving I believe. So, back to the dive shop and I was relieved that Charlie was once again our instructor. By this, our third trip with him, I was quite comfortable with him and felt we knew each other fairly well. We filled out a bunch of paperwork and watched a training video. We got our equipment and spent a good amount of time learning all about it, how to use the equipment, how to put it on, what the gauges meant - it was a thorough lesson.

We went out on the boat, back to Hol Chan. We were in somewhat shallow water, but still over my head. We got comfortable with the regulators, the feeling of breathing through them. The thing that surprised me most was the feel and noise of the bubbles going up past my ears. I never expected that. Keith didn’t like it. I don’t know if his regulator wasn’t working or if it’s the fact that he doesn’t float at all. Sinks like a rock. As a matter of fact, when we snorkel he has to hold onto a floating ring so he doesn't sink! So for him to have all this gear on and then have to breathe through this odd gauge, it just didn’t work for him. He decided to wait at the boat. He was going to snorkel for a bit, practice with the regulator and get some sun while we did our dive. I could understand the feeling. It was strange and I kept floating back to the surface. Charlie had to add a lot more weights to my vest. It was all very exciting and awkward at the same time.

Once we were in the water for a bit, we had to complete some test items. There were two others on the dive. There was one woman who was certified and her boyfriend who had been diving before but couldn’t find his certification paperwork. So, I was now the only beginner. It was nice to have Charlie’s full attention! The tests I had to do were to get the regulator back into my mouth while underwater and also to clear water out of my mask while underwater. I did both and didn’t like either. I hoped I didn’t have to do either one while diving for real!

Now the good stuff! We went down twenty-eight feet or so. They told me it was a very strong current dive and if you can dive there, it’s impressive – so yea for me!! I did keep floating to the top and I know I breathed too fast, but for my first time I think I did great!

Just a note, most of these pictures were taken by Charlie from Ecologic Divers since my underwater camera can’t dive these depths. Thanks Charlie!

It was amazing. To be right down in the reef with the fish and the coral eye to eye! It was awesome! We spent about an hour underwater. The sound was peaceful, just the bubbles and breathing. Watching the fish come and go, dart in and out of the coral. The colors were vibrant.

It was something that I know for sure I will do again. When we got back to the boat, Keith said he’d practiced a bit with the breathing and he’d be willing to try again, but maybe a slower starting course. One that you start in a pool. I’m glad….I’d love to have him as my diving buddy!

San Pedro, hustle and bustle!

2009-10-10T12:25:00.003-04:00

Ambergris Caye…it’s an interesting place to be! As I mentioned in some previous posts, we chose a resort to the north of the town of San Pedro. Portofino is only accessible by water taxi and it’s about a fifteen minute boat ride to get there. But when you get into the heart of the island the pace of life picks up. It’s still a sleepy island town by all means. But there’s much more hustle and bustle!

The first thing we noticed was the primary means of transportation are golf carts. There’s a few taxi vans, but most people are driving golf carts. This is certainly unique! There’s a certain charm about this for sure.

Our main reasons for going into town were to get to the dive shops, but that only brought us to the docks…to eat lunch and dinner once or twice and the obligatory souvenir shopping.

We didn’t get a chance to really see any of the other hotels in the area. In my obsessive research before the trip, there were quite a few that looked nice, but now that I was there I knew we made the right choice. I loved taking the water taxi to get to San Pedro. It wasn’t a hassle to me at all.

We had lunch one afternoon at Fidos. This restaurant is right on the beach, right by the water taxi dock. Perfect location for them I’m sure! It’s a nice little place that I’m sure is hopping at night! The food was good, the waiter was great – came one day to Belize to visit some friends and never went home. The longer I stayed there the more I was connecting with that feeling. Oh….but I have children, a business to run…reality hits hard sometimes!

Again, the view was spectacular for lunch. My husband enjoyed his Belikin, the beer of Belize, I enjoyed some tropical drink with rum and coconut. We shopped for the kids – it’s getting difficult to shop for a ten year old boy though. Found him some pirate type things! My daughter, she’s easy. A pretty sun dress and a hand crafted bracelet. Oh, but then I found a beautiful hand painted tea cup. At eight years old her favorite thing to drink is herbal tea….had to get her a tea cup from Belize as well. Painted with the sunset on it. We'd wait at the water taxi dock for a few minutes with our goodies and of course, I was thinking - I didn't get anything for myself! I hope the airport has some shops in it!

Then back to our slice of heaven, back to the pool and beach at Portifino. We had just a day or two left before it would be time to leave.

Mexico Rocks!

2009-10-08T16:21:00.000-04:00

Mexico Rocks! We had an afternoon snorkel trip out to the reef area called Mexico Rocks. This site is close to Portofino. We actually could have taken the kayaks at the resort and gone out on our own. Several people staying there did this. However our package included the guided snorkel trip, so that’s what we decided to do. Charlie from Ecologic Divers picked us up on the Portofino dock and off we went! He was the guide we had for our Hol Chan, Shark Ray Alley tour so he was familiar with us and we were comfortable with him. Again, we were the only two on the trip so once again, personalized tour!

