We're In!!!

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Last Thursday, after realizing that our tourist visa had almost run out, Danielle and I ventured down to the immigration office to obtain our student visas. Here we saw the laid-back Belizean attitude really shine. When we arrived there was a line-up of about seven people, which only grew while we were there, one officer working, and about four others sitting in their cubicles either reading, eating, or texting and being less than helpful to anyone who tried to get questions answered by them. After waiting an hour and a half, we finally got to see an officer, who then brought our passports in the back for a good twenty minutes, and came back with a piece of paper with a signature and “50$ each” written on it. It wasn’t even over by this point, as we told us that we needed to get passport pictures taken as well. This we did the next day, where the whole waiting/talking to an officer process took only about an hour this time, and we go tour visas….and we’re in!!

After this, we went with our adopted Belizean family to their farm. It’s on a beautiful piece of property, about half an hour away from Belmopan. It is filled with mamie apple, orange, coconut, mango, and tangerine trees, has a beautiful waterfall and river running through it, and is just an all round peaceful and relaxing place to be…Except for the bugs. While packing for this getaway I swore that I put my pants in my bag, but when I got home today they still sitting on my bed, laughing at me. I defiantly paid the price for having to wear shorts the whole weekend, as the bugs smelt my fresh Canadian blood, and had a feeding frenzy on my legs. No matter how much bug repellant I applied, these little buggers who you can’t feel biting you until after they’ve had their feast, just laughed at it. Now, sitting here writing this my legs feel like they are on fire, and I am doing absolutely everything I can more to scratch all up and down them to relieve the pain. I did my research when I got home though, and found that former Belize travelers swear by Avon’s Skin-So-Soft cream as bug repellant, so I will defiantly be investing in some of that.

Besides the bugs, however, the weekend was a great one. It was spent swimming and jumping off cliffs into a beautiful swimming hole on the river, eating fresh fruits, and drinking fresh coconut milk. Mmm. I even had a lesson in beating Garifuna music on the drums!! I also discovered new things that can be done with bananas, when Granny P prepared a warm green banana salad, made grilled banana fritters, and simply boiled bananas. So good, and I never would have thought to do any of these things before.

Well, that was the excitement of my weekend, and as tomorrow is the start of another week, I should get to bed…Of course I will finish drinking my fresh lemon grass tea first. Mmmm so good

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