I absolutely fell in love with Belize during the two weeks that we were there! This is my travel journal almost verbatim: DAY 1 - Just a long day of shuttles, plane, water taxi to Ambergris Caye, a small island up north off of the mainland. DAY 2 - Had 2 amazing dives and hit my 50th dive! Funny story - we were invited to come in and smoke with a few locals. When we declined, one guy -D.G.- came out and showed us some rings he had made from coconut and shells. While discussing a price for the rings his friend came over and offered us a huge bag of "Belize Breeze" (marijuana)! Right there on the street in broad daylight! Crazy! We also met a stone carver -Julio- who does amazing Mayan calendars. We spent $26 on mojitos! To console Bri I reminded him that there were at least three "Utah" shots in each drink and would have probably cost us more in Utah as well! DAY 3 - Amazing diving!!! Saw a turtle and eels, and I got to not only touch, but hold a shark! Got some great pics. We were staying in a little place for $90 BZ /night - very small. Tonight we had a buffet at Jambal - Jamaican flavors and live music! DAY 4 - Took a 2 1/2 hr boat ride to the famous Blue Hole for 3 dives. Did my deepest dive ever - kissed Bri at 130 ft below sea level! There were tons of sharks milling around. Also stopped at a small caye for lunch that had a booby bird sanctuary. Saw a huge iguana and tons of birds and crabs. Ate dinner at a very small place owned by a guy named Rigo - Waraguma. The place looks like a dive, but the food that comes out of that kitchen is incredible! Lobster burrito - YUM! DAY 5 - Staying at a nice 5* resort called Captain Morgan's. We took a kayak out to the reef and snorkeled - saw lobster, angelfish, jawfish. There were kids fishing off the dock and someone filleted the fish right there, throwing heads and other unusable parts in the water. Stingrays were coming and eating what was thrown in! DAY 6 - Super long day of adventure. Took a 1 1/2 hr boat ride over choppy open sea, 1 hr bus ride (think school bus like we used to ride - wait, maybe it WAS the school bus I used to ride!) on a dirt road, another 1 hr boat ride through mangroves - I missed seeing the one crocodile that made an appearance, and then a hike up to see the Lamanai archaeological site. There were amazing temple ruins and carvings out in the jungle. You could see forever from the top of the tallest ruin - it is 200 feet above sea level. You could see where they slept and worshiped - really cool! I honestly had never sweated so much as I did out in the jungle- even in Bikram yoga! We saw monkeys, a tarantula, and a Fer De Lance viper that the locals call a 7 step viper - because if you're bitten that's as far as you get before you die! Then we took the long trek back to the Caye. Bri & I had the genius idea of being dropped off in town to have dinner and get groceries. Then we started walking back to the resort. This was a great idea until the swamp took over the road and we started to worry about being eaten alive by crocodiles or mosquitoes! Needless to say we only tried that once! About this point we both had around the clock cases of what I lovingly call "the boats". This is the sensation that you are riding waves even when you are on dry land. You should try it sometime! DAY 7 - We did more local dives today and I saw 3 turtles -my favorite - and even got to watch one look for food and eat! Couldn't be happier! We also took the kayak out to snorkel again to see if we could catch that lobster we saw - no such luck! Had drinks with a couple named Leslie and Derek who's boat sank while they were diving!!!! Overall a nice relaxing day. DAY 8 - Did more diving today and "the boats" are at an all time high. It's our last night at Captain Morgan's - so beautiful. The camera battery died and guess who forgot the charger! It's all Brian's fault ;) Bummer! DAY 9 - Left Ambergris Caye and "rented" a car from one of our dive masters, Eric. Drove west toward San Ignacio, or as Bri likes to call it, Incarnacion . Stopped at the Belize Zoo, which is nothing like zoos in the States. The animals - jaguars, crocodiles - are barely caged and come about 3 feet away from you when one of the keepers comes by with a feed bucket! We talked for a long time with a zookeeper that hand-fed one of the jaguars from the time it was born. It would follow him around the kitchen until it got too big and dangerous! Bri and I saved an iguana while we were there! It got stuck 1/2 way under one of the fences. We told a keeper and he came and cut the fence to set it free. Everything is cheaper and the people very friendly in San Ignacio. Two young boys approached us trying to sell slate carvings they had made. They were about Gehrig's age and I just couldn't say no. The thought of Lil' G out there doing what they were doing almost broke my heart! We met another vendor named Jaro who is so cool! He invited us to his own home to cook with his organic home-grown spices and play music! Maybe next time Jaro! Super luck - Bri asked someone staying at The Venus with us and their camera charger worked! DAY 10 - Loaded up the Tracker with gear and left with a guide and a cook to a cave in the jungle called Actun Tunichil Muknal -Yucatec Mayan for Cave of the Stoney Sepulchre. Drove for 1 1/2 hr or so down a dirt road and through a river! We stopped to pick grapefruit along the roadside! We hiked 45 minutes back into the jungle with all our gear in packs. We had to cross the river twice up to our knees. Set up camp at an old Mayan plaza with a huge limestone wall behind it with vines and foliage everywhere! We swam in beautiful deep green pools under the jungle canopy. Our guide Ted is from England and was at the cave when they first re-discovered it and cataloged everything. Our cook/porter was Clifford from Belize. There are only 2 guides that are allowed to take people on the trip we took. Most people do a day trip to the cave, but we waited until the day groups came out so we would have the cave to ourselves. We started in around 6 pm. The cave was an ancient Mayan ritual site around 250 AD, and by ritual I mean blood letting and HUMAN SACRIFICE!!!! 
