We left the idyllic blue waters and carefree island life on Monday to begin a new adventure about 2 hours inland Belize. On our way to our second stop, we visited the Belize Zoo. It runs as a rehabilitation center for injured, orphaned and rescued Belizean jungle animals. It is not located near the city but rather an hour away so these animals are in their natural habitat. Jeff and I were blown away by the size of the enclosures and beautiful jungle setting of the zoo. Stella and Max were mesmerized and couldn't take enough pictures of the 125 species of creatures and birds that call Belize home.
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| "Junior" the jaguar |
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| a baby howler monkey |
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| family of howler monkeys playing and eating just a few feet above our heads |
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| a toucan! |
About an hour later, we arrived at our eco-lodge hidden away in the dense jungle off Hummingbird Hwy. Sitting on 98,000 acres, this is the place to be for a variety of jungle activities and tours. On our first full day, we went on a River Cave Tubing adventure. We started on a bus that bumped along for 20 minutes on a dirt road through orange groves. Then we grabbed our tubes, helmets and headlamps and hiked another 10 min down to the river. From there we hand paddled up stream for a few minutes to the mouth of an ancient Mayan cave.
Once inside the cave, we spent about 3 hours in complete and total darkness (except for the light of our headlamps) doing a mixture of walking and paddling. At one point we climbed up into a cavern that was 70 ft above the river. Our guide pointed out many creatures including bats and scorpion spiders! She also showed us many Mayan relics like broken pottery, flint, grinding stones and fire pits that were all part of their sacred ceremonies. She explained that long ago, the Mayans would enter this cave to perform ceremonies to their gods. Most of these ceremonies included blood letting and human sacrifices. While archeologists have not found any human skeletal remains in the lower regions of this cave, they have uncovered many in the upper chambers. They have even uncovered Mayan footprints calcified in the rock that give the cave its name - Footprint Cave.
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| statue of a fertility god lit up by a headlamp |
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| backlit by other headlamps to illuminate us in the pitch black |
Our guides provided a picnic style lunch for us inside the cave before we began our float down the slow moving river.
I was curious how the kids would do on such an intense, adventurous and potentially frightening tour. They were not scared at all and in fact, a little bit intrigued by the stories! They climbed and maneuvered themselves into places far more easily than the adults could. Go figure.
Our second day at the lodge, we went ziplining!!!! It was hard to tell exactly how high you were in the air when the jungle canopy below was so dense. We did get to go on one that was over a river and 1,000 ft long! Stella, like the monkey that she is, couldn't get enough and was sometimes done the next zipline before we even got there. Max on the other hand, was intimidated by the height of the platforms and speed in which we zipped along. We thought it would take a generous amount of coaxing for him to complete the course and were even thinking of a plan B when Max surprised us all and stepped off the platform ... again and again. So proud of him! And guess what? Now he can't stop talking about the experience and counts it as one of the favorite things he's done in Belize so far. Go figure.
Since ziplining only took a couple of hours, we decided to check out the Blue Hole National Park across the road from our lodge. It was incredibly picturesque and we were surprised to see no one else there! After a long, hot, dusty walk to get there, we all jumped in the water right away! The water was refreshing (not cold) and crystal clear ... we could see a number of fish swimming around! The fish were about 6 inches long and were very curious. They kept swimming up to us and surrounding us. Not exactly my cup of tea
but ... 'when in Rome'....
I think one of my favorite parts of this leg of the journey has been the atmosphere at the lodge we stayed at. The breakfast and dinners were served family style which meant that we all ate together at a specific time and had table numbers assigned that were changed up each day to provide us the opportunity to interact with a variety of fellow travelers. The staff even turned the wifi off at meal times ... a brilliant move to remove all distractions. The dinners included 3 courses that were each announced by a staff member who described to us in detail what each dish was. Soooo many choices and incredibly delicious homemade food from the region. We did not go hungry!!!
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| just before everyone arrived for dinner |
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| making fresh squeezed orange juice at breakfast |
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| beautiful setting |
Last but not least, as part of the jungle experience, our cabana was completely screened in to allow the, how shall I put this, the SYMPHONY of nature surround us. Each and every night, we fell asleep to a cacophony of sounds and each night we were jolted out of our sleep to the calls of howler monkeys! Thankfully, they only make their noises for approximately 15-20 min at a time. I don't know exactly how to describe their sound to do it justice. All I can say is that it sounds like something out of Jurassic Park ... a lot more like a dinosaurs' roar than the cute ooo ooo eeee eeee sounds that some other monkeys make.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the howler monkeys don't sleep at night! 😯
