Canadian schools don't have half-term holidays or even Easter holidays. But they do have March Break, and my school has, unusually, two weeks off. CashBack!
When a Living Social email dropped into my inbox at the start of January advertising winter sun getaways, I found it pretty hard not to browse the offers of cheap trips south. The one that really caught my eye was a week's stay at Jaguar Reef Lodge in Belize. I'm not the biggest fan of beach holidays; I tend to get bored, and Meg isn't quite into the adventurous, backpacking type trip I'm keen on, so Belize seemed ideal for both of us. The hotel itself has beautiful beaches, luxurious beach-side cabanas, a fancy restaurant, swimming pools, spas, etc, but it also has a number of tours exploring the rich culture and environment of Belize. A perfect compromise!
The journey down there was a bit of a nightmare; a 2am start, huge queues at the airport, changes and delays at Houston, and panic about missing connecting flights. When we arrived in Belize, we had to take a small local flight from Belize city to Dangriga, about 40 minutes down the coast. When our flight out of Houston was delayed I had to phone up and try to change onto the later flight. Even with this later flight we landed in Belize city with about 15 minutes to clear immigration, collect our luggage and find the next flight. Meg and I barged our way off the flight, almost as soon as it hit the ground. We ran through the airport and were the first in line at immigration. "We have a flight to catch in 10 minutes", I breathlessly exclaimed. "Don't worry," came the reply, "they'll wait for you. No need to rush". This set the scene for the rest of the holiday. The contrast from having to make our way through U.S. customs and immigration was vast. The Belize airport had a band playing live music as we waited for our luggage. The local flight operators were waiting for us, knew our names and where we were going, personally loaded our bags on to the plane and generally eased out all the tension we had been feeling for the last 12 hours. We still hadn't left the airport and I already felt relaxed.
Our hotel was in the village of Hopkins, which was a half hour flight south of Belize City. To get there we had to take a tiny little propeller plane which only held Meg and me and one other couple. It was pretty awesome to be able to see Belize from the air, particularly as the sun was just starting to set. Rather than being just another flight, this was quite an experience in itself. Especially coming in to land on a gravel runway!
When we arrived at the hotel there was a bottle of chilled wine waiting for us in the room so we sat out on our little balcony and made the most of being able to sit out in t-shirt and shorts.
We spent a lot of our time relaxing, reading, swimming, eating and drinking, but we did manage to get out of the hotel occasionally.
One day we went for a walk into the local village. We browsed through a few of the shops and stopped for a drink at a small cafe. There were quite a few local artists (Steve!) who were selling their work on the side of the road and I bought Meg a small hand-made necklace.
The next day we signed up for a tour; the ancient and modern Mayan culture. Our tour guide, Manuel, was a Mayan and he took us down to the very Southern parts of Belize where he was born. We first stopped off at Nim Li Punit, an ancient Mayan ruin. We saw a number of stellae with some amazing engravings on them, the remains of some of the buildings, a number of graves and the ball court. The ball games that the Mayans played, seemingly different games in different regions, were not simply for entertainment. Apparently, the games were very serious events and were possibly used to select people for important political or religious offices. Depending on the reason for the match, either the loser or sometimes the winner could be sacrificed after the game. Much like in X-Factor these days. (Oooh, satire).
After that, Manuel took us to a modern Mayan village. Here, the people lead very simple lives without electricity or running water and live a largely self-sustainable life. The women there showed us how they use the palm leaves to weave baskets, how to collect cocoa beans from the fruit, how they grind corn to make corn tortillas and then finally they cooked us some palm leaves and placed them in the fresh tortillas for us. It was delicious.
The next day we went on a jungle river boat tour with our guide, Gabby. He was incredible at spotting the tiniest little birds in the distance, or finding a giant iguana hidden at the top of a tree. The day was a bit rainy, but we saw some amazing bird-life. Meg was desperate to see a crocodile, but unfortunately we didn't see one in the two hours we were on the river. As we were driving away from the river, Gabby pulled the car over because he'd spotted a croc on the side of the road. We jumped out the car to get a slightly closer look. In retrospect we probably got a bit closer than was wise, but it was cool to see one. As we were having a gander, a dog came up and ran at the croc. I couldn't look, expecting the dog not to come away from this encounter. Fortunately, the croc beat a retreat into the water and we decided to leave at this point. I just hope the dog wasn't lured to the water's edge!
Our final trip was to go snorkeling on the barrier reef. A short 40 min boat ride out to the barrier reef and we could snorkel in the bluest, warmest waters I've ever swum in. The variety of fish was amazing; we saw daintly little tropical fish, huge schools of fish, jelly fish, barracuda, sting-rays and of course the coral reef itself, which was beautiful. The colours were incredible. Obviously the photos don't do it justice.
The holiday was so relaxing that our 12 hour over-night layover in Houston didn't even spoil our good mood. It was pretty tough to come back to snow in Toronto!
