It’s our last week and it’s already Friday night! I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by! I am so excited to come home but it will be impossible not to bring Elena home with me.
On Monday Jess, Dari, and I went to the beach after running a hundred errands in the morning. It was so gorgeous outside. How will I get used to not having a beach to swim in every afternoon? I love jumping off the pier after school. The water is so calm and clear. After I got out of the water, Jess was struggling to get out herself. I didn’t notice so I just went to lay down. Next thing I knew Jess was standing in front of me bleeding from her knees and feet. Haha. It’s a little rough getting out. Even at that pier we’ve found jellyfish and star fish. It’s just a little bit sweeter than Lake Superior…
Tuesday morning we got up early to leave for San Pedro. It was a long day of travelling but we wanted to see the Belize City Zoo so we had to take more buses and taxis and things. We got on the bus at 8 am from Punta Gorda. That bus brought us all the way to Belmopan. From Belmopan we had to jump onto another bus and that bus would take us to the Belize City Zoo.
The zoo was unlike any zoo I have ever seen in my entire life. When you’re walking it’s like walking through the actual jungle. Some animals aren’t even caged. Crocodiles aren’t even caged in. They sit around the water but if one decided to go crazy it could easily jump out. I was really nervous but it was intense in a good way. I felt like I was walking through the jungle on my own and discovering all the animals in their wild habitats. That’s what the zoo should be. There were these jaguars and pumas that were running around like crazy in their cages. The birds were the only animal that had a cage with a top on it. I swear those cats could climb up and jump out if they wanted to. The most intense part was the spider monkeys. I had seen the howler monkeys before. They are really loud but they are tiny and really cute so they didn’t scare me at all. Ty and Nate had them in their backyard all the time. I had never seen a spider monkey before. These monkeys were not in a cage at all. You could climb up to the top of the trees and just watch all the monkeys swinging from tree to tree. I stood there forever! It was unreal. I have never been so scared in my life. I could’ve sworn that they were going to jump into the tree I was standing on at any moment. There were over 8 of them and they were swinging around like crazy! A storm was coming and that’s when monkeys really get active so we saw them at the best time.
When we finished at the zoo we decided to head out to the highway again and get on the next bus that would take us to Belize City. Belize City was really run down. It wasn’t a very nice place at all. It was dirty and tons of people were asking for money or trying to sell you shitty stuff. Luckily we left quickly to get to the shore. We took a taxi and by the shore it was really nice. There are nice hotels there, casinos, and decent restaurants. We jumped onto a water taxi from there. It stopped first in Caye Caulker and then took us to San Pedro. When we got to San Pedro it was 7pm. Long day of travelling.
San Pedro was gorgeous. We stayed along the shore the two nights we stayed there. It was all white sand beach, clear blue water, sunny days. There were tons of people playing sand volleyball. The restaurants there were really nice. We were pretty exhausted from the trip so the first night we just ate and went to bed.
The next day I got so much sun! I love that I can actually get tan when I am down here. I don’t think Duluth sun quite does it for my ginger skin. We just relaxed the entire day. That night we went out to a couple of bars. It was the first time I have been around white people in so long. It was weird. I never realized how different we act than Belizean people. There were two big groups of people our age. One group was from a university in Kentucky. They were marine biology majors who spent a week scuba diving in San Pedro. The other group was a bunch of guys who were on spring break. Then there was a group of 50 year old ladies. They were having the time of their lives. They were dancing the entire night. Two of them danced on the bar. It was hilarious. They knew all the words to the rap songs. Priceless. I, of course, was dancing the entire night. I love dancing when I’m in paradise and when you only have one more night you have to do it!
The next morning we left and took the shuttle over to Caye Caulker. It was much more laid back and was more geared toward tourism. In the morning we just found a place to stay and relaxed. We stayed at a hostel. The first time I have stayed in a hostel. It was really fun to stay there and meet people our age that were from all over the place. I ended up playing in a little volleyball tournament with people from Atlanta, Texas, and Norway. It was awesome! There were a lot of people from Canada there too! The hostel was actually really nice. I felt like I was living in the 1960’s. It was great!
