What We Have Been Up Too.....

Kyle and I went to Belize on August 7th through the 15th. Lets just say it was AMAZING. Before we left I was having the worst anxiety ever. I had never been out of the country before and this was the first big trip I had taken without having my parents there. Kyle and I were going to be on our own, in a strange country that I had never heard of until we started planning this trip months before. So I was a bit nervous. I was hoping that once we got there though that my nerves would be put to ease but they weren't. We flew into Belize City and my first thought was HUMID! But I was trying to stay positive and get excited. We got our luggage and found ourselves a taxi and asked him to take us to the water terminal. While we were driving there I was praying, hoping, and wishing that our resort looked a lot nicer than what I was seeing. It definitely is a whole new world down there in Belize. Kyle had been to Mexico before so he was used to seeing rundown, poverty stricken places. But for me this was a huge shock. Once we got to the water terminal, my thoughts shifted from humid to "Yuck, what are we doing here?" Kyle was feeling a little discouraged himself. We were tired, hot, and annoyed by the people trying to earn a buck or two off of us. After waiting an hour for the boat to leave, we finally boarded and started heading to the island that we would be staying at..... Ambergis Caye. The boat ride wasn't my favorite thing to do but I didn't mind it. Kyle and I were able to get some pictures along the way and I was able to take a little snooze. When we arrived to the island, a guy from our resort was waiting at the dock for us so that he could take us to the resort. Kyle and I and another family all got into the boat that would be taking us to our resort. When we got to our resort I was in awe. It was so pretty. I honestly felt like a millionaire. The staff there treated us like royalty. They showed us to our room and again, I was in awe. Here are some pictures or our resort, our room, the dock we were dropped off at after riding the water taxi and the dock at Ambergis Caye.

The only way to get around the island is by water taxi or golf cart. The first night we were there we took the water taxi into town and went exploring. We had dinner at a place called Sunset Grill. The atmosphere was really cool. The restaurant was on a dock and swimming around it were these huge fish. If people wanted they could dangle a fish above the water and these huge fish would jump up and grab the fish out of there hand. I was to afraid to do it so we just watched.

This is Kyle waiting for the water taxi to pick us up

This is me looking at the huge fish

Every morning Kyle and I would wake up and go swimming at the pool for a coulpe of hours. It was an awesome pool. There were two pools, one in the front and one in the back. The back one was more for swimming and playing. The other pool was mostly for lounging in.

It wouldn't be much of a vacation if we didn't do any excursions while we were there and it would be a waste of a vacation if we didn't go snorkeling in Belize. So our first big adventure was the Catamaran Cruise. This was so much fun. We took the Catamaran around the island and to the other island, Caye Caulker. We stopped at Caye Caulker and had lunch there and did a little shopping. We also did some snorkeling along the way. We got to snorkel at two different locations, Shark Ray Alley and Hol Chan.

Caye Caulker

Lunch at Caye Caulker

Kyle swimming with the fish

Our other adventures included renting a golf cart and driving it around the island, cave tubing, visiting the Belize Zoo, and witnessing the famous Chicken Drop.

Allow me to explain the chicken drop. So there is a board with a bunch of numbers on it and people bet on these numbers. Then they bring out the chicken. A person takes the chicken and spins it 3 times and then shakes it a little bit and then blows on its bum. Gross! Then they put the chicken on the board and waits for it to poo on a number and if it poops on a number that a person bet on, that person wins a prize. It was pretty hilarious to watch.

Cave tubing was amazing. We sat on these inner tubes and floated down a river while going through caves. It was scary at times because of how dark it was but we did have head lights on. It was so pretty in the caves and in the jungle that we had to walk through to get to the river. While we were walking, our guide showed us a termites nest and told us that we could eat the termites. I was skeptical at first, so of course I made Kyle eat one first. He said it tasted just like mint and carrots. So I tried one and sure enough, it tasted just like mint and carrots.

We spent a lot of time in town too, mostly to shop and to eat. They had some really good restaurants there, well I guess I should say they had really good food. Some of the restaurants were questionable but somehow I had the courage to eat at these restaurants. A common dish served in Belize was cerviche! It is so delicious. I didn't think I would like it because it has fish in it and I am not a big fish eater, but I was all about trying new things and I am so glad I tried this. It was my favorite thing to eat there and I would order it everytime we were at a restaurant. Another thing that is really common there is Fanta sodas. They mostly serve alcohol but with us being non drinkers, we drank a lot of soda and Fanta was the only sodas they had. They had your typical orange fanta but they also had pineapple soda, which was Kyle's favorite, and they had fruit punch fanta which was my favorite.

I have quite a few more pictures but this post is becoming way to long so I will post some of my favorites and call it a day. All in all Kyle and I had an amazing time and we are so glad we got to experience Belize. Together.