We only had a brief stop in Seattle before heading to Cancun. The flight down was pretty uneventful but the views were quite amazing. We flew beside Mt. Rainier and over farm land that looked like a series of poke-a-dots! I tried to convince Kim that they were crop circles but she only believed me for a couple seconds.Upon arrival in Cancun we quickly headed to the hotel where Laura was waiting and the pool was inviting!
April 24: Off to Tulum to visit the ruins and to expereince true backpacker travel by staying at the weary traveller - not a place for the faint at heart! The ruins were as amazing as I rememeber but this trip I got to hit the ocean which was great. I think out of all of us Kelly enjoyed the ocean the most - her pink hat made lifeguarding easy as you could always tell were she was!
April 25: The stay in Tulum proved to be short but great. Catching the bus - well that was not so great! Laura and I purchased tickets the night before and despite confirming that the bus did Not leave at 6:55 like the tickets said we headed back to the Weary to break the news that we would need to be up and out the door by 5:40. Well - the group did great as alarms (including ours) did not go off, people had not been informed, and generally I'm not so patient (I'm sure the students would use different descriptive words) at that time of the day! We made it in time to figure out that the young man we talked to...well he wasn't so informed! The bus did leave at 6:55...read Kim's blog for a general description and reaction to no bathroom on the bus!
After a quick stay in Chetumal - thanks to our leaders of the day Erika and Carolyn for quickly finding our tickets to Belize - we headed to St. Elena which is the town that contains the Mexican and Belize boarder crossings. It cost us $10 US each to leave Mexico and nothing to entre Belize - it will cost $18 BZ ($9 US) to leave it though.
There are a couple of great descriptions of Corozal and our time there so I won't go into detail - I will tell you that if ever in town the Purple Tucan was a great place to have lunch and a cold beer (Belikin or Lighthouse). While waiting for the Thunderbolt to take us to Sartenja Terin and Britt continued to work on their tans while most sought the shade. These two should have great tans by the time they head back to Canada! Sartenja and Fernado's is really well described by Rosalyn so I won't go into further detail!
April 26: The best Birthday Ever!
This was an incredibly busy day as we started it with a wonderful breakfast cooked by Fernando and Ronnie's mom (thank you again!). I was a little nervous the night before when Ronnie was offering us Fry Jacks...I thought he meant fried Jack...as in fish! It turned out to be a wonderful fried dough (most of you know how much I like my breads) that was even better with jam! If you are ever in Belize Sartenja and Fernando's Guest house are a must!
The second part of the day involved delivering the first set of books and sports equipment to a local pre-school. Melody did an amazing job of collecting books and equipment and the students all carried down approximately 6 pounds of gear! Our reception (despite interrupting the class) was wonderful and after handing out flags and tatoos and the books we were all feeling pretty good about ourselves!
Kim got right into it and I was a little afraid that we would loose her for the day!
The next part of the day...yup there was still lots more to be done...was to head off to Shipstern Nature Researve - similar to one of our provicial parks but with private funding. However as we were in a small village that is just starting to develop their tourism products the transportation to the researve turned out to be part of the adventure. Shipstern was beautiful and while we only saw a VERY small part of it I feel that I can recommend visiting. Damien our guide was incredibly knowledgable and did a great job of keeping everyone entertained. He also joined us later in the day for birthday beers on the peir (local swimming spot) and for the $18 BZ dinners that we had latter that night.The students were amazing and supportive to each other during our long trek in the park. They proved to be sneaky too as they made arrangements for a birthday cake to be delivered...it even had my name on it! Thanks to all the students, Damien, and everyone at Fernando's for making it the Greatest BD every! Thanks to Laura for sharing yet another great expereince!
April 27: The stay in Sartenja was definitely too short. A person needs a week at least to enjoy everything the town has to offer and as the accomodations are so wonderful staying isn't a hardship! We caugth the 6:00 am bus but despite the claim that this was the early bus it was in fact the latest bus leaving the village that day! There are about 4 buses a day leaving the community to take workers to Orange Walk and beyond...the first one leaves at 4:00 am!
We arrived in Orange Walk early but Cindi and Orlando de la Fuente we not only welcoming but had our rooms ready for us (at 7:30 am). We checked in and I think most went back to sleep. This started our stay in Orange Walk and our rapid tourism appraisal. I'm going to write about it later though as it is time to get ready to head to Lamanai.
I hope you are all enjoying the Blog. I'll try to keep posting pictures.
Aggie