Mexico Rocks is different from the previous snorkel site in that it’s filled with smaller fish. The reef is more colorful and the fish are much more colorful. Here you don’t see the rays, eels, barracudas and sharks but you see hundreds of varieties of the small, beautiful tropical reef fish. I don't have too many pictures of the fish though...those little guys move fast! I can't tell you how long I spent chasing after those little fish snapping away and getting shots of nothing! I'm sure K was getting a good laugh watching me snorkel after those fish and waiting for them to come out of their little cave holes, only to have them dart away...it's all part of the joy of snorkelling for me!

Once again, Charlie led the way around the reef pointing out all kinds of fish and the different types of coral. After about forty-five minutes around the back of the reef, K and I went on our own just exploring for about another half an hour.

If you can ever get to Ambergris Caye, snorkeling at both Mexico Rocks and at Hol Chan are two totally different experiences. My recommendation would be to try to do both to see the all of the beauty the reef has to offer!

A Beautiful Morning

2009-10-06T16:26:00.001-04:00

Imagine opening your eyes and seeing this....

Imagine that! I woke up early one morning and pulled back the cotton curtains to see if the sun had risen up above the sea yet, and this was what greeted me. I just had to grab my camera! I went out on our porch and sat there just in awe of the beauty of the place we were. How lucky we were to be here! How lucky to experience such beauty! I snapped a picture with my cell phone to send home to the kids. I wished they were here to share this moment with me. There were so many parts of this adventure that they would love, and yet so many parts that would be enjoyed so much more in a few more years. The timing just wasn’t quite right yet. I enjoyed this amazing sunrise alone…I didn’t wake up K yet. He wouldn’t quite appreciate the beauty of it the way I did. He was sound asleep still. He’d enjoy it in a picture. For me, my day was already perfect.

Swimming with the sharks!

2009-10-04T19:26:00.000-04:00

It has been years since we’ve snorkeled. Well, really snorkeled anyway. From the beginning of my research on Belize, the fact that the second largest barrier reef is right off the coast has grabbed my attention! I was so looking forward to snorkeling there! One site that also kept popping up in my research was Hol Chan and Shark Ray Alley. To snorkel where there were sharks and sting rays! This vacation was becoming quite the adventure!

Portofino uses Ecologic Divers and they were a wonderful dive outfit. They seemed to be highly conscious of the environment and they absolutely were not ones who chased after the rays to pick them up and pet them for that “picture moment”. Our guide was very respectful that we were in the marine world sharing it with them and not the other way around.

Our first stop on our first snorkel trip was at Hol Chan, and our guide was Charlie. Little did we know how well we’d get to know him during the next few days! It was just my husband and I on this trip, so it was wonderful. A private snorkel tour. Charlie took pictures with his camera and I had my underwater camera. He stopped to point out everything for us. The reef was nice, but not as colorful as I’m sure it was in past years. The color has faded, as he told us is the effects mainly of global warming. But the fish we saw!

To name a few…baracudda, morey eel, huge groupers, stingray, a spotted eagle ray, green sea turtles and a few nurse sharks! Not to mention all of the beautiful colorful reef fish. We snorkeled around for about an hour and then got back on the boat and headed to our next destination.

Shark Ray Alley….here we’d get right into the water with the nurse sharks swarming! First Charlie put out some chum. Right like in the National Geographic specials!! Actually, mostly small fish came to eat the chum, they attacked it! But you could see some sharks around the bottom swimming around. And several sting rays. We were told they nurse sharks are safe to swim with. Ok – in we went! We swam around, the sharks hung around the boat for the most part. I got some pictures. It was all so peaceful and so beautiful!

We were out for about thirty minutes or so. After having not been snorkeling in a few years, I was re-hooked. I could do this all day! We got back to the dive shop and met up with a group from our hotel. They just finished up what is called DSD – “Discover Scuba Diving”. It’s an intro course that doesn’t certify you, but you get to go on a dive. Now I was thinking…..hmmm…..just maybe!!!

Toes in the sand

2009-10-02T14:10:00.000-04:00

This was it. This was the place for me! I thought I would miss the jungle. The zillion stars in the sky at night. The music of the cicadas as soon as the sun set. The giant bamboo trees. Sure, I missed it until I woke up and stepped out of our little thatched roof cottage and my toes hit the sand. This would be a relax and do nothing day. Could this vacation get any better? It seems we planned the perfect combination of busy days, travel days and activity days. Today was a relaxation day. Although to me, even the activity days were more relaxing than any day not on vacation!

We walked, barefooted as everyone seemed to be most of the time, up the steps to our outdoor dining for breakfast. Portofino is a small resort so there were never too many people around at one time. Also, people leaving for the day or for the morning on their excursions would eat earlier - not that we slept in. It was a bit hot in the room, even with the air conditioner. The rooms here are air conditioned, and we have a ceiling fan. But with a thatched roof, it's hard to keep cool!