There are 14 skeletons in the cave and tons of pottery and tools. A river runs underground through the cave and you have to swim into the front, and then you swim, climb, swim, walk through water for quite a ways back into the cave. All of the rock is ancient coral reef - limestone and you can see the ancient layers as you go. We climbed upward and came into a little "room" where we took our shoes off and wore socks the rest of the way. As I looked around I realized there were broken pottery pieces all around the floor and back in nooks. Ted told us that the Mayan would "kill" their pottery after a ritual when it had served it's purpose. They would puncture it, break a side or cut a V in the lip of it. We climbed and walked on through huge underground rooms with stalag-tites and -mites and a flow-stone pathway. There was pottery EVERYWHERE! A lot of the pottery is so well preserved that you can see the colors and marks from when they made it. There were also fire pits along the way where you can still see ash and coals from 1,500 years ago! The skeletons in the cave range from a six month old baby to an adult female - very disturbing! We saw granite tools, like ax heads, and a tiny perfectly preserved bead made from human bone. Ted took us places in the cave where the day groups don't get to go. We shimmied through tiny crevices and
through stalags. We were in the cave for about 3 hours. On the way out we climbed up to a ledge above the river and sat around what looked like a ring of rocks with taller rock carvings sticking up in the middle. Ted had us sit down by this and turn off our head lamps to take a moment to pay respects to the dead and also to just listen. On the way up the ledge I said that I thought I heard voices from back in the cave, even though we were the only ones in there. Of course scientists have an explanation for the sound, but it's very super-natural!!!! It sounded like many many people all talking at once and then different voices would stand out here and there. Then, while we were sitting in the dark listening we heard a man's voice that seemed to come from the front of the cave. Think what you will, but it was VERY COOL! Then we turned back on our lights and left the cave. Clifford had stewed chicken and rice and beans (the Belize standard) waiting for us. Then we sat around the campfire drinking rum punch (also the Belize standard) and Ted told us some stories from the Papal Vho, kind of like a Mayan Bible. He also told us some stories about what they called the Dwindy (no idea if I'm spelling that right), kind of like a mischievous leprechaun that plays tricks and steals children at night. He also told us that if we heard music or voices coming from the cave at night not to go toward the sounds or we might not ever be seen again!!! It was a little creepy to sleep in the jungle after all the stories and with all the bugs and sounds all night long. There were monkeys dropping things from the trees as well. Long night! DAY 11 - We set off to hike back farther into the jungle - not much of a path. There are a lot of thorny and prickly plants to watch out for. And of course, bugs. Ted would take a step and creatures would dart through the foliage - I tried not to think about spiders! We went to some unexcavated Mayan ruins -Cahal Witznah- and two more caves. These two caves were "dry"caves, which must be Mayan for "filled with bugs". I was very brave and am very proud of myself for crawling through these caves, but what you see once you get inside is totally worth all the creepy stuff! We saw a spider as big as my 
hand, a scorpion, tarantula, and assassin beetles (yes, they do live up to their name). There were parts in the caves we had to crawl on our bellies and reach into dark crevices for hand holds! I was so happy when we came to an opening in the first cave and I realized I didn't have to go back through! We hiked on farther and saw some tapir footprints. Then up a steep hill to the last cave we would explore - Actun Uayazban Kab - Cave of the Sorcerer's Hand Print. This was my favorite of the day! It was like a natural stone amphitheatre at the opening. There were glyphs carved into what was a giant turtle shell made of stone. Lots of carvings in the rock of faces, hand and footprints. We went back in past the main amphitheatre and it was time to shimmy on our bellies again. Way in the back it 
