Today is a national holiday in Belize in honor of Baron Bliss. Short story I have heard is that he was a baron from Germany/Austria/somewhere who sailed here in the 1930s but was too ill to leave the ship, so admired the beautiful country from his stateroom right up until his death. He loved the country so much from afar, despite never having set foot on Belizean soil, that he left Belize all of his money, and with it the government was able to begin some real infrastructure improvements.
Today the group went cave tubing, and since the author did not go, she will reach out to a guest blogger to fill in the details. Take it away, Darby & Andrew:
First we had a 45 minute hike through the rainforest. We saw things such as a gum tree, a growing pineapple, an alligator tree, etc. We were carrying our inner tubes with us the whole time and were told to keep them away from the poisonous spiky trees (which we did). We all laughed as Mr. Grant huffed and puffed through the rainforest. Our guide Pablo was awesome because he was very knowledgeable about the caves. He had also toured Leonardo diCaprio and a Victoria’s Secret model (Giselle) – we of course were much more impressive than that.
After the hike through the jungle, slipping and sliding on the muddy trail and trying unsuccessfully to avoid the fire ants, we made it to the fifth opening along the cave system, where we left our tubes and trekked for 10 more minutes to the 6th opening water hole. We jumped in right away because we were all sweating and Pablo showed us how to climb the rocks so we could jump off into the crystal clear waters.
We spent about a half-hour swimming and exploring, then went back to our tubes, turned on our miners’ headlamps and launched in our tubes into the dark cave system downriver. First Pablo took us to a tiny hidden side cave where we had to crawl through a small tunnel by sliding on our stomachs through the shallow water, scraping our heads on the stalagmites above us.
We each enjoyed a clay mask from the inside of the tunnel and each came out with a different design of “warrior paint” on our faces. Halfway through we bumped into a huge group from a cruise ship, and seeing that group made us really happy we had a small group and our own guide.
We then went back to the main cave and continued our tubing expedition, ending up at the cave right outside Jaguar Paw.
“Cave tubing was in fact not a lazy river, as it was described, but was workout central.” Andrew Frisina
“Cave tubing is the most fun you can have with your …. ah, never mind.” Mike Nickerson.
“We saw a scorpion spider!” Darby
Thank you, guest bloggers.
Tomorrow we get up earlyish and head to the busses for a 9:00 departure. We will tour the Maya site of Xunantunich, lunch in San Ignacio, then head north to Gallon Jug to meet up with our hosts, the Bowens, and start the next leg of our adventure.
Hasta mañana!
Today the group went cave tubing, and since the author did not go, she will reach out to a guest blogger to fill in the details. Take it away, Darby & Andrew:
First we had a 45 minute hike through the rainforest. We saw things such as a gum tree, a growing pineapple, an alligator tree, etc. We were carrying our inner tubes with us the whole time and were told to keep them away from the poisonous spiky trees (which we did). We all laughed as Mr. Grant huffed and puffed through the rainforest. Our guide Pablo was awesome because he was very knowledgeable about the caves. He had also toured Leonardo diCaprio and a Victoria’s Secret model (Giselle) – we of course were much more impressive than that.
After the hike through the jungle, slipping and sliding on the muddy trail and trying unsuccessfully to avoid the fire ants, we made it to the fifth opening along the cave system, where we left our tubes and trekked for 10 more minutes to the 6th opening water hole. We jumped in right away because we were all sweating and Pablo showed us how to climb the rocks so we could jump off into the crystal clear waters.
We spent about a half-hour swimming and exploring, then went back to our tubes, turned on our miners’ headlamps and launched in our tubes into the dark cave system downriver. First Pablo took us to a tiny hidden side cave where we had to crawl through a small tunnel by sliding on our stomachs through the shallow water, scraping our heads on the stalagmites above us.
We each enjoyed a clay mask from the inside of the tunnel and each came out with a different design of “warrior paint” on our faces. Halfway through we bumped into a huge group from a cruise ship, and seeing that group made us really happy we had a small group and our own guide.
We then went back to the main cave and continued our tubing expedition, ending up at the cave right outside Jaguar Paw.
“Cave tubing was in fact not a lazy river, as it was described, but was workout central.” Andrew Frisina
“Cave tubing is the most fun you can have with your …. ah, never mind.” Mike Nickerson.
“We saw a scorpion spider!” Darby
Thank you, guest bloggers.
Tomorrow we get up earlyish and head to the busses for a 9:00 departure. We will tour the Maya site of Xunantunich, lunch in San Ignacio, then head north to Gallon Jug to meet up with our hosts, the Bowens, and start the next leg of our adventure.
Hasta mañana!
