Central America - Costa Rica to Cancun: 5/1/11

Hi Everyone,

We left Belize early this morning. After taking busses across borders we decided to make our last border crossing special. We took a boat to Chetumal, Mexico, then a bus up North to Tulum. We have just arrived and are pretty exhausted.

Belize was INCREDIBLE. We took a bus from Flores, Guatemala to the border at 5am. We were real tired since the processions the night of Semana Santa had pipe bombs exploding all through the streets. We were supposed to meet our friends at the Water Taxi, but what I didn’t realize was that there were 3 different water taxis. I waited from 9:30am, all the way until 2:30 before I took a taxi to the airport to ask if they had actually arrived. Continental assured me that they had, and I figured they must be on the Island. Greg and I took the next water taxi over.

We were pretty amazed at how blue the water was. It was like something you only see in a movie. Even my camera couldn’t capture how incredible it truly was. We got off the taxi and asked someone for directions to the Reef House, the house that Brian had rented for us. When I walked up I was pretty unsure since the house was huge! I still didn’t know if this was the right place but I walked in anyways and woke up Brian and Ali who were passed out after such a long day and night of travelling. It was so exciting to see friends from home after months of travelling and meeting people you just get attached to then have to move on. We didn’t do much the first night, or a lot of the nights for that matter. We just enjoyed each others company which was all I really wanted. We rented bikes and rode around during the days. We watched a lot of hockey and drank a lot of beer, at Lloyds bar, my future husband. Ali and I cooked up an incredible coconut curry with garlic toast. We also made homemade sangria. We adopted a dog, which followed Ali home from the bar. She named him Wrinkles and he slept outside on our porch every night. We bathed him and bought him some food. We found out later that he follows tourists home quite often. He was really nice, it was sad we couldn’t bring him back to Canada.

But the highlight for me was the snorkeling tour we booked for the Friday we were on the island. We showed up at about 10 and got fitted for masks and flippers. We ordered fish burgers for lunch which was included in the tour. We were told we were going to three sites, one in the Hol Chan marine reserve, one called Shark and Ray Alley, and one called Coral Gardens, just off Caye Caulker. When we tied the boat up we jumped in, and immediately were surrounded by turtles. It was so incredible, the turtles were just chowing down on sea grass, every so often they would look at you but they didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered that we were there. We continued swimming and saw hundreds of fish, beautiful corals, hundreds of stingrays, Eagle rays, HUGE fish, a moray eel, basically everything we saw diving, plus some.

The next stop was the Shark and Ray Alley. We pulled up and the guides started throwing pieces of fish into the water to attract the ´sharks´. The sharks were nurse sharks that didn’t have any teeth, just big suction mouths. They were very cool and looked like giant catfish. We moved the boat a bit and jumped in again. The sharks were swimming a couple feet beneath us. The guide was even able to grab one and flip it upside down. We got to pet it like a dog and it was surprisingly warm and spongy. They were just SO COOL! We also got to play with rays, and had the chance to free dive through this small cave, but I was too chicken. We also saw barracudas, needlefish, more Eagle rays, so much life. More than we saw diving in Utila. And the corals were so colorful and beautiful. It was a nice change from the beaches of Belize which are all covered in sea grass. The snorkeling off the island is less than impressive so I was really happy about the tour.

The third stop was my favorite stop, the Coral Garden. What I didn’t realize was that it was a manatee breeding ground, and although the season hadn’t started yet, one eager male had shown up a Little early to get his pick of females. I never realized that manatees lived out in the middle of the ocean. I thought they were only in estuaries and rivers. But to my absolute surprise, the guide spotted one surfacing for air an called us over. When I got there I saw this huge walrus like lump on the seafloor. I was a Little concerned because he didn’t look like he was moving but the guide assured me he was just resting and would come up again soon. He was right, about 8 minutes of watching and he surfaced again for air. He was very graceful and cute and I just wanted to go play with him. We got some great photos of the snorkeling tour with Greg’s underwater camera which we will post when we get home.

We all left the tour exhausted from swimming all day and had a little siesta before watching the hockey game. I honestly can’t remember too much of what we did on Caye Caulker.

On Sunday, we left the house and went to Ambergris Caye, to the town of San Pedro. We stayed in a luxury hotel and felt so spoiled and pampered. We ate really good food, drove around in a golf cart, watched a lot of CNN given the current circumstances, and definitely took advantage of the pool. Ali and I had a little too much happy hour one day, but only one day. I also did a lot of napping and a little shopping.

This morning we said goodbye to our friends, and took the boat to Chetumal, Mexico and onto Tulum. Now we are here and excited to see the beach. Our hostel has free breakfast and beach shuttle so it should be convenient, and there are a few cenotes around to keep us occupied. We have about 2 weeks left before we fly home. I am getting really excited to see all my friends, and Greg is also. I am most excited to see my dog. Greg’s mom has agreed to pick us up in Chilliwack instead of us bus all the way to Kamloops so I will get to see him even sooner than I thought. Anyways, hope everyone enjoys the pictures. I will try and do a couple more posts before we leave. We are back to somewhat reasonable prices again, which is nice. Here is hoping the Canucks make it to round 3 of the play offs!! Go Canucks Go!!