opens into a room and on one wall there are 5 amazingly distinct 1000 year old hand prints!!! There are also 9 known skeletons along one wall, and probably more. Then we went out and around the front of the cave and did quite a hike to the very top of the opening so we could repel down150 feet. It was so scary! I went first and when I got to the bottom I waited and no Brian! I yelled up to see if everything was OK and he yelled back that he was just scared!!! (No, I will never let him live it down!) He finally did come down though, and then we both did it again. I guess a little adrenaline is good for you every now and then! On our way back to camp we saw a very nice jaguar print in a sandy area, but thankfully no actual jaguar. Then Ted broke a little hole in a termite nest. He held up his finger and termites crawled on it, then he put it in his mouth! I asked him what they taste like and he said carrots. There I was - I couldn't walk away without trying them. The first try I spit them out, second try I ate 3 or 4 of them and sure enough they tasted like carrots!!! I will definitely never forget that jungle trek - spiders, spiders, spiders!, assassin beetles, vipers, ticks, oh what fun we had! On our way out we stopped at a little remote farm to see if they had any coconuts (I had a hankering). The farmer, his wife, and their 4 young sons all came out - visitors aren't very common out there! We pulled down 6 coconuts with a long hooked stick. He cut a hole in the top and we drank straight from the coconut - nothing better! The family also gave us armfuls of oranges from his trees. He tried to refuse $ but we insisted on paying him. When we got back to town we were so exhausted, not to mention covered in dirt and ticks. That was one of the nicest showers I've every had in my life! DAYS 12,13 - Drove to another ruin called Xunantunich - Stone Maiden, but it started raining so hard we spent and hour inside waiting. Then it cleared up like it never even thought of raining! We decided to drive back to the coast for some beach time before we went home. We took quite a drive over dirt roads to a southern village called Placencia, that the locals told us was the best beach in Belize. It was so nice to just sit on the beach all day (time to recover from the feeling of bugs crawling over me)! The weather was so beautiful during the day and then would rain and almost blow our little rooms over at night! We became friends with a man named Norman and his cute little wife and 2 yr old daughter. They run a bakery with the best chocolate muffins I have ever tasted! Overall we had a very adventurous trip, with a little bit of relaxing and sunburn thrown in at the end.
There are 14 skeletons in the cave and tons of pottery and tools. A river runs underground through the cave and you have to swim into the front, and then you swim, climb, swim, walk through water for quite a ways back into the cave. All of the rock is ancient coral reef - limestone and you can see the ancient layers as you go. We climbed upward and came into a little "room" where we took our shoes off and wore socks the rest of the way. As I looked around I realized there were broken pottery pieces all around the floor and back in nooks. Ted told us that the Mayan would "kill" their pottery after a ritual when it had served it's purpose. They would puncture it, break a side or cut a V in the lip of it. We climbed and walked on through huge underground rooms with stalag-tites and -mites and a flow-stone pathway. There was pottery EVERYWHERE! A lot of the pottery is so well preserved that you can see the colors and marks from when they made it. There were also fire pits along the way where you can still see ash and coals from 1,500 years ago! The skeletons in the cave range from a six month old baby to an adult female - very disturbing! We saw granite tools, like ax heads, and a tiny perfectly preserved bead made from human bone. Ted took us places in the cave where the day groups don't get to go. We shimmied through tiny crevices and
through stalags. We were in the cave for about 3 hours. On the way out we climbed up to a ledge above the river and sat around what looked like a ring of rocks with taller rock carvings sticking up in the middle. Ted had us sit down by this and turn off our head lamps to take a moment to pay respects to the dead and also to just listen. On the way up the ledge I said that I thought I heard voices from back in the cave, even though we were the only ones in there. Of course scientists have an explanation for the sound, but it's very super-natural!!!! It sounded like many many people all talking at once and then different voices would stand out here and there. Then, while we were sitting in the dark listening we heard a man's voice that seemed to come from the front of the cave. Think what you will, but it was VERY COOL! Then we turned back on our lights and left the cave. Clifford had stewed chicken and rice and beans (the Belize standard) waiting for us. Then we sat around the campfire drinking rum punch (also the Belize standard) and