Belize

July 26th, 2005 · No Comments

The view from our casitaWe arrived back from our honeymoon on Saturday night, which was quickly followed by Aimee’s birthday on Sunday and the beginning of some serious packing starting yesterday, so it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. Thankfully, a whirlwind is the exact opposite of our last week in Belize, which was incredibly relaxing and very restful.

I say “last week” because the first week, or at least the first few days, was slightly interrupted by the approach of Hurricane Emily, which forced us to evacuate from our first stop, Mata Chica, a resort on Ambergris Caye. We enjoyed ourselves in our beachfront casita, and the food and people were lovely, but after two nights, we had to move inland and away from the storm’s path. After a four-hour wait on the steamy tarmac at the San Pedro airport – shades of some “last plane out” refugee movie where otherwise normal adults are offering bribes and elbowing each other out of the way to get off the island as the locals board up the houses around them – we flew TropicAir back to Belize City, where we spent an evening at The Great House. The next day, we arranged for someone from our next stop to come pick us up early, and we headed inland to our little pine forest paradise, Five Sisters Lodge.

The excellent hammock for twoWe spent six days and nights at Five Sisters, enjoying a day trip to the Mayan ruins at Caracol, a visit to a butterfly ranch, and a canoe ride through a cave. We played a lot of Scrabble, drank a lot of smoothies, and enjoyed the delicious food from Five Sisters’ kitchen. I read three books, took a lot of naps, and generally had a great time.

We took a day-long trip to Guatemala, as well, to see the magnificent Mayan ruins at Tikal, which were well worth the six-hour round trip on some of the worst roads I’ve ever ridden in a van at 65 mph on.

TikalThe trip was really terrific, and Aimee and I managed to survive, and even really enjoy, 24 hours a day with one another, despite some travel crises and images of us clinging to telephone poles as the hurricane destroyed our hotel… It’s a good sign, I think – the getting along part, not the being swept away thing. For a few hundred pictures of it all, check out my Flickr photo set.

Tags: Travel