Belize City

Lil bit o history.....

Belize has the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere. Belize city is known as "The Jewel" and located between Mexico and Guatemala. There are ancient ruins here which indicates that Belize was first inhabited by the Mayans in 900AD. There is a 135 ft structure called El Castillo which is one of the tallest Mayan sculptures here and you can cross the Mayan Mountains into Guatemala.

What we got upta...

Us....we went cave tubing and zip-lining. Didnt really get to see Belize at all.

Well I remember one thing about this morning and that was myself and Niamh were the most hungover people on the whole bus. It took an awful lot to get out of the bed this morning after only lying in it for about 2 hours. Curse Alan and his champagne bar anyways! He was just handing us out pints of the stuff. Nearly got sick on the bus and it was lashing out of the heavens and it was only 7.00am. Sob!

Feeling fierce sorry for ourselves, although no-one else was, we went to a place called Jaguar Paw It was called this as it was a Jaguar Reserve. It was pouring at this stage but hey, we were gona get wet anyways at some point today. After leaving our clothes in a tiny locker room we went outside. We were equipt with life jackets (which smelt!), a helmet and a torch strapped onto the helmet. Had to pick up giant rubber rings, one per person. After about a half a mile way through the reserve, with the Caves Branch river running alongside us, we came to a point where we had to wade across the river. There was a few rapids, nothing hectic but enough to throw you off balance if you weren’t careful. So here we were wading across a river, drenched in this get up holding a giant rubber ring???? Whose fuckin idea was this???

After a little ore walking we came upon some caves. This was obviously the spot. Everyone sits down on the rings and lets the rapids and your arms guide you through the cave system. It really was fabulous. Torches on and off you go. We could see pictures that Mayan’s had painted on the cave walls and this cave structure went on for miles. Apparently there is an entire underground cave system that was used by the people of days gone by. Hangover’s gone at this stage, no better way to get rid of them really.

After that we had some lunch. Still pouring rain, lunch was served in a manmade bamboo area. Food was good and hot and welcome after being wet. We were going zip lining next and was looking forward to seeing the folks up there dangling free through the trees.

We were still at Jaguar Paw and we were zip lining over very dense tropical rainforest. We all got ourselves kitted out, straps and buckles and headed to where we were going to go. There was about 7 or 8 platforms in total and you had to zip from one to the other. It was very exciting and every time you zipped from one destination to the other you are going over fabulous rainforest. If you were nervous about heights its prob best not to look down but there was even black howler monkey’s in the trees.

Mom and Dad were hilarious. I honestly didn’t think mom would do it but she proved us all wrong. She was nervous though and I got everyone chanting “go on Fran”. There was a few American’s there and its so easy to get them excited about stuff lol. Dad yelling Geronimo got a few smiles too.

Really, really had fun today. Such a different day to the start. So worth it. Didn’t get to see Belize as I say, but would love to go back someday to check it out.