So, our view every morning at breakfast couldn't be beat....

My breakfast of choice quickly became toast with peanut butter and fruit jelly, and a fresh fruit plate - no papaya. For some reason, I just can't get into papaya!

After breakfast, we went out to the beach. We spent the day back and forth between the beach and the beautiful pool at Portofino. As with many of the beaches in Ambergris Caye, the beaches aren't really ones you can just wade into and swim. This is beacuse there is an abundance of turtle grass right off the beach. We were told they do not clear it out for swimming because it's an important part of the ecosystem. It's a nesting area for fish and other marine life.

I spend a good part of the day just walking around snapping pictures which I'll share here. When my camera wasn't in hand, we were in the pool, relaxing in the sun or reading.

Our first full day at Portofino was a day without shoes, a day with our toes in the sand and day with not a care in the world. That's vacation as it's meant to be.

Rain, Planes and a boat...to Paradise

2009-09-30T12:31:00.000-04:00

As we pulled away from Chaa Creek, and the jungle, the rains began. It was rainy season after all! But we had a flight in a tiny plane and rain and tiny planes were not somthing that I was really too thrilled about. As a matter of fact, I just wasn't going to think about it at all. Once again, we had a wonderful driver who talked enough to keep the hour and a half ride to the airport, in the rain, interesting. But who also gave us enough quiet time to enjoy the ride and reflect on the vacation we'd just had.

As we got closer to Belize City, the sun came out! Rain doesn't last long in Belize for the most part, just showers here and there...but it was raining hard when it did rain! We were lucky though. During our whole time in the Cayo, inland, that was the only real rain we had.

We got to the airport and waited for out flight. We were flying on Tropic Air, a flight that was arranged by our destination hotel and the flight would be a mere fifteen minutes to San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye.

The airport is just a small building and the runway is just a dirt strip. I did find it a bit funny that we got a paper about lost luggage and a baggage claim ticket!

After taking off we had a very smooth flight with beautiful views of the crystal blue Caribbean Sea.

We had a flawless landing, had no problem getting our bags! Although the airport in San Pedro was surprisingly larger than the one in Belize City! And we were promptly met by Mo. He would be taking us to Portofino, which is only accessible by water taxi!

We chose Ambergris Caye over some of the other Cayes because it seemed to have a bit more as far as restaurants and shops as compared to some of the others. I also found the selection of hotels easier to browse through and found more choices that fit our needs. We chose Portofino because it is more secluded, but yet the town is accessible when we want to go there. They offered a nice package and their communication via email was excellent when I had questions or inquired as to availibity. Their reviews were also mainly outstanding. At Portofino we did not get a package that included all of our meals as we did at Chaa Creek. Since Ambergris Caye has many restaurants and we are definitely "foodies" we wanted to experience the variety offered! But our package did include a snorkel excursion as well as a sunset cruise and breakfast.

So, after our fifteen minute boat ride, which I became very accustomed to and loved every time, we docked at Portofino and were greeted right at the end of the dock. Immediately we felt at home. The staff there was incredibly friendly and welcoming. We had our welcome drink and went over all of the information about the property.

We then were taken to our beach front cottage, which is their standard room and shown how everything worked and then off to lunch we went....

I felt like we were in a bit of paradise....

Ready for a change in scenery!

2009-09-28T09:59:00.001-04:00

It was time to leave Chaa Creek. We had five amazing days there and would return in a heartbeat! We didn't have to leave until noon, so we wanted enjoy our remaining time there and not just wait around until our transfer. We had one last wonderful breakfast and then headed up to the pool. The pool at Chaa Creek was one of our favorite spots. So peaceful and a great spot for sharing the days experiences with other guests. There was an area to the side where you could get a massage right out there, which was on my list of things to do that I didn't get a chance to do but heard it was fabulous! Oh well...next time! I was feeling a bit sad to leave this bit of paradise in the jungle...however - our vacation wasn't over! We still had five more nights to go! Some final thoughts on our visit to Chaa Creek - it was an amazing and beautiful ecolodge, however it's expensive. I did feel that it was a value worth paying for though. The staff were amazing. I would highly recommend getting one of their packages that includes some excursions because they are expensive due to the travel costs. One thing that surprised me was the lack of wildlife, being right in the jungle. Having travelled to other jungle areas, such as Costa Rica, we expected more and saw virtually no mammals or even birds on the property. Chaa Creek is a great place for families and there were several there with younger kids during our stay. I'd bring our kids back in a second. However, the excursions may be long and a bit difficult for many kids, so think about that.

Before moving on....some final pictures from our time at Chaa Creek in the Cayo district!

Spelunk...Spelunk...Spelunking

2009-09-26T11:32:00.004-04:00

The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave...this was a day I was so very much looking forward to! How often do you get the chance to explore a cave? Let alone a cave that was once used for Mayan rituals thousands of years ago? And one that still has fully preserved artifacts, incuding human skeletal remains in it? I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I was expecting a great day!

