Patty Z

Sadly, today is the last day of our 28 day vacation to this beautiful country. As promised, my last blog is going to be a summary of What We Learned About Belize, specifically Ambergris Caye with a side trip to the Cayo District on the Mainland. First and foremost the People are what make this country and island paradise worth the trip. Never in our travels have we met friendlier people than in Belize. Everyone smiles and says hello, and after a week they remember who you are and their greetings are like those shared with old friends. Not once in 28 days did we ever encounter rude, unfriendly people. From waiters and waitresses to store clerks and bartenders, the people of Belize are thankful you have chose their country to spend your hard earned vacation ... read more

As you can see by the length of time from my last post, there has not been a great deal to blog about, mostly because of the rain. It started raining on New Years Day at 1:00 p.m., and didn't quit until Monday, January 2nd at 5:00 P.M.. It was so bad that on Monday about noon, Jim and I put our wet suits on to go for a walk, just to get out of the condo. Each day since then it has gotten progressively better. Not good enough to dive, as the winds were still pretty strong, but we still found plenty to do. Today we decided to try ocean kayaking. We rented a two seater kayak from Island Diving ($20 US per hour) and paddled north to where the island splits at the point ... read more

Yesterday we decided to get some "real" exercise so we took off in the morning and headed for the north shore of the Caye. It was a warm sunny day and the iguana's were sunning themselves everywhere we went. Our walk was about 4 miles roundtrip and we finished it up out on the Paradise Villa Dock, where we met a nice guy from Canada who just got his dive certification. We sat and talked with him for about 45 minutes and then just relaxed by the pool. The end of the story is that we both got more sun than we needed, but not to the point we uncomfortable. This morning when we got up, the seas had finally laid down and we were able to dive. So we headed off for Hol Chan Marine ... read more

Today we took the Caye Caulker Water Taxi to Caye Caulker. $17.50 round trip, a quick 40 minute boat ride. When I saw all the people waiting for the boat, I begin to think it would be similar to stuffing a phone booth or a volkswagon, another words 5# of vaseline and a shoe horn would be needed to get another person on board, and add to that several thousand pounds of luggage and freight! But I was pleasantly suprised to find that when everyone and everything was loaded we were quite comfortable. Caye Caulker is smaller than Ambergris Caye and must less progressive. Dirt streets, no cars just golf carts and bicycles. If they had shore diving, we would pack it in tomorrow and move there, unfortunately the diving there is more expensive than it ... read more

Today is Monday, December 19th.............a day of rest. I'm going to back up a couple of days to Saturday when Jim, Donna, Dave and I left for the mainland. We took a short, easy flight from San Pedro to Belize City, where we were met by our guide, Jovan Pascascio from Belize Jungle Trek, (www.belizejungletrek.com). We found Jovan through his website, and highly recommend his tour services to anyone coming to Belize. Our itinerary included horsebacking riding through the jungle for the girls and an ATV ride through the jungle for the guys. We travelled by van from Belize City aproximately and hour and a half to the center of Belize. Jovan kept us informed of our surroundings the entire way, which made the trip seem so fast and easy. Here I must apologize to our ... read more