Spoiler alert: I will be blogging from a tablet this trip so photos will be few and far between. But some blog is better than no blog, I guess!! Also be forgiving of inevitable typos.
We are now entering Day 3 of this crazy trip which means that I need to fill you in on Days 1 and 2.
Day 1 was our big travel day -- the start of this great adventure. And we did start early, leaving the house for the airport at 3 am. A perk of living in MA means that there is always a Dunkin you can stop at at this hour, the cons being that you're awake at that hour. After having gone through a very long line and dealing with some very hangry Delta agents, we got to go through security! I'm only excited about security because I got to use my TSA Pre-Check! I love TSA Pre-Check now that I've really gotten to take advantage of it a few times and BONUS! Whit got to go through with me! So she got to jump the insanely long security line as well (seriously, where is everyone going at 4 in the morning?).
Our first flight was to Atlanta and they actually had movies on the flight and everything. We shared headphones and watched "How to be Single" which was a lot funnier than I expected. After that, we had an hour-ish layover and then we were getting on the plane to Belize City (which did not have movies despite being a longer flight with the same airline).
And before you knew it, we were here! In Belize! Another country to check off the bucket list! The airport would probably make some people's skin crawl, but we got through customs, got new stamps in our passports and were on our way.
The first stop on our trip is actually Caye Caulker (which this tablet is repeatedly corrected to "Caulked" like no thank you) so that meant catching the ferry in Belize City to go out to the tiny, five mile island of beach fairy tales.
Getting to dreamland, however, was more of a nightmare. Because within seconds of us purchasing our tickets, the skies opened up. We were safe from the rain under an awning but oh god, it was unreal. Like a sheet of rain just coming straight down... on top of our checked luggage. Cool.
When we got on the ferry, it was like Satan's yacht, in that it was hot, sticky and crowded. We got seats together in the front row which was great after the rain stoped and they opened the window so there was a breeze but not great when the rain started up again. Did I mention that the water was choppy? As in, do not take this boat if you have a recently broken tail bone. Do not take this boat if you're worried about breaking your tail bone.
But we made it to the island, which was stunning, and then had to wait for our bags, which surprise! Hadn't made it on the boat with us! They came in on the next one so no worries. Next, we went to our hostel! It's called, I kid you not, Juan's in a Million. The name is more perfect than the place itself because despite checking in at 1:30, we didn't have sheets for six hours... We do have AC and a painting of a turtle on the wall but we were itching for sheets after our long travel day.
So we went out to explore instead and got a lunch/dinner combo meal thanks to jet lag. We want to try everything we can while we're here so we split an order of Belizean fish and popcorn lobster for dinner! Oh yeah, and a giant frozen margaritas because duh. I think we both liked the lobster more but not was a great first taste! We went exploring in the island with the rest of our night and watched the sunset before crashing early.
Day 2: Aka the only day where we actually had anything officially planned for our whole trip to Belize, aka snorkeling.
This was a very exciting day!! There are lots of places that offer snorkeling here but we had pre-booked with a group called Caveman Tours. And we would definitely recommend them (and are planning on writing a review on Travelocity because they were so wonderful).
We started with breakfast at a small, colorful cafe and split an order of banana pancakes, eggs and fruit. I'm already in love with the fruit here. I mean, I love fruit everywhere I go, but it's hard to beat these guys.
Onto snorkeling!! I can't really blog about this with my rehearsed indifference and sarcastic tone because this was definitely a pinch me moment. How do you sarcastically write about swimming with a manatee? A sea turtle? Sting rays? And sharks??? You just can't. On top of everything, we had Whitney's GoPro and got some ridiculous footage and pictures of everything we saw. One of my favorites was when Whitney was taking a video of a stingrays and ANOTHER stingray swam into her! I saw it happening but really had no way to warn her of the impending collision since I was, ya know, wearing a snorkel! It was so cool. Another part of the tour included more fruit! (And don't worry, we're only eating the fruit that was approved by our doctors and are brushing our teeth with bottled water; adventures our fun, dysentery is not). We also got to see sea horses and feed tarpon from the boat as a way of capping off the day.
The ONE downside of the day was that despite our best efforts, we got way more sun than we'd intended. Next time, we'll at least cover up in between dives because I got burnt and Whitney got super burnt. This is without a doubt the worst sunburn I've ever gotten which is saying something because I don't burn. Whit looks like a lobster (I told her she isn't allowed til east lobster now because it would be cannibalism. She did not laugh).
We got another wonderful meal on the island; this time splitting grilled shrimp with garlic and butter and a fish quesadilla! After that, we bought some aloe (we brought some with us but could tell that it wouldn't be enough) and we back to Juan's to sooth our burns and catch some sleep.
Now it's Day 3 and I'm taking advantage of Whitney sleeping in to write this post. We're still deciding on what to do today but it's going to involve shirts for sure!
No comments:
Post a Comment