After we felt we had done enough pure relaxation we decided to sign up for some adventure filled days. On Tuesday we went Cave Tubing. We took a water taxi to Belize City, which by the way has the worlds third highest murder rate - yay!
From Belize we met our tour guide Major Tom and Mike. They loaded us, along with 4 others into there van and we headed out of the murder capital and into the rain forest. Along the way Major Tom entertained us with stories of his childhood in the jungle - how if you treat the jungle likes its going to kill you it will, and if you treat it like it will nourish you it will provide for, heal, and shelter you.
While Major Tom told us about his very interesting life, Michael told us in the ins and out of Belize while saying things like "jah man go slow." Needless to say it was a great trip from start to finish. We made friends with 2 women on the trip, Kelsey and Teresa, and we exchanged stories. They are both in the military. One lives in Germany now and the other in Hawaii. We got some hot tips on where to go in Germany so its safe to say Bamberg, Germany is on our short list of places to go. After we finally reached the cave tubing site we did a small hike while our tour guide pointed out different trees, nuts, deadly bugs, etc. We explored some caves on land and were told that the mayans thought certain stalagmites that were in the shape of different animals represented different things to them such as wisdom of fertility. After that we found our tubes and took turns jumping off a large rock in the mouth of a cave into the crystal clear water. As the tour guide kept telling us "just because you can see the bottom doesn't mean you can reach it" which we found to be very true. While we floated through the caves we learned a lot more about the Mayans and how the caves were formed. When we got to the middle everyone turned off their head lamps and it might have been the first time I've experienced total darkness. Not a creature was stirring, not even a snake. Our new friends took lots of pictures and will be emailing them to me when they get a chance. She is a doctor in the army so I'm sure she's just a tad busy.
After a quick trip to the zoo where we ate lunch we were on the road back to Belize city, back to the water taxi, and back to Caye Caulker just in time to watch the last 10 minutes of the world cup at the bar attached to our hotel. Of course during the last few exciting minutes the internet/cable went out on the island so all the Americans took a collective sigh - knowing we were probably losing anyway- and went on with our day.
We spent several hours almost every day swimming, snorkeling, watching the boats go by, and listening to a wide variety of music at the split. One of the most shocking things we found our right away was that Belizians like to listen to a lot of JT and Bruno Mars. While they had many live reggae bands there, which I found a little more enjoyable, there was no telling what you would here - from house music to Frank Sinatra. Just like everything else, it seemed their music taste was easy going as well.
On Thursday we did some Scuba Diving. Belize has the 2nd largest coral reef if the world! Neither of us are certified so we weren't able to go on that deep of a trip but we did get to see a lot of very awesome underwater scenes. After my nerves got out of the way and the whole I'm not supposed to be breathing underwater way of thinking subsided, I really loved it! Mike was much more of a pro at it than I was because he had been previously but after about a half hour of practicing in case of emergency situations underwater, my mind was a lot more at ease. On the first dive we saw a lot of beautiful coral, a barracuda, a really cool white crab that our scuba instructor kept picking and then allowing it to bury itself back in the sand, and A LOT of colorful fish that I can't recognize. On the way back to the island our instructor stopped the boat because he had seen some nurse sharks and sting rays so he said if anyone wants to jump out and swim with them we had a few minutes. No way was I passing up that opportunity. We saw about 5 or 6 nurse sharks traveling together, and 2 or 3 very large sting rays. Life underwater is a whole different universe.
Now onto the last portion of the longest blog I've ever written. The food! I know you were probably thinking - ' Lauren this is the first time you haven't mentioned food in your blog.' Well don't worry, I've got you covered. It was lobsterfest the first weekend we got to the island which kicks off the lobster fishing season. So of course we stopped in the first place we could and got a lobster sandwich and lobster burrito. We were a little underwhelmed but figured it must just be that restaurant that covered up the taste of the lobster with a bunch of spices and sauces. Well we found out the hard way that unless you order just a straight up grilled lobster, or grab a kebab on the beach you're lobster is going to come with a heaping pile of prego pasta sauce or something very similar.
Luckily we changed ours ways, sought out the good eats, and got a foodie guide of the restaurant from the owner of Colinda Cabanas, a lovely Canadian woman names Linda. Her husband's name was Colin hence Co-lin-da - get it? Cute, right? Well anyway, she referred us to some of our favorite eateries on the island. There is a pasta, yes ITALIAN pasta place on the island that is only open from 6 - 9pm with about 10 seats total on this couples porch. They moved there from Italy several years ago and now only serve the freshest pasta. He makes the pasta, she makes the sauce, and they only serve 2 entrees every night. One with fresh seafood from the catch of the day, and one vegetarian dish.
Fresh juice every day? I guess if I have to...
Another one of our favorites was a Mediterranean place on the tip of the island. The older man from Rhode Island served the tables and browsed facebook while his wife from Honduras did the cooking. He probably had the most interesting life story I've ever heard including moving out the U.S. when he was 19 to buy a house in South America, then owned a bunch of condos in Florida, then sold them to build cabanas on Caye Caulker only to have the contractor take all his money and receipts which left him broke. He then lived in Belize City competing with native Belizians for hard labor work. He had a dirt bike and a chainsaw and found work cutting up fallen trees for 30 BZ or about 15 US dollars a day. Then he met his wife, yada yada yada, 3 kids later and they ended up running this place in Caye Caulker. Amazing Baba ganoush and a side of crazy tales? Yes, please. I pretty much ate fresh shrimp, fish, or lobster all week and feel great about it.
There is so much more to talk about but I've got 12 minutes left on my computer charge and I'm back in the coffee shop in Queens. Much love bruddas and sistahs, go slow, and do yourself a favor and read at least the first book in the left behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins - its truly life changing.
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