MEET THE PARENTS

My parents came to Belize for a two-week visit at the end of May.  As always, it’s great fun when we have visitors because we get to be tourists too.  We hit some old favorites – like the Belize zoo, the Saturday market in San Ignacio, and the ruins at Xunantunich.  We also got to explore some new territory.  I took a few days off and took them on a road trip to southern Belize to see the jungle and Mayan villages around Punta Gorda, and then to see the beaches around Placencia.  They were able to attend one of the Embassy’s monthly “hail and farewell” gatherings to welcome newcomers and say goodbye to those heading to their next assignments.  They also got to meet some friends at one of our Friday happy hours in the driveway of one of the houses on the main housing compound.  And, of course, there were lots of card and domino games, lots of wine (and rum drinks), and lots of memories.  We covered a lot of territory and I think they enjoyed seeing where and how we’ve been living for the past year and meeting some of the folks who are also calling Belize their temporary home.  On this Father’s Day, I thought it would be fitting to share a few photos of what we got up to while they were here.   Happy Father’s Day, DD!

A stop in Hopkins for lunch

Xunantunich

The butterfly farm at Chaa Creek Resort

My parents... the spelunkers

Looking out over the jungle in Punta Gorda

Howler monkeys were nature's alarm clock in Punta Gorda

Dad demonstrating proper Belikin form

At the Barefoot Beach Bar in Placencia

FUN TIMES IN FLORIDA

One of the handy things about being posted in Belize is its proximity to the States and some cheap airfares that Southwest offers between Belize City and Fort Lauderdale.  Even so, I haven’t been back in the U.S. since our Panama Canal cruise 6 months ago, so I was getting antsy for some good food, a city with more than 1 stoplight, and a visit to Trader Joes.  I checked all those boxes when Andrew and I went to Florida a couple weeks ago.  And, bonus!  Our friends Meg and Chris from Portland met us there for a few days.  So in addition to all the to-dos on my list, we also got to fit in some classic tourist activities.  Segway tour?  Yep.  Escape room?  Check.  Goofing around on Fort Lauderdale beach?  Of course.  All that plus a suitcase full of Trader Joes goodies to take back to Belize!  Our little jaunt to Florida had it all.

View of Fort Lauderdale beach from our hotel room.

Yes, please.

With Meg and Chris, our partners in tourism!  First, a boat tour of the intracoastal waterway.

On to the segways!

And then to the escape room!  (Yes, we escaped.)

Upon our return to Belize, we were greeted by all sorts of trees in bloom.  ‘Tis the season for bright orange flamboyant trees, hibiscus, plumeria, and all sorts of other tropical flowers.  Mango season should also be in full swing in a couple more weeks.  We did have fun in Florida, but jungle life ain’t so bad.

Some of the trees in bloom on the embassy compound.

The jungle sunsets are pretty spectacular.

COVERING LOTS OF GROUND

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!

 

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. 

Andrew making a new friend.

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.

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.

"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.

Teri, Andre, and Jean Luc wearing some green iguanas.

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.

The beach in Placencia is beautiful by day and by night.

D.F.

D.F. equals Distrito Federal

One of the biggest perks of this job is all the friends we make who disperse around the world.  Last January, we got to spend a few days in Paris with a friend from my orientation class who was posted there.  And this January, we got to spend a few days in Mexico City with friends from Belize who now work there.  Our friends were kind enough to let us stay with them in their fantastic Polanco apartment and explore their new city for a few days.  Neither Andrew nor I had previously visited Mexico City so it was all new to us.  And after a year in little ol’ Belmopan, it was a wonder to all our senses.  Museums!  Theaters!  Grocery stores with aisles and aisles of CHEESE!  Oh, the civilization!

So many jello molds!

So many flowers!

So many wheels of cheese bigger than my head!

We were only there for a long weekend, but we covered a lot of ground to try to take in as much civilization as we could.  We started with taking in some ancient civilization by visiting the National Museum of Anthropology.  It was an impressive – and huge! – collection of artifacts that could have kept us busy for a full day.  But we hit the highlights and moved on to another national museum, Chapultepec Castle.  It was a Sunday, when all the national museums have free entry for Mexican nationals and residents, and they came out in droves.  I think the entire population of Belize equaled the number of people we encountered in the museums we visited that day.

Aztec artifacts at the National Museum of Anthropology.

A beautiful iron gate at Chapultepec Castle.

Oh the humanity!

We spent our second day walking through some of the artisan markets and neighborhoods around Zócalo plaza, where the Metropolitan Cathedral is located.  It was hard to find a right angle or straight line on the cathedral or any of the old buildings surrounding the plaza – a sign of the earthquakes and shifting ground in this part of the world.  The markets surrounding the plaza were fascinating too.  Do you need a part to repair some small electronic device?  There’s a street that has nothing but parts and wires and anything you might need for your job.  What about fabric?  Want to make a dress?  The next block over from the electrical repair street is storefront-after-storefront of fabrics. 

Checking out an artisan market.

