The Cruise: Wednesday

Our next port: Belize City, Belize

Again,

we ordered roomservice for breakfast {because it was handy and we wanted to sleep in as much as possible},

and were up and ready to go at 9am when we docked.

Well,

technically we didn't dock per say...

we let down the anchor about 5 miles off the island and they drove us in on smaller boats.

Today's activity was CAVE TUBING!

So we went and found our guide and set off.



These are the awesome buses they transport everyone to and from the river in.
Old-school style for sure.

We had to drive about an hour into the island to get to our destination.

Some pics Caleb got on the way:