Francisco from Pacz Tours picked us up and this tour was part of our package at Chaa Creek. Again, I can't say enough about what a great package we had. It allowed us to do so many great things! We headed back out to the Western Highway and Francisco just talked about everything from the country, Belizean history, his family, past tours he'd been on. We were the only two people on the tour with him, so it was an ideal day. Our own private excursion! After about thirty minutes on the main road, we made a quick stop for Francisco to pick up a sandwich - we had boxed lunches packed for us, and we turned off onto one of the all too familiar bumpy roads of Belize.

We drove for about forty more minutes on the bumpy roads, crossing two river beds. Francisco said they were very shallow compared to past trips he'd taken. We finally got to our parking area and packed up our gear. We had about a forty minute hike into the jungle. It was maily flat walking. There wasn't much wildlife to see, but it was very pretty. We had to cross three river beds on foot. It wasn't deep, no higher than above the knee in the deepest areas, but it could get slippery because of the rocks on the bottom. But the water was nice and cool. I felt great! The walk was very fast. Francisco wanted to get to the cave before any other groups showed up. He said the experience would be best if we were the first group in. He talked the entire way there....he had a lot to say!

We finally got to our base camp, and left all of our dry gear there. That would be our backpacks and boxed lunches. I gave Francisco my camera for his dry bag and kept my underwater camera out for some shots going through the cave. We put our hard hats and head lamps on and off we went!

The opening of the cave is beautiful. It's shaped like an hourglass. You have to swim into the cave to start. It's a short swim to the rocks that we climbed over and under and all around. Some of the rocks were very large, some not so big. Some of the spaces were a bit hard to navigate through, but Fransicso always made sure we had the best footing and showed us how to place our hands and feet to get through the maze to the next area.

The rock formations that we climbed around were fascinating and we also saw several bats! We has some areas that we had to swim in water that was maybe chest height and other areas where we just walked in water that was ankle deep. We walked into the cave for about 45 minutes or so. Some of the rock formations that we climbed through looked like these...

In this one section of the cave, there was an opening out to the area outside. The archaelogists theory is that this opening may have been used to lower supplies into the cave because to take everything in from the cave opening and past all of the rock formations would have been very difficult.

After about 45 minutes we got to a very high ledge which we were to climb up....I was thinking NO WAY!!! But, we did it. It was steep, but with the right footing, we made it. And it was so worth the climb! We got to the top and there we had to take our shoes off and put socks on to not damage the surface of the floor of the cave. Here we were in the Great Cathederal. This area is 350 meters long and 50 meters wide and it is amazing! This is where the Mayans held their rituals and there are many, many pieces of pottery laid out in just the places where they were last used. You can just imagine how the cave looked in 900 AD under the lighting of only torches, we only had the glow of flashlights, and you could see how mystical the cave formations looked. As a mater of fact, many looked just like the shapes of some of the Mayan gods themselves. Here the Mayans did rituals to the gods of sun, rain and fertility.

This formation looks like one of the Mayan gods!

As we walk farther into the cathederal area we start to see some of the human remains. We're told there are many human remains and many more that are likely undescoverd at this time. They are still studying the bones to determine the ages and trying to figure out how these people may have died. They do know some things about some of the people.

We go futher to the far back of the cave and climb a ladder to get to the only full skeleton which is fully preserved. It's that of a 15 year old female. They call her the Crystal Maiden. It is absolutely stunning - both eerie and peaceful at the same time.

After spending about an hour in the cathederal area, we made our way back out of the cave and had our boxed lunch before trekking back out of the jungle, crossing the three river crossings and back to our vehicle.

It is absolutely no exaggeration when I say that this cave experience was likely the most unique thing we have ever done and truly an opportunity of a lifetime. There is some talk of controlling or no longer allowing visitors to enter the cave in the future so I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to experience the magical ATM cave while I could.

The Crystal Maiden - teenage girl, fully preserved by the cave's natural processes.

Our first cave experience and the butterfly farm!

2009-09-23T20:51:00.000-04:00

On our third full day in Belize, we decided to do a half day excursion. This would be between our two full day trips. Tikal was a long day and we had another full day excursion coming up. So, we spent the morning at Chaa Creek. There really is an awful lot to do right there and we actually had every intention of going horseback riding when we originally planned our day, but when it came to Saturday morning, we just didn't feel like it. We could have taken the canoes and gone out on the river as well...but again, not in the cards! So, after breakfast we decided to take a walk up to the Natural History Center and Butterfly Farm that is right there on the property.

At Chaa Creek they have a small museum about the history of Belize and the Mayan culture. They also have a small exhibit about the native animals in the region as well as their efforts at helping to increase the Howler Monkey population in the country.

There is also a Blue Morpho Butterfly farm. This is quite interesting! We had a short but very interesting lesson on more than you could imagine about the life cycle of the Blue Morpho. They are actively harvesting the eggs, hundreds a week from the egg stage right through the larvae until they emerge into butterflies. It was quite a sight!

