Day 5: Dec 12-Belize City, Belize...
First, a little side story...in Honduras (Day 4), Bryan started feeling pretty crappy. He had a super sore throat and a few big cankers in his mouth. He really thought he had strep throat, since he could see white sores at the back of his throat. The doctor on the ship was not available, plus we really didn't want him to go to the ship doctor anyway, because if you're sick on a cruise ship they quarantine you to your room and don't let you do anything. Bryan didn't want to miss out on anything so he just powered through. Well, on the morning of Belize he felt absolutely horrible. Luckily for us, there are always pharmacies at every shopping center and of course you don't need any prescriptions! So we self-diagnosed and then googled the dose of amoxicillin he would need for strep throat. We went right in and bought it over-the-counter for 10 bucks. Easy peasy. .....Unfortunately, he never got better. After we got back home he saw a doc and it's a virus, not a bacteria so our antibiotics did nothing! Dang it. Here we thought we were being so smart and it didn't work after all. He's still not over the sickness yet, poor guy!
Anyway, our excursion in Belize was cave tubing. There are underground rivers in the mountains of Belize and you can ride down the river on a tube while checking out all the cool cave formations. It's like Timpanogos Cave mixed with a lazy river at a water park. :)
Once again, Belize was a beautiful country. I love all the lush greenery everywhere. We first rode a van for about an hour to the mountain where we got our life jackets, helmets, and headlamps. Bree thought her headlamp was pretty cool and kept asking me to turn it on when we were outside. We had to do a nice walk around the mountain to the cave entrance (we actually started our walk at the spot where the tubes exit the river at the end.) It was a really nice walk. Our tour guide stopped and showed us all sorts of cool trees and plants. There was a really neat "touch plant" whose leaves close right up as a defense mechanism if you touch them. (Here's a cool youtube video that shows it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPf3FbR6eQE) Bryan had seen them in Hawaii, but the kids and I were pretty fascinated by them. The leaves will open back up again in about 10 minutes.)
Also, he showed us a cashew tree and said that a big export of Belize is cashew jam and jelly. They use the fruit to make the jam, and it's actually a fruit which has its seed on the outside of it (like strawberries do), but the single seed is what we call a cashew nut! So after the jam is done, they gather the seeds and roast them and sell them--they're cashews! Who knew? Not me! (Here's a picture I found on the internet, because the tree we saw was not in the right season to produce fruit, darn it.)
Here we are heading down into the cave. We saw a whole bunch of tiny bats sleeping upside down on the cave walls as we entered. The kids thought that was cool.
It opens up again to this:
The river is actually a cenote, which is a freshwater "sinkhole" of sorts. So as we went, we would be underground, and then it would suddenly open up to blue sky, and then back underground again, changing back and forth.
There were several shallow areas where we had to have a "butts-up moment!" or else we'd hit some rocks with our fannies. Here's Bree in one of her butts-up moments.
The cave tubing was lots of fun. Afterwards they drove us to their facility where homemade Belizean food awaited us. It was so yummy! There was traditional rice and beans, baked chicken, and coleslaw. And they also had all-you-can-drink rum punch which was reportedly very good, but we stuck with soda. My grape Fanta tasted great! :)
I loved our day in Belize. I just felt bad for Bryan; he sure didn't feel very well.
We had to take a smaller boat (a "tender") to Belize from the ship, so here is a shot of our ship as we rode the tender back. (Again, a cloudy day, but not cold at all, and no rain at all either on this day.)
Day 6: Dec 13-Cozumel, Mexico...
In Cozumel we didn't book any excursions and just decided to do our own thing. Did I mention that we have our very own personal travel agents? Bryan's sister Jennifer and her husband Tom are our go-to sources for what to do and where. They've traveled almost everywhere and they always know great things to do. So, on their advice we just rented a car and drove to a place called The Money Bar restaurant where you can do some fantastic snorkeling and use their beach chairs & showers if you order some food or drinks. (We got a big plate of nachos to share and they were delish! The menu simply said "Large Nachos Meat Beef." Made me chuckle.)
As you can see in the photo below, there wasn't really a beach per se, but they did have sand behind that retaining wall. The kids played in the sand for a while before we snorkeled.
I could not believe how many fish we saw! So awesome. In fact, as we were out snorkeling we saw probably 5 or more smaller tour boats taking their paying customers and dropping them off right where we were because it was the best snorkeling on the island. Suckers! Those people needed Jennifer and Tom!
See the sting ray, below?
See how many fish are by the retaining wall? It was like that scene in Finding Nemo where all the little fish swim together to make different shapes. They were everywhere!
Behind this grate was a huge sea urchin and a great big eel. (The eel is spotted yellow and black, on the left.)
This shell still had its occupant, but Tess found another one just like it up on the rocks and brought it home. She loves it!
I think all the swimming pooped these kids out!
Lobster night! Everyone was excited for this night at dinner. I really dislike seafood, so I didn't care at all. I had prime rib. Speaking of food, it was fun to try some new things! I don't love to cook, and we are not super adventurous when we go to restaurants either (why pay a lot of money to order something fancy if you don't even know if you'll like it?). But on a cruise you can order whatever you want, and if you hate it, order something else! Free! Yeah, baby!
The kids had creme brulee for the first time (nobody really loved it), and Tess and I ordered lamb shank one night (I thought it was disgusting! Really hated it!). The steak was always great. The kids weren't sure what to think about the lobster (mixed reviews). I made everyone try at least one little escargot, mainly so they can tell their friends they ate snails (again, nobody really raved, but they didn't hate it.) The chicken cordon bleu was really good too. (And yes, I definitely gained weight on the cruise. They had a soft-serve ice cream cone machine by the pool and everyone in the family had at least one or two each day. I heard some little kids talking about how they had 7 or 8 ice creams already one day. Ha! Cruise life--fat & happy!)
Our animal tonight was a dog. Cute.
Bryan is always good about finding adventure. He found a spot and challenged the kids to a pull-up contest.
Day 7: Dec 14-Sea Day...
Sadly, we started our trip back to Miami. We did have gorgeous sunny weather this day and I'll admit I spent a lot of the day on a hammock or on a pool lounge chair reading my book. (Another perk of the small ship, Bree could wear a life-jacket and just hop right in the pool and I could relax and read, and easily see her from the side. The 2 big kids are good enough swimmers I didn't worry about them. Or else they were up at the rock-climbing wall with Bryan...)
One thing I missed out on was seeing a pod of dolphins off the back of the ship (below the rock-climbing wall.) Darn! Bryan said it was awesome and I felt bad I missed it. It pays to be more adventurous I guess.
Here's our lovely Caribbean band, complete with the steel drums. Nothing compares to that sound for a nice beachy feeling!
Miles is jamming out to the music...
Our last dinner. Here's a picture of the whole group, including the Hamill family from Pennsylvania and our 2 lovely waiters, Martha from Columbia and Denys from Ukraine.
And our last towel animals. This frog was the cutest!
Tess's sea turtle even had googly eyes! Now that's service!
Day 8: Dec 15-Dock and fly home...
We had a wonderful trip and I would love to do another cruise in the future! Here's the obligatory picture of the poor, exhausted, and travel-worn kiddos zonked out on the ride home from the airport.
Well, 2 out of 3 anyway. :)
