Two years ago today was my first day of orientation for my “new”
job with the State Department. In the
two years since then, I’ve lived in DC, spent time in Quito as part of my
efforts to “learn Spanish”, and moved to Belize for my first assignment. Andrew and I have covered a lot of ground in
the last two years! And we’re covering
new ground here in Belize every month.
This past month, I traveled to Punta Gorda in the southern
part of the country for work. I spent a
night down there at a fantastic lodge that afforded some fabulous views, and I
was able to take in a spectacular sunrise and sunset. A troop of howler monkeys announced
themselves that evening, which was a reminder of how much jungle surrounds us
here in Belize!
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| The view from the Copal Tree Lodge in Punta Gorda is incredible. |
Speaking of howler monkeys, Andrew and I also visited a
sanctuary for “baboons” (as they are called locally) and had an up-close-and
personal interaction with a couple of them.
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| Andrew making a new friend. |
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| That's not a smile - that's a silent scream of terror. |
After visiting the baboon sanctuary, we spent the night in a
little town called Crooked Tree that is on a big wetland complex. (Blog readers may recall that we also
attended a Cashew Festival in Crooked Tree last May.) While I don’t know that it’s necessary to
visit the Cashew Festival, the wetland area is home to all sorts of birds, so
Andrew indulged me in re-visiting the area so I could geek out on birds.
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| Looking out at the lake in Crooked Tree. |
The weekend we visited was during a canoe race called the
Ruta Maya from San Ignacio (in western Belize) to Belize City. For those familiar with Hood to Coast, it’s
just like that, except with boats. For
three days, teams of 3-person canoes would start each morning and race down the
river to a designated finish line for that day’s segment, camp overnight, and
then start again the next morning to get to the next checkpoint. On the last day of our weekend, the finish
line was near Crooked Tree, so we went to watch the boats coming across the
finish line. Both sides of the river had
been set up with tents, food vendors, and PA systems with blaring music (no
festival in Belize is complete without DJs and airhorns). We set up our chairs on the river bank and
hung out for an hour or so until the first few boats came across. By then, it was HOT, and we could see that
the rest of the 50+ boat field could take a while to finish, so we packed up
and headed back to Belmopan. But the
Ruta Maya is a big deal here, so I’m glad we got to see it in person while we
were here.
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| "You're almost there!" |
We also got to welcome more visitors. My friend Teri (from my ol’ EMC Planning
days) and her family came for their spring break and spent a few days with us
amid their travels around Belize. I took
a couple days off and played tour guide showing them some of the sights. I also got to tag along with them for a tour
of the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave, which is one of the main tourist
destinations here in Belize and which I had not yet visited. The cave has all sorts of Mayan artifacts on
display including pottery and even skeletons, and it’s an adventure getting
through the cave to see them since you have to climb, squeeze, get wet, and
swim. It’s hard to describe but so worth
it, and our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and insightful. A highly recommended stop of the itinerary
for the more adventurous set of visitors.
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| Teri, Andre, and Jean Luc wearing some green iguanas. |
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| No cameras are allowed in the ATM cave, so this one is courtesy of google. |
And finally, the Easter holiday is a big deal here with the
country observing both Good Friday and Easter Monday. We couldn’t let a 4-day weekend be spent in sleepy
little Belmopan, so we headed to the beach in Placencia for an extra long
weekend. Placencia is one of our
favorite beach spots because it’s fairly easy to get to (about an hour and a
half drive), has several really nice hotels and good restaurants… and has a delicious
gelato shop. These are our
priorities. We read, we kayaked, we
napped… and it was everything I thought it could be. Even though I like covering a lot of ground
and seeing as much as we can while we’re here, sometimes the only ground I want
to cover is the patch of sand outside my cabana.
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| The beach in Placencia is beautiful by day and by night. |