After having lunch poolside and relaxing for a bit, we were ready for out next adventure:

Barton Creek Cave! This cave was used as a Mayan ritual site until around 900 AD. We went into the 7 mile long cave on a canoe, which our guide paddled and he told us all of the history and legend that went along with it. We had a bright lamp, powered by a car battery which we took with us into the canoe! The cave was beautiful. We went about 3/4 of a mile into the cave. The ceilings were about 150 feet high at some points. We could see some of the pottery that was left and there were many bats flying past our heads! We were told there have been approximately 28 human remains found in the cave.

This cave experience was very cool! To be in the canoe, and when we turned our lamp off it was complete darkness. For the most part we were the only group in the cave so it was totally silent as well. One can only imagine what it was like thousands of years ago, with the only light being from the torches of the Mayans.....

This would just be a taste of our cave experiences. We had plans for a full day cave experience the next day and I could not wait!

Tikal...amazing!

2009-09-20T13:59:00.002-04:00

Tikal...when I think about Mayan ruins and history, Tikal is one of the first things that comes to my mind. K and I have been to Mexico many times. We've been fascinated by the ruins there. We've been to Chichen Itza, and were some of the lucky ones who were there when you could still climb the Great Pyramid. Although I chickened out and only K made the climb. I regret missing out on it now though! We've seen the beauty of Tulum sitting on the edge of the sea. We've climbed the tallest pyramid in Coba, the relatively unexcavated site in the jungles outside of Cancun. But Tikal...that to me is the ruin of ruins! Tikal isn't in Belize, it's in Guatemala. But from where we were staying, it's a day trip away. There are many great ruins in Belize, Guatemala too for that matter. Those countries were thriving in the Mayan period. Millions of residents. Many more than live there today.

Our journey began early, after breakfast. We left with just one other couple and two of the employees from Chaa Creek got to go with us since it was the slow season. Off we went with our guide and we had about a fifteen minute drive to the Guatemala border. We'd cross on foot, going through customs and immigration. After paying the necessary fees and getting our passports stamped, we picked up a different vehicle and off we went. The country was incredibly beautiful. We drove mainly through dairy farmlands and past several lakes. We were told that most of the villages had no running water, so you would see the women at the lakes set up in little huts doing their laundry. It wasn't unusual to see pigs on the road as well!

The countryside for most of the drive looked like this. Note the rocky road....most roads in Guatemala that we were on, and many roads except the Western Highway in Belize were just rock. Made for some bumpy driving!

Once in Guatemala we had about two hours to go until we picked up our guide Walter, about thirty minutes from Tikal National Park. Our Chaa Creek guide told us that they don't allow Belizean guides, so we had to have a Guatemalean guide for the tour. Walter was amazing. He was so filled with knowledge, from everything from the Mayans, to the structures in Tikal, to the country to the plant life and animals we'd see. Made for wonderful experience. As soon as we crossed into the park, we were immediately taunted by some Spider Monkeys. They were throwing leaves and branches down on our vehicle.

We parked and got out of the van and headed toward the park. Walter stopped at a little hole in the ground and asked us if we'd ever seen a tarantula before....um, no! So, he sticks a piece of grass in the hole and out pops a huge fuzzy tarantula! Great start to the day! We hadn't even seen the ruins yet and we'd already seen spider monkeys and a tarantula!

Walter told us all about the history of Tikal and the Mayans in Guatemala as we made our way to pyramid IV, which is the tallest pyramid, standing over 230 feet high, way above the canopy. As we approached it was just breathtaking to see as the top peaked out of the jungle.

We were able to climb this pyramid. High above the canopy, the view is spectacular. We could have sat there all day...but to see more, we did have to go back down!

We then went to the Great Plaza and learned more about what life may have been like around 600 AD. We had time to explore and climbed pyramid II as well. Pyramid I can not be climbed anymore. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, including many coati, toucans, foxes, many more monkeys, and an anthill that was perhaps 4 or 5 feet long!

Our last stop in the park was pyramid V, this pyramid appears to be the tallest, but IV is actually taller. This one seems taller because it's fully excavated. The steps up are straight up. The view is amazing, as can be seen above.

I loved Tikal. To me it is truly a mystical place. I'm sure I could spend days there exploring - we just touched on the highlights. The national park is over 200 square miles, with the structures in 10 square miles and only a small fraction have been uncovered.

After our drive back to Chaa creek, we cooled off and relaxed in the pool and had a wonderful dinner with the highlighed being Shrimp with a Coconut Sauce....possibly a perfect day!

Some hiking and nature

2009-09-17T18:38:00.000-04:00

Sleeping in the jungle, waking up in the jungle. It's a beautiful thing! But ya know what? It was darn hot! Over and over the staff at Chaa Creek kept telling us "this is the rainy season, it's not hot - you haven't felt hot yet!" Well, it was about 95 degrees with 93 percent humidity and no air conditioning. I can handle it during the day. I don't mind it when I'm outside, especially if I have water to drink and there's shade nearby. But sleeping in the heat - that's another story. We survived though and by the second or third night I must have adapted, or we must have figured some method to keep our cottage cooler because sleeping came much easier. Or maybe we were just exhausted!

