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Published: January 27th 2011
Video Playlist: 1:
13 secs
ATM Cave
The formations and ancient artifacts in the ATM cave were incredible. My Island Expeditions Belize Vacation - A Love Story
I was ready for a break from the craziness of everyday life and was looking for a great solo vacation. It's so tough trying to find people to travel with as a single person. I found a great trip with Island Expediations. I was going on the "Ultimate Adventure". The great thing about this trip was that I could sign up on my own...with no worries. Everything I needed was going to be looked after. Just what I was looking for!!! Who knew that I wouldn't leave single. I sure got more than I bargained for...but in a good way.
The Arrival... I was greeted at the Belize airport by the friendly Island Expeditions staff. Mike showed up about twenty minutes after me. I'm not sure the other guides and guests heard it, but I'm sure some symphonic love song started playing and some tropical butterflies started fluttering around when he emerged from the arrivals area. The group was immediately whisked away to the Tropical Education Centre. What a great place to start our trip. We stayed in two person cabins. That night, we got a VIP night tour
Hammock Time
A little romantic hammock time in a tropical paradise. Ahhh!!! of the Belize zoo. All the animals here have been rescued. The highlight was hand feeding the jaguar and hearing the howler monkeys!!! A kinkajou escaped from its pen and gave us a little show. Mike and I hit it off right away...and we've been inseparable since...well... figuratively anyway.
Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave... The next morning we headed off early to be the first ones at the ATM cave. We hiked through the woods and across a few streams before getting to the watery entrance of the cave. We started with a short swim into the cave. We waded through the stream that weaved its way through the cave, with a few short swims where the water was deep. The cave was filled with Mayan pottery from ancient rituals. The stalactites and stalagmites were breathtaking. There were even some human remains! I've never seen anything like it. We turned our lights out to experience the blackness of the cave. An erie feeling came over me as I was enveloped by the darkness of the cave. I'm glad I wasn't alone in there. Our guide was fantastic. We all left the cave with a great respect for its majesty.
Kayak Sailing
Have you ever jibed a kayak? We did. Jibe-ho! Ocean Kayaking - Tobacco Caye... Tobacco Caye was our first ocean stop. We stayed in cabins on the beach. My roommate and I got to share the only two-room cabin with Mike. Mike and I got ample get-to-know-you time on the dual hammocks on the cabin deck...overlooking the ocean. For me, this will always be our first date!!!
We did our first ocean kayak outing. I started in a single kayak...but quickly moved to a double. They are much faster, and the company was pretty good. After all the appropriate lessons, Mike and I were able to escape the group and go out on our own for a while.
The island was covered in coconuts. We had coconut in everything....even our morning eggs!!!
Ocean Kayaking - Glover's Reef Atoll... Our next stop was Glovers Reef Atoll...a little piece of paradise. We stayed in tent cabins right on the beach. We kayaked, snorkeled, fished, sailed and even did yoga in the morning. Ooooommmmmm.
Fishing was a great success. I caught a tiger grouper and Mike got a barracuda. The food was fantastic.
The nights were beautiful at Glover's. A huge orange full moon rose
Wheee...Waterfall
We stuck the landing on this one. 8.0 from the Canadian judge...8.5 from the American judge. over the ocean each night. What could be more romantic that hammock time with someone special under a tropical sunset? How about lying on your backs finding constellations in the star-filled night sky? Or an early morning paddle under at sunrise with waves crashing behind the wave-brake. I thought this stuff only happened on TV.
The Lodge... It was so hard to leave our tropical paradise, but there was more to our great adventure. The Lodge at Great Falls provided luxurious accommodations after the simple facilities at our ocean retreats. We tubed down the river that wound around the lodge. We found a fantastic hot spring along our float. We had some U.S. versus Canada badminton, or "bad-mitten". Someone should ask those Americans what happened to the "n". The U.S. won bad-mitten, but Canada fought back in table tennis.
The Battle of the Moho... Now it was time to battle the rapids of the great Moho river. Mike and I were up for the challenge. Lots of adventure was waiting for us on the river...waterfalls, rapids, jungle, spiders, monkeys, kinkajous, iguanas...just to name a few.
The days were filled with launching ourselves over waterfalls.
More Waterfalls - JUMP
Sometimes the kayaks went over the drops without us. All we could do was jump. Check out the attached video. Mike was great at maneuvering our raft. We had already become a great team.
We slept in tents in the jungle. We woke to the romantic sounds of howler monkeys in the distance and kinkajous dropping nut shells on our tent. Yes..it must be love when howler monkeys are romantic.
I couldn't believe how fantastic the food was. Our tour guide was awesome. He also served as jungle-chef extraordinaire. I've never had currie or cheesecake in the jungle before.
The end is a new beginning... I got so much more than I expected out of this vacation. I got adventure and a love story. So how does this love story end??? Our Belize adventure was a year ago, and Mike and my adventures continue. We are inseparable, but long distance. He lives in Colorado, and I live in Calgary. We've spent lots of mini-vacations together over the last year. We've gone snowshoeing in the Canadian Rockies, road biking in the dinosaur capital of Alberta, hiking and mountain biking in the Colorado mountains and Grand Canyon and a couple of trips to Vegas.
I'm so happy that Mike will be coming
Mike and Michelle
The beginning of something special to Calgary in a month where the next step of our adventure will begin. I expect another Island Expeditions vacation will be in our future. Check it out at IslandExpeditions.com
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