Greetings all who have been following the blog and those who are still in Belize. Well it was a long three days but we made it back to Nanaimo by 11:30 this morning...at least 3 of us did!
On May 15 Laura, Ebony, Erika, Carolyn, Kim, and I all headed back to Mexcio so that we could fly back to Canada. The rest of the gang was spending another night on Caye Caulker before heading off to parts unknown. This turned out to be a long travel day that started with a lovely flight from Caye Caulker to San Pedro and then on to Corozol. This turned out to be marginally more expensive than taking the boat back to Belize City and the taking a bus to Chetumal...it also saved us about 4 hours of travel time!
The bus ride from Chetumal to Tulum was long as we caught a second class bus...that dripped water on Laura most of the way and stopped more times that I could count! We stopped in Tulum and had planned to stay the night but after realizing that the airport bus only left really early or really late we decided to head all the way to Cancun. We did stay long enough to eat dinner and do some shopping though!
The second bus ride of the day - Tulum to Cancun - was about 1/2 the distance and seemed twice a long! Another second class bus as the premier class was book. The difference you ask! Well the premier buses have bathrooms (can be important when on the bus for 2 1/2 - 4 1/2 hours) and are in fact express buses...limited stops. The second class buses stop for anyone who flags them down...even when they are already full! Anyway, we arrived in Cancun around 10:00 and after discovering that our hotel not only looked a little dodgy but also that no one was there to check us in we made the executive decision to spend another night at the holiday Inn express in the hotel zone. The price was a bit more than expected but it was important to get a decent nights sleep!
May 16th arrived with lovely sunshine in Cancun...at 5:00 am! Of course it was really nice to just roll over and know that you did not have to get up! After a great breakfast and a quick swim it was time for Laura to head to the airport - it was sad to "lose" another person from the group (from 12 to 11 to 6 to 5!) but we said our goodbyes and prepared for some last minute shopping at market 28! Ebony, Erika, and I all headed out and got to experience the assault of shopping in Cancun! We did get some great buys but it was quickly time to head back to the hotel and then on to the airport!
After a quick lunch at the airport and a stop at duty free we boarded our plane and headed for Seattle...via Los Angeles! This was quite the experience as we landed at the same time as flights from India, the Philippines, Singapore, and a couple of other flights from Mexico. Everyone had to go through American customs, collect their bags, recheck their bags (they were not searched as we were not staying in the US), and then back through security. I would estimate that there were about 300 - 400 people needing to clear customs and because of the countries of origin most were getting digitally fingerprinted and photographed as they went through. Needless to say we were a little nervous that we would not make our flight that was to leave in less than 1 1/2 hours! This is when we got some good advice from one of the boarder guards that was wandering the line...he suggested going through the American Citizen line up because as Canadians we did not require the level of screening that the rest of the people in our line ups did! We followed this advice and made it through with little fuss!
Once we collected our luggage and rechecked it we ran for our terminal...it was like something out of Amazing Race (as was our experiences with Cancun cabs). Anyway - we made our flight with enough time to grab a Chai Latte from Starbucks on the way! We arrived in Seattle at 12:30 where we bunked down for the night..serenaded by CNN! The sleeping arrangements were a little rustic but there were no bugs and the AC was on high...I had forgotten what it was like to be cold!
We left Seattle at 8:10 this morning (May 17) and said goodbye to Carolyn who was off to Calgary. Ebony, Erika, Kim and I headed over to the float plane terminal where Ebony headed off to Victoria (after us) and the rest of us caught the 11:00 am flight to Nanaimo. The flight over was really quick and every one's parents (including mine) were there to pick us up...no matter how bad we smelled!
So that is it - the study tour is over; however, we have approximately 55, 000 pictures of the trip (of course there was often 11 pictures taken of the same thing) that will eventually be shared with all.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading along as we travelled and adventured our way through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. I will attempt to get one final summary post that highlights everything that we did but that may take a while!
Aggie