Ted told us some stories from the Papal Vho, kind of like a Mayan Bible. He also told us some stories about what they called the Dwindy (no idea if I'm spelling that right), kind of like a mischievous leprechaun that plays tricks and steals children at night. He also told us that if we heard music or voices coming from the cave at night not to go toward the sounds or we might not ever be seen again!!! It was a little creepy to sleep in the jungle after all the stories and with all the bugs and sounds all night long. There were monkeys dropping things from the trees as well. Long night! DAY 11 - We set off to hike back farther into the jungle - not much of a path. There are a lot of thorny and prickly plants to watch out for. And of course, bugs. Ted would take a step and creatures would dart through the foliage - I tried not to think about spiders! We went to some unexcavated Mayan ruins -Cahal Witznah- and two more caves. These two caves were "dry"caves, which must be Mayan for "filled with bugs". I was very brave and am very proud of myself for crawling through these caves, but what you see once you get inside is totally worth all the creepy stuff! We saw a spider as big as my 
hand, a scorpion, tarantula, and assassin beetles (yes, they do live up to their name). There were parts in the caves we had to crawl on our bellies and reach into dark crevices for hand holds! I was so happy when we came to an opening in the first cave and I realized I didn't have to go back through! We hiked on farther and saw some tapir footprints. Then up a steep hill to the last cave we would explore - Actun Uayazban Kab - Cave of the Sorcerer's Hand Print. This was my favorite of the day! It was like a natural stone amphitheatre at the opening. There were glyphs carved into what was a giant turtle shell made of stone. Lots of carvings in the rock of faces, hand and footprints. We went back in past the main amphitheatre and it was time to shimmy on our bellies again. Way in the back it 
opens into a room and on one wall there are 5 amazingly distinct 1000 year old hand prints!!! There are also 9 known skeletons along one wall, and probably more. Then we went out and around the front of the cave and did quite a hike to the very top of the opening so we could repel down150 feet. It was so scary! I went first and when I got to the bottom I waited and no Brian! I yelled up to see if everything was OK and he yelled back that he was just scared!!! (No, I will never let him live it down!) He finally did come down though, and then we both did it again. I guess a little adrenaline is good for you every now and then! On our way back to camp we saw a very nice jaguar print in a sandy area, but thankfully no actual jaguar. Then Ted broke a little hole in a termite nest. He held up his finger and termites crawled on it, then he put it in his mouth! I asked him what they taste like and he said carrots. There I was - I couldn't walk away without trying them. The first try I spit them out, second try I ate 3 or 4 of them and sure enough they tasted like carrots!!! I will definitely never forget that jungle trek - spiders, spiders, spiders!, assassin beetles, vipers, ticks, oh what fun we had! On our way out we stopped at a little remote farm to see if they had any coconuts (I had a hankering). The farmer, his wife, and their 4 young sons all came out - visitors aren't very common out there! We pulled down 6 coconuts with a long hooked stick. He cut a hole in the top and we drank straight from the coconut - nothing better! The family also gave us armfuls of oranges from his trees. He tried to refuse $ but we insisted on paying him. When we got back to town we were so exhausted, not to mention covered in dirt and ticks. That was one of the nicest showers I've every had in my life! DAYS 12,13 - Drove to another ruin called Xunantunich - Stone Maiden, but it started raining so hard we spent and hour inside waiting. Then it cleared up like it never even thought of raining! We decided to drive back to the coast for some beach time before we went home. We took quite a drive over dirt roads to a southern village called Placencia, that the locals told us was the best beach in Belize. It was so nice to just sit on the beach all day (time to recover from the feeling of bugs crawling over me)! The weather was so beautiful during the day and then would rain and almost blow our little rooms over at night! We became friends with a man named Norman and his cute little wife and 2 yr old daughter. They run a bakery with the best chocolate muffins I have ever tasted! Overall we had a very adventurous trip, with a little bit of relaxing and sunburn thrown in at the end. 
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