In celebration of our fifteenth anniversary (and also because I will take any excuse to travel), we are headed to Belize for a week! This was as "last minute" as it gets for me, so we booked tickets and hotels only a couple months in advance, coming in with much less research and planning compared to my normal travels -- so will see how it goes!
Started off with some very entertaining flight companions -- across the aisle from us on the plane were a couple celebrating their 37th anniversary (same date as us!) but man the stories that they told...let's just say one involved him being a sperm donor to fund his dentistry school studies and now having connected with NINE children (and who knows how many more are out there!).
Unfortunately the flight arrived a bit late so the lodge had to cancel our connecting flight to their property -- it's in the middle of the jungle so they were worried about flying in the rain after dark -- better safe than sorry! So we ended up taking a long drive to Chan Chich instead -- luckily our driver Levy was very chatty and informative. Most surprising facts learned: Belize is very young, it declared it's independence in the 1980s, the national animal is the tapir, many of the locals still speak Mayan, and we might see pumas, ocelots, and jaguars at this lodge!
Here's a photo of Ian enjoying a chicken tamale from the gas stop -- it had a whole chicken wing (bones included) in the middle! Ian's verdict: a little messy, but sufficiently tasty.
The ride was....very long and bumpy. Levy kept saying "we are almost there"...and then we'd go another 20 minutes. We eventually rolled into around 9:30. I can definitely understand why most folks travel to Chan Chich by plane.
Though we did see a tapir, a fox, an owl, and some birds on the drive in, so it wasn't all bad!
We were greeted at the lodge with drinks and cold towels - apparently we are the only guests staying on the entire 33000-acre property tomorrow!
Off to sleep!
