Return from Paradise...

The last week has (again), been nothing short of amazing!

If any of you have ever considered visiting Belize, thought of what it would be like to Belize or have ever heard of Belize...GO TO BELIZE!

So the adventure started last Saturday morning...and Saturday was a FULL day of travel and so of course, came with lots of funny travel mishaps and crazy rides. Alison and I were picked up in Antigua at 430 and the day began...

After a 5 or 7 hour journey (seriously...these bus rides are starting to all blend together) we arrived in Livingston. From there is where the ride began. We boarded a boat that looked like it would be a nice smooth ride across to Belize. Wrong.

We had about an hour of whiplash, getting soaked and thinking more than once that our boat was going to shatter into about a million pieces in the middle of the Carribean Sea! But it really was a blast! We laughed for about an hour straight...who needs 8-minute abs?

So I really wanted to capture this moment on camera so I strapped my camera to my wrist and tried to take a shot of ourselves being blown around in the middle of the sea. Really, I thought this would be impossible. My arm was wildly jerking up and down and I was ramming into Alison's side the entire time but I snapped and Voila! A picture that is as close to ever caturing this crazy experience as will ever be...
Ok...so we stumbled off the lightning speed boat and into a town called Punta Gorda. Ok...so to set the scene, Punta Gorda literally translated means Fat Whore.

Yep...as in:
Q: Where do you live?
A: Oh, I live in Fat Whore.

Let's just say that this place lived up to it's title. It was definitely not the vision I had of Belize in my mind. But we got through "customs" (aka...guy behind a card table in a shack) and looked for the FIRST bus outta there. But...we weren´t going anywhere too fast.

It turned out we had missed the last bus to the coast. Ok...don't panic, I though. Just get out your Belize guide book (which by the way was my bible for the last week without which I'm sure I would have had to move to Fat Whore permanently) and find a hostel. So there were very sparse hostel choices but we found one and took a look around.

So for any of you out there who read my last backpacker adventure journey know that I have no problem staying in less than 5-star hotels. In fact, I have really grown to love this kind of travel. But I do have standards...and let's just say, Punta Gorda was not meeting them.

Luckily, Alison was on the same page as me as we decided, we were GOING to get OUT of Punta Gorda! So we found a taxi and asked him how much to drive us the 1.5 hours to Independence. Well, I'm sure he saw the desparation in our faces and completely overcharged us but you know what? He got us out of there and we weren't shedding any tears to say goodbye to the Fat Whore...

Ok...so we were off to Independence. A TINY town that is really only a boat and bus station to get to where you are really going. We arrived and of course, we were 10 minutes past the last boat to Placencia. But again, the boat drivers must have seen the look of desperation and defeat in our faces and again, SPED us across a small lagoon in about a 20 minte boat ride.

So after one long bus ride, one crazy boat ride, one encounter with an unfortunate town with an even more unfortunate name, one god-sent taxi ride and another crazy boat ride, we made it to Placencia...and let me tell you...it was worth the trip.

We got to this little piece of heaven, cracked open the "bible" and found ourselves an adorable little beach house hostel called Dave and Deb´s Last Resort. We had our own little house and it was fabulous...and only $12 a night each. Done.

We were supposed to be meeting up with two other volunteers, Ross and Moli, here in Plancencia but no one's phone worked and we didn´t make such an airtight plan before we left but we just headed off to dinner and that's right, you guessed it, we just ran into them!

This wonderful coincidence was pretty much a great sign of things to come for us in Placencia. It really was one of THE most beautiful places I have ever seen. Sunday, the four of us did nothing more than lay on the beach, drink smoothies, eat gelato (honestly THE best gelato I have ever eaten...we went there every day we were in Placencia and I am still wondering why we only went once daily...), read, swim, repeat. I highly doubt that any of our heart rates rose about about 18 beats per minute the entire day.
This town also had a couple really funny signs that I had to capture...
Monday morning we decided it was time to remove ourselves from our pool chairs and go snorkling. We went to a caye (pronounced Key but for some reason, not how they spell it...) called Laughing Bird Caye.

Sometimes I can't even believe these places actually exist. This teeny tiny, uninhabited island was no bigger than the size of a small cul-de-sac. Before this, I thought these places only existed in stories and for Mark Burnett reality TV shows. Enough trying to explain...see pictures...

We snorkled and I took some pictures with an underwater camera that I can't upload but we saw everything from flourescent corals to lobsters and rainbow of fish to Nemo himself. Here is a picture of us...I opted for a t-shirt considering I was so white that the sun actually just reflected off of my skin...somehow I didn't think that floating towards the top of the open ocean baring my glowing white back was such a good idea...
After an amazing day of snorkling, we all decided, there was NO way we were leaving the beach. Our originaly plan was to head out on Tuesday but nope...we just "couldn't be asked to leave" (can you tell these brits are rubbing off on me?)

So Tuesday was another day of beach, gelato, you get the picture...but just in case...here are a few more...
So despite the fact that we actually considered staying yet another day in Placencia, we decided we probably should see a bit more of Belize...bad, bad idea. Listen to me...if you have found utopia on earth, do NOT leave...

But, we did. We were off to the inland of Belize to go to San Ignacio. On the way, our bus broke down several times, we inhaled the smell of burning rubber for a few hours and people actually tried to sell us rice and beans on board...but we made it.

Now San Ignacio was nowhere near as bad as Punta Gorda (aka...Fat Whore) but it was also miles away from the heavenly beach. We arrived in this place around lunch time, found ourselves a "passable" hostel and went to grab a bite.

We are all pretty sure that our chicken strips were drugged. Not 20 minutes after we had all finished, we went back up to the room and promply lost consciousness for about 3.5 hours, left the hotel for dinner, tried to go out (to a bar where we were the only souls inside), got eaten alive by mosquitoes (although my guidebook assured us there were no biting insects in San Ignoacio) and went back to bed.
Needless to say, we were all missing the beach.

But the next morning, we tried to make the most of our San Ignacio experience and went to go tubing through caves! Now this sounds very cool and actually would have been very cool had it not been for one thing...TWO massive cruise ships had arrived that day and the caves were jammed with these people!

Alison quickly dubbed the experience "A Parade of Unattractive Swimwear." It was a little annoying, pretty darn funny and actually really cool. We had only head lamps to navigate our way through the caves. Again, the pictures of this are on my waterproof camera so you will have to use your imaginations a bit...
After the caves and swimwear show, it was off to the Guatemalan border heading to Flores. It was a bit of a rude awakening to have to speak Spanish again after a week in English-speaking Belize but it was good to be back in good old Guatemala. We had our last dinner together and watched a beautiful sunset over the lake surrounding the island of Flores.
For you loyal readers, you may remember Flores because that is where I flew into when I went to Tikal to see the ruins. Alison hadn't seen the ruins yet so she spent Friday there while I has a very relaxing last day of my vacation doing a bit of souvenier shopping, a bit of reading and then heading to the airport to catch my flight back to Antigua.

I have today in Antigua to rearrange my overstuffed lugage, get a new guidebook, eat at my favorite Antigua places and get ready for ECUADOR!!

Yep...I'm off to Ecuador tomorrow AM and am so excited. I'm sure as I start the next three months, I will have more crazy rides, more insane encounters, grungy hostels, beautiful beaches, amazing friends and incredible kids. But for now, Belize was the most perfect intermission I could have ever asked for.

More from south of the Equator...

xoxo,
Debra