More Clinic and Caye Caulker

Last week was busy once again with clinics - we went to some very rural places - in a couple of them we all had to see patients in one room with no examination table or anything, so that was quite an experience. I also diagnosed someone with malaria on Friday - my first 'proper' tropical disease!

Aside from clinics, we've also been managing to have a pretty good time, with plenty of trips into town for meals, drinks and swimming. On Tuesday we went to a little restaurant owned by a rastafarian guy who cooks all his own food in a little hut, and had wonderful fish, lasagne and homemade ice cream.

This weekend we took a trip to Caye Caulker which is a little island off the north of Belize. We stayed in a really good hostel right on the waterfront - our room had a rooftop terrace. We spent our first day just relaxing by the water. On our first night there we ate lots of shrimp, drank some rum, visited a reggae bar (complete with swings and hammocks instead of seats), danced a lot, and sat singing to guitars until 5 in the morning - it was pretty perfect really - just like being on holiday!

The next morning we took a snorkelling trip on a big sail boat to some of the reef around the island. We saw a lot more than on the previous trip a couple of weeks ago - hundreds of fish, multicoloured coral, nurse sharks, huge stingray, dolphins, and a sea turtle - very exciting!

Today we went to the Belize zoo on our way back to the clinic. It's a good zoo - very involved in local conservation, and only has animals native to Belize. We had some good 'close-up encounters' with some impressive birds - toucans and big parrots - tapirs, crocodiles, and the jaguars which were very cute and looked pretty huggable (I'm sure they weren't though...).

Now I'm back at clinic and ready for my last 3 and a half days - I can't believe how fast these last few weeks have gone and really don't want it to be over!! (although some home comforts will definitely be nice after all this time...) I will try and put some photos up tomorrow when I go into town.

xxx

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Part of trip: Elective

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