Adventures in Belize

I am not really one to sit around on a vacation and laze around the beach for too long.  I prefer constant activity and new experiences so I wasn't going to let being pregnant stop me.  I had marveled at the cave tubing adventures you can find in Belize prior to visiting and found out the waters were very tame.  From the island of Ambergris Caye, we took another flight on this little plane back to the mainland (that makes a grand total of 4 flights on this Tropic Air plane).  Despite my world travels, you would think I wouldn't be afraid of flying but that is not the case, especially on a puddle jumper.

Luckily, the flight is 15 minutes.  The downside, the Belize Municipal Airport's airstrip, which from my approximation appears to be about 10 feet long upon landing. Whewwww, but we made it!

And then, we got talked into going to the Belize Zoo.  I had really not thought this was a place I would visit, being that I grew up spoiled by the world class San Diego Zoo.  But when I heard the details about the Zoo--they only house indigenous animals of Central America-- and it acts as a nature preserve housing both injured animals from the wild and wild animals that were once taken as pets I changed my mind.

It ended up being very enjoyable.  The highlight was the jaguar and the howler monkeys.  Our guide showed my husband how to get them to going, and once he learned he might have made a loud noise one too many times, because every howler monkey in the zoo began their screeching and really never seemed to stop:





I'm really glad we didn't let this opportunity to see wildlife on our trip pass us by:

Then, we made our way to the cave site.  The water was rapidly rising, so we were informed we might be the last group allowed through for the day (just us and our guide).  The guide assured me, it wasn't dangerous, but did make me put on my life jacket so that the guards wouldn't see that I was pregnant and not let me go.  Very comforting!

After a comfortable 20 minute walk through the rain forest, we sat in inner tubes and made our way down the river.

The currents were bringing us down swiftly (it took 30 minutes where it normally takes an hour to complete the journey).  We floated along through the pitch black cave with only our headlight to see at some points, while at others, we saw incredible sparkling stalagmites and the rainforest peeking out through the cave openings.

Then, we continued on the river taking in the surrounding lush forest.

Images via Travelmoon

Of course, we did get in plenty of lounging around on the beach and poolside sipping pina coladas (virgin, of course for me) and on the water.  Tune in tomorrow....