Belize 2024

 Left San Ignacio this morning a little before 8 to catch our flight home.  Arrival in Wichita at 8:06 p.m.  Hopefully home before midnight and then back to work tomorrow morning! Gonna be good to see the kids again. 

 Today is Sunday. Been looking forward to visiting the church here at San Ignacio. Was a beautiful setting and a nice service.  A young couple from Lonetree are the missionaries there.  Lunch of onion soup at D’s Family Restaurant .   Hiked Big Rock Falls this afternoon and just relaxing now.  Heading for home in the morning!

 Today we toured the ATM cave . Was amazing!  We had 3 river crossings on the 2+ mile walk in to the entrance of the cave. To enter the cave we had to swim a bit but more of the time we were in ankle deep water.  Definitely not the American commercial cave tour experience. Once we were about 200-300 meters into the cave we started seeing pottery from the Maya’s. A bit further and we started seeing the human remains from sacrifices. Saw 5 or 6 of them. I think there were maybe 14-16 known remains. Some are not accessible to the tour.  Coming out our guide took us thru some kinda gnarly spots. One called the washing machine and another called the neck cutter.  Three river crossings again on the way out and a total of about 5 miles hiking.  Lunch was waiting for us back at the car park. All told, an amazing day!  Back to the market to find Janet and Naomi. Browsed a bit and then they loaded up and we hoped a ride back to the cabana. Dinner this evening wi...

 Left Tobacco Caye around 9:00. Water was rough and it rained enough to merit our raincoats but it didn’t slow the boat down much. I never heard the motor leave the water but I’ll bet it was close a few times! Visited the inland blue hole . It was truly a little gem very worth the stop. $2 for both of us and a short hike down to the hole. It’s a sinkhole in the jungle that is aqua blue water. Coulda swam there but didn’t take the time to change. Ended up wading downstream to see where the water disappeared in a cave.  Drove to another parking lot and hiked to another cave. Was able to go in a couple hundred meters without a guide. Only had one cell phone light which didn’t do much for the darkness.  To go further you need a guide and it’s in the water so you have to take tubes.  Drove to Xunantunich and snagged a guide for $40 to give us a tour. Xunantunich was really impressive. I was amazed though that the structures have had to be rebuilt. They are basically a hu...

 Up around 5:30 for an early morning snorkel. Didn’t see the manatees or sharks liked we hoped.  Snorkeled and took it easy all day.  Time to shower and hit the hay. 

 Snorkeled. Rested. Paddle Boarded, Kayaked around the island, snorkeled, ate lunch, snorkeled more… you get the idea!  Had fish and lobster creole for supper. Did some night snorkeling but the dive lights weren’t fully charged so had to quit before we were ready.  Sunset was indescribably beautiful!