And I do mean artisan.  These guys were making guitars on the spot.

Zócalo plaza and the Metropolitan Cathedral.

An amazing pipe organ inside the cathedral.

Two full days in Mexico City and we barely made a dent in all there is to do there.  But we had some amazing meals, got to visit with good friends, and had a full dose of big city life to hold us over until we’re back in a city with more than 15,000 people again.

D.F. also equals Dense Forest

Less than a month after visiting Mexico City, I visited a village on the complete opposite end of the spectrum called Red Bank.  It’s a Mayan community about 2 hours south of Belmopan, and from January-March every year, flocks of scarlet macaws call the forest around Red Bank home.  I went down for the weekend with a few other friends to check out the show.  I’d happened upon a flock of macaws last May when I spent the weekend at an Audubon Society camp in the Cockscomb forest, but when a friend was organizing this trip, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to see them again.  And I wasn’t disappointed.  After spending the night in a thatch hut “bed and breakfast,” we got up early to meet our guide and take an hour-ish hike into the forest.  As we neared a clearing we could hear squawking, and then, right on cue, there they were.  Flying rainbows above the forest canopy.  We watched them from a few viewpoints for a couple hours and then headed back.  Some days in Belize are magical, and seeing scarlet macaws flying free was one of those days.

First bird spotted on the hike was... a toucan.

You don't see flocks of macaws flying around like this every day!

Their colors are spectacular against the green forest.

 

Looking out over the village.

HOLIDAYS WITH FRIENDS

We were fortunate to have some reminders of home over the holidays this year in the form of friends!  Our friends the Taylors from Portland came for Christmas, and our friends the Culvers from Santa Cruz came for New Years.  I love having friends visit because it gives Andrew and me a terrific excuse to take a day (or two) off work and play tourist to see some sights that we haven’t yet explored.

With the Taylors, we headed to San Ignacio and the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich.  Admittedly, Andrew and I had been to both before (we’ve actually spent a decent amount of time in San Ignacio – it’s my favorite town in Belize).  But there’s something about visiting the giant Mayan ruins with folks who have never seen them to really make you take it all in anew.  The structures – and the view from the top – are truly awe-inspiring.

The grounds and ruins at Xunantunich are so remarkable!

The front door had just closed from the Taylors’ exit when the Culvers arrived for New Years, and we covered a lot of new territory with them.  First up, St. Herman’s Cave in Blue Hole National Park.  I’d been to the park – and it’s Blue Hole – for some birding last spring, but this was my first trip into the cave.  It was amazing!  You can walk about 300 yards into the cave, and within 100 feet you’re in pitch blackness so you need flashflights (or, if you’re less prepared like us, the light on your cell phone).  At the turnaround point, there’s a massive column where a stalactite and stalagmite have joined up.  Nerd-tastic!

Heading into St. Herman's Cave

I was taking this picture in total darkness - just had to assume I had all the Culvers in the shot.

Cooling off - and getting the mud off - in the Blue Hole after hiking to the cave.  That sign on the hillside may or may not say "no jumping."

We also headed south to Bocawina National Park and went on a fairly intense hike (read: there were ropes and rock scrambles involved) to the top of Antelope Falls.  Fortunately, the weather for all of December and so far into January has been (relatively) cool and mild – in the 60s at the start of the days – so I was able to endure moderate outdoor physical exertion without feeling like I was going to pass out from heat stroke.  And the view from the top looking out over the jungle to the sea made it all worthwhile.

The lookout point at the top of our hike in Bocawina.

We also fit in visits to a couple of old standbys – the Belize zoo and a steakhouse on the outskirts of Belmopan that serves up pretty fantastic meals on the weekends.  Like I said, we cover a lot of ground with our visitors.  No one goes home bored (except for maybe teenagers…)

A tapir at the zoo.  I love these guys.

Enjoying a Sunday meal at Trey's "Barn and Grill."

After our visitors had all departed, we made plans to head to a private caye for a long weekend.  Andrew made all the arrangements – getting a group of embassy colleagues together to rent out all 12 units at the resort, making the reservations, organizing the water taxi for us all to get out there… and then promptly came down with a nasty stomach bug that laid him out two days before we were to depart.  On the morning we were to head out, he was feeling a bit better, but he wasn’t up for a drive to the coast and then a boat ride from there… so he ended up staying put and having a quiet weekend in Belmopan, and I had a solo weekend on the caye (with my colleagues).  Truth be told, the weather on the caye was a bit gray and very windy, so I went snorkeling one morning, but otherwise just enjoyed the view.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to make a return trip later this year so that Andrew can experience what he missed this time.  (And he is fully recovered now, by the way.)

My room on Hatchet Caye.  Not a bad spot to watch a couple days go by.

The sunset on the last night on the caye was hypnotizing.

And so, with the new year behind us and January well underway, we embark on what will be our last full year here in Belize.  There are still lots of things on our list to see and do, and we’re happy to cross some more off the list with any of you who’d like to come visit!