Thinking warm thoughts in Portland

With snow and lows in the teens forecasted this weekend, a rare occurrence for Portlanders, it is a great time to think warm thoughts of warm places. This blog serves as a travel & cultural forum for the HI-Oregon Council and any/all travelers we've crossed paths with, and we are seeking any stories, pictures, or mere synopses of travels you've had to warmer areas. The week ahead is expected to be a chilly one, but a few tropical tales may cool the coldspell, so to speak.

As a start, I'll share one destination from my trip to Central America this summer. We traveled in Guatemala and Belize for 30 days, seeing much of each country with a surprisingly relaxed itinerary. We spent the final week or so at Caye Caulker, a little island about 45 minutes away from Belize City out in the Caribbean Sea. This is from our blog posting at Caye Caulker.

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"Friday morning we got up prepared for our snorkeling excursion with sunscreen and snacks. We also walked up middle street to the ATM (same bank as Placencia with the Blazers logo on the sign!) before wandering down to the boat. We kind lucked out and only had 8 people on our tour. We did the half-day trip and went to three different sites on the offshore barrier reef: one at the local reef snorkelling area, SharkRay Alley, and Coral Gardens. After about 15 minutes we came to the edge of the reef, which we found out is called the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef and is the largest in the Western Hemisphere and second in size only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
We all hopped into the water and followed our guide around the reef as he pointed out different kinds of fish, coral and other sealife. He even did some free-diving and came up with some conch and a really strange sea crab that looked like a mix between a walking stick insect and a big spider. Great fish and a great spot. Our second snorkeling destination was SharkRay Alley, which is a sandy area about four feet deep with large groups of Rays swimming through. Our guide picked up quite a few of them, which ranged in size from 1-3 feet across, and we all had a chance to touch or hold them (fortunately with no crocodile hunter incidents). They feel like wet leather, with a slight hint of old jello when it gets firm on top. Unfortunately there weren't any sharks (the nurse sharks, which are pretty safe, haven't been seen around there for over two months now).
At our third snorkeling spot we were free to explore on our own. Of course, we took this opportunity to swim directly to an area with about one foot of water, effectively stranding ourselves in the middle of the reef. So that's why they give you a guide for these trips! Fortunately, neither of us got cut up by coral and we found a safe channel to make our way back to better (and deeper) snorkeling areas... We had a wonderful time but my back was a little roasty by the time we got back to our room. Evidently Sean's skin + spf30 < tropical sun. Interesting, since Lauryn's lotion was half that and she only had a light tan after floating around the reef for a couple hours. Needless to say, I had a wonderful cold shower and spent much the afternoon cooling off in front of the fan in our room.

The past three days we have taken full advantage of the dock and laid in the sun or in the hammock with a book. We had a little drizzle Sunday afternoon and a couple light rain clouds that rolled through yesterday but otherwise the weather during the day has been great all weekend. Sunny and warm with a nice, consistent breeze. It doesn't feel too terribly hot out, but yesterday afternoon the wind died down and it felt Placencia-ish for a couple hours until it picked up again."

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I encourage anyone with stories to share to send us a message through the link at the bottom of this posting and we will follow up to hear about your trip and post it (with any pictures you want to share). As always, you are also welcome to make comments with thoughts, questions, recommendations, or just an "ahhh, that looks nice".

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