Our first full day...after a long day of travelling, we decided that this day would be mainly a day of relaxing and getting to know where we were. No planned activities. We'd hang out, maybe do some hiking and relax at the pool. Perfect.

After breakfast, we hiked along the River Trail. This is a short walk from the cottages to the Macal River. The pathway was lined with some of the biggest bamboo trees I've ever seen!

Once at the river, you can take one of the canoes and paddle downstream to San Ignacio if you'd like too....we chose to just sit on the bank for awhile and enjoy the scenery. Quite peaceful. But it's so evident how the river has turned brown from the Chalillo Dam....very sad. We were told that just weeks before the river was clear.

Later in the afternoon we also hiked along the Medicinal Trail. This is a self guided hike that shows you how so many of the plants and trees have been used to treat so many different ailments ranging from skin irritations to stomach issues to actual research for cancer drugs. It was fascinating.

We had a really great day, but had a early morning coming up. Our first big adventure....Tikal. This was one of my main reasons for coming to Belize and for choosing this location.....I couldn't wait!

Finally, it's time to take off for Belize!

2009-09-16T17:15:00.002-04:00

We went to Belize in August, which is their rainy season. However, we were lucky and it really didn't rain much while we were there. The nice part about the rainy season is that prices are generally lower and crowds are typically down! We flew Continental, which was great. No charge for the first bag and the Belize departure tax is already included in the price of the ticket, which saves some hassles and money leaving the country at the end of the trip as well. We arrived in Belize City around 10:30 am ready to go, customs was smooth and we were out the door of the airport quickly and immediately greeted by Miguel from Chaa Creek. Our package included a stop at the Belize Zoo so we decided to stop on our way to Chaa Creek rather on our way to the second resort after our stay at Chaa Creek. At first, I thought, ok - why stop at a zoo? How strange that everyone makes such a fuss about this zoo and why is it such a destination in Belize? Haven't I been to enough zoos? But we went with it and stopped at the zoo. Our driver, Miguel took us into the zoo and acted as our guide.

When they say that it's the "Best Little Zoo in the World", maybe it's true! It's a totally natural environment zoo. There are no cement enclosures, you honestly barely notice the cages at all. The animals are native to Belize and all come as orphaned, rehabilated, donated from other zoos or were born at the zoo. They have several conservation programs to restore endangered animals back to their environments as well. Miguel took us through the winding paths which were set in a jungle setting and told us about each of the animals and their habitats. It was quite a nice learning experience and a great introduction to the country! The zoo has hand painted, quite humorous signs, often written from the perspective of the animals they describe.

After leaving the zoo, we had about another hour drive before arriving at Chaa Creek. The closer we got, the more we began to get into some beautiful mountain and jungle countryside. Miguel would point out everytime the geography would change and what it was that made it different. As we drove over the Macal River he became very passionate about the Chalillo Dam which has recently caused much political controversy and apparently has caused the Macal River to turn brown. We heard much talk while we were near San Ignacio of how this dam has caused pollution and the brown is not simply mud. It's quite the topic among the locals.

We arrived at Chaa Creek after turing off the Western Highway and onto what is one of many, many very bumpy roads. This one is several miles, but leads to possibly the most perfect eco-lodge in Belize! At least we thought so! Our first impressions of Chaa Creek were simply "stunning". K looked at me and says "where did you find this place"? After a very simple check in we were given a tour of the grounds and taken to our standard cottage. It was beautiful. Hardwood floors, huge bathroom with double sinks, double shower and a wonderful outdoor shower. Super high thatched roof and powerful ceiling fans as there's no air conditioning. As many of the jungle lodges seem to be, the doors don't lock when you're not in your cottage. You have no room key. Just keep your valuables in the safe and shut the door when you leave. When you're in the room, you can lock the door for privacy.

Once we were settled in we had some lunch and then spent the afternoon at the pool. Chaa Creek has just recently added their pool, which is awesome. I can't imagine staying there without it! No matter what time we got back from our day's activities we always were ready to relax by the pool for a bit before heading to dinner. It was a great hang out place and incredibly relaxing.

All in all our first day in Belize was pretty fantastic!

Staying in touch with home

2009-09-15T13:33:00.001-04:00

My kids were really going to miss us on this trip. Especially M, our daughter. She just couldn't get past the fact that we weren't taking them this time! After all they went with us last summer to Costa Rica and had a blast, we all did. We'd had a busy summer and she just came back from a week of overnight Girl Scout camp and now we were leaving her. She was really disappointed. A knew he'd miss us and wanted a way to stay in touch. Calling to and from Belize on a cell phone is really expensive, if you can get coverage. Expensive as in approx $3/minute expensive.

So, what to do? First I tried the route of an international sim card for my phone, which has international calling. This would work great. It would allow me calling at about 39 cents a minute instead! I did everything possible, however due to an issue with PayPal and then with FedEx, it just didn't arrive in time! Bummer....so we relied on email instead. Our kids were thrilled. We set up an email account just for them and used a combination of the public computers at out two hotels and our Blackberry to send and receive emails every day with the kids. It was so important to keep in touch with them! We could even send pictures to them this way!