That afternoon we decided that we had better do some type of tour since we had to leave the next morning. We went walking around the town to find what types of tours were available. Caye Caulker streets are all packed sand and you can see down the street from one shore of the island to the other. It’s so amazing. It’s the cutest little town. I wish we had more time to spend there! Anyway, we found a little shack that had snorkeling tours for a half day. We set it up to go snorkeling at three local spots in the afternoon for three hours. Jess and I were the only two people on the boat with our dive master, Bert. He was the best. He gave us water and snacks. We had our own boat, so we just got to run the trip on our own time. He got in the water with us and pointed out different marine life and fish. We saw conch, all kinds of tropical fish, moray eels, and a barracuda. The barracuda was scary because it has it’s mouth open, it’s huge, and it swims at the same height as we swam. I love diving down in to the water when I’m snorkeling. It’s the closest thing to being a mermaid that I will ever get to experience.
The first spot we went was just in front of the Great Barrier reef. It’s a surf out in the middle of the ocean that has tons of coral that reaches all the way to the top of the water. There is only an inch of water at the top, so we just swam all around it, looking at the different fish.
The next stop was Manta ray Caye. There are a lot of tours that have been going out there for years and feeding these sting rays and manta rays so now they all sworm to that spot. It’s like if you knew that people threw out money at a spot in town. Of course you would always go there. So, we had to jump into water that was full of over 25 sting rays. They were tame. They would brush up against your feet, stomach, arms, and anything else they could find. One even swam between my legs… I was so scared when we first jumped in. Bert hadn’t fed them yet so there were only about five but when I saw them swimming toward me, I jumped up on Bert. I’m sure he was traumatized. He just laughed. I guess he gets that a lot. But then he was picking them up and letting me touch them and it ended up being really cool. At one point I just went under and looked at them coming. There were over twenty five of them swimming toward me in a school… It was amazing. They were friendly and so cool. They feel so soft and they don’t hurt you at all. I got to hold a giant sting ray. Now, more than ever, I really want to become a marine biologist some day. Let’s hope when I’m done teaching I can move somewhere tropical and become one. I need to. I think I was a mermaid in a past life! J
That night we of course went out to eat again and just hung out at different spots around town. We laid out in the hammocks on the water and watched the sun go down. It was gorgeous and really peaceful there. I will definitely go back someday to that place.
We left early in the morning. Got on the boat at 8:30 to head back to Belize City. From there we took a taxi to the bus terminal. Our bus came at 10:30. This time we would be on that bus all the way back to PG. It was a long ride and it only stops twice to let you off. One stop is a five-minute break. The other is a ten-minute break. It stops a lot to let people on and off and women will hop on the bus to try to sell their foods but we didn’t eat much of anything until about 3 in the afternoon. I got out at that stop and ran to the gas station. I bought some fresh sweet bread. That is SO delicious. I ate two HUGE buns and some cookies. That was my lunch. We didn’t get back into PG until 4:30 that night.
Elena was SO happy to see us. It’s going to be hard to leave her. She made us my favorite meal – mac and cheese, BB Q chicken legs, and homemade tortillas. Love it! I was so sick of eating out. It felt great to get out. We watched a movie and talked all night.
This morning (Saturday) we are heading down to the market to get some fresh, organic veggies and then I’ve got a lot of stuff to do to get ready to go home. Tomorrow we’re going to a soccer tournament and church. Monday will be a day of packing and saying our goodbyes. Tuesday our plane leaves PG at 9:40 am. I am so ready to be home. I really hope Elena will come visit me someday. I’ll really miss her! I’ll miss PG in general. It’s really become home here. I don’t think I could stay much longer though. I need to catch up on everyone’s lives back home.
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