In our emails we told the kids what we did each day and had them look up the sites we went to online so they could have an idea of how we were spending our days. They really enjoyed that! And they'd share how they spent their days too.

About half way through the trip we did call them a couple of times to check in. It really makes a big difference for them to hear our voices, and same with us, hearing theirs.

While we were gone, our sim card arrived...next trip we'll use it! There will be a next trip for sure!

It's in the details....

2009-09-14T16:24:00.001-04:00

Now we had picked our hotels and in my eyes they were going to be the greatest! In the jungle we chose Chaa Creek. Not only is Chaa Creek an amazing lodge, but its been recognized by several magazines such as Travel and Leisure and Conde Naste as one of the best places in Central America to stay. They've won awards for their environmental standards and the owners have over 300 acres of land they use as a nature preserve.

On Ambergris Caye we chose Portofino which is a small beach resort with thatched roof cottages steps away from the ocean. It's accessable only by a fifteen minute boat ride from San Pedro, which is the main town on Ambergris Caye.

The details we had to figure out would be of course, how many nights would we stay at each place? How would we get from the airport to Chaa Creek, which we had decided would be our first destination. Then how do we get from Chaa Creek to Portofino? Each resort offers packages and even a package that combines stays at the two together - do we take a package and is it the best option?

Well, knowing me...and if you don't you will soon learn that I like to stretch my trips as long as possible. We weren't able to take our kids on this trip. We tossed the idea around, but the deciding factors were that the few main excursions just didn't seem to be ones that were 100% kid friendly. Sure, they could do it, but would it make our vacation what we wanted it to be? Add to that the fact that airfare was really expensive for us to get to Belize and our decision was made. This became a grown up vacation. Next time they get to go. Our kids are great travellers....but that's another story! So, not having to fit kid schedules into the trip plan, we just had to figure our work schedules in - darn those real world committments! We decided ten nights would be ideal. Five inland and five nights at the beach. A perfect split. This gives us travel days and still allows for plenty of time to have a great trip!

Once we figured out the number of days, we found that the multi-hotel packages didn't work since they were mainly 7 day split packages. Too short for us this time. However, Chaa Creek offered a great package called their Inland Adventure Package. Knowing we wanted to do excursions and that it was fairly remote, we booked this for five nights. It included two full day trips, a half day trip, our transfers to and from the airport and all of our meals! Awesome!

At Portofino we found a package for five nights that included a few snorkel trips, a Sunset Cruise and breakfast as well as our round trip flights from Belize City to Ambergris Caye. Sounds perfect right?

The great thing is that in emailing these resorts the communication was excellent. Always a quick and friendly response and they both answered any questions we had very thoroughly. Those things really make me feel confident before booking a trip.

Another detail, seems small, but this really was something that has bugged me on the past few trips - We travel with large, rolling duffel bags. They're lightweight which is a necessity on in-country flights with baggage weight limits. I'm not a good carry on only traveller - it's just not for me. So, in my rolling duffle bag, everything seems to be a mess by the time my trip is half over. Especially if I have to change hotels more than once. Clean clothes, dirty clothes, toiletries - nothing is organized because things just get tossed around. So this trip I got packing cubes! They're the best! Our clothes stayed organized the entire trip! And when I unpacked, I just took out a whole cube at a time! Loved, loved, loved them!

Next up....it's about time to travel!

Exploring our options

2009-09-13T16:42:00.001-04:00

The one thing that K seemed to mind the most about our last big trip, the one we took last year to Costa Rica with the kids, was too much time travelling from spot to spot. Me, I think that's part of the fun. I like to see parts of the country and think driving or flying within the country is part of the vacation. K thinks it's wasted time. It's tiring and he wants to just get to the next spot. So I wanted to find a bit of a compromise here. K has fondly named my vacations Shelley's terror tours! I don't do well just relaxing...I like to do! I like to explore - get out there and see the places we're at. I'm a different person when I travel. At home I don't seem to have much motivation to do much at all. When we're travelling I can't wait to get up and get moving! Show me the world! Even if it's just going to the pool or the beach, I can't wait to feel the sand, or feel the breeze in my hair! Just get me out in the world!

So, Belize has so much to offer. This wasn't going to be a lay at the beach, drink in hand and relax all day type of vacation. Nothing wrong with that, we've been on plenty of those, But this was a see the world type of trip. But I had to do it right. I started looking at where I could find a combination of relaxation, excursions, jungle, wildlife, sealife and the luxury we both wanted and needed. Much of my research comes from Fodors. Especially their forums. I've received such wonderful travel advice from the people there! In addition to the website, their printed guides are some of the best I've found. I also use Trip Advisor quite a lot too. I use their website mainly for the reviews of the different hotels, not as much on the forums, but I still browse them for information.

After much research, I knew a few basic things that were not to be missed on our trip. A visit to Guatamala to see Tikal, exploring the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave and spending time on one of the Cayes.

With those decisions made, finding our resorts, although resort probably is the wrong word...was the next decision to be made. Belize doesn't really have the big All Inclusive resorts that you'd see in places like Playa del Carmen, Mexico, that's not the style there. The lodging ranges from backpacking accomodations to jungle/luxury. Some of the nicest eco-lodges in Central America are located there. There seemed to be hundreds of choices! But as with any area you plan to travel, some names just start to come up over and over. Once we knew the areas we wanted to go to, it was much easier to narrow down our accomdations. We chose the Cayo district, outside of San Ignacio as our inland destination because of it's proximity to Tikal and the ATM Cave and the number of accomodations to choose from. We chose Ambregris Caye as our beach destination. There are several Cayes (which is pronounced as key) and some are more laid back, some have more to do, some more hotels, some more restaurants. We chose Ambergris Caye, but the north end "above the cut" so it was north of the town of San Pedro, still able to go into town for activity and restaurants, but quiet and relaxing being north.

You'd better Belize it!

2009-09-12T14:14:00.000-04:00

That's right - Belize.

The first question so many people would ask was, where's Belize? They hadn't even heard of the country! This was common I found because Belize was formerly known as British Honduras and didn't change it's name until 1973. The second question I was asked was why do you want to go to Belize? Belize suddenly began popping up to me in my obsessive travel research about two years ago. I had been planning our second trip to Costa Rica and kept seeing great travel information about Belize and of course I wanted to see what was the big draw! K and I have been to Mexico several times and had been to Costa Rica once previously and since I was planning our second trip to Costa Rica I kept Belize in the back of my mind for a future trip.

I started to do some research and found Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world! Now that's something! Neither K nor I dive, but we both enjoy snorkeling so right there that was a great opportunity for us!

The second thing I found was that Belize has a really large concentration of Mayan ruins. Again, I have a great interest in archaelogy and have a facination with the Mayan history especially. We've enjoyed seeing the ruins in Mexico and to see the some of the largest ruins in Central America would be amazing!

Belize is also the only English speaking country in Central America. We've never had an issue with a language problem, and have had fun trying to communicate with our limited high school Spanish, but it would be nice to travel to an English speaking country too. Although Creole is wildly spoken there as well as English and many other languages as Belize is a big melting pot of cultures.

So, after my intial research....the next part was delving into the details. How do you learn about a country and figure out where to go? Where do you stay? What excursions are the best and how do you get there from where you are staying? What about transportation? Do we rent a car or do we need transfers? Do we stay at one hotel or lodge or stay at more than one so we get a varied experience in the country?

Guide books in hand, my planning began. This is the part I love! Asking questions, travel forums and learning all I can about the area. Our vacation was starting to emerge!

Love of Vacationing....the beginnings.

2009-09-11T21:08:00.001-04:00

I love to travel. I enjoy photography. My career is neither of those things, not even close. I spend hours dreaming and planning for trips, wondering where we'll go next. How many days can we take off - what destination will we visit next? How will I learn about it?

I don't remember exactly when this started. This passion for travelling. I don't just vacation - I truly have a passion for it. Growing up we went on a family vacation every summer. Faithfully. I don't think we ever missed one and they were not exotic, but my parents made sure they were special. Each one was unique and usually to a different destination each year. I think maybe that started my desire to go to new countries and cities. We camped a lot so we could to to new places. This was more affordable. We went up and down the East Coast - from Nova Scotia and Bar Harbor, Maine one summer to the Skyline Drive in Virginia another summer. We were always camping. Camping in a tent, and driving in a car to get there. The station wagon loaded up with a week or two week's worth of camping gear. My parents and my brother and I. Long before the age of portable DVD players and handheld video games. That was vacationing! As the years went on, we began going 'down the shore' for a week. We got older and brought our friends. But still the family vacation was a given every summer.

When I got married, we knew our honeymoon would be one of our first things to plan! K and I had been to the Bahamas twice and we'd been living a long distance relationship with me in Miami and him up north, but we'd been bitten by the tropical bug. We had become Caribbean vacationers. Just take us to a beach with clear blue waters and give us a beautiful sunset and we were hooked! So our first big trip together was our Honeymoon to Barbados and we vowed then, along with our wedding vows before the Honeymoon, to try to go to a different island every year for as long as we could!

We've done well....we've travelled to many islands, and to various parts of Central America. We've been to many parts of the United States as well. K has been to France with school and we have many trips on the horizon!

My horizon seems to have to be filled with a current trip and one that is in the future or I feel antsy. I feel like I'm not myself if I don't have a vacation planned. It doesn't even seem right to call it a vacation when it feels like the vacation is really what's a part of me, what keeps me who I am. It keeps me grounded.

I hope to share here my experiences in finding those perfect destinations and my travel journals as well. My pictures are what gets me through to the next vacation - I get to take a piece of each location home with me in my photography. And in between the trips and pics, some tales of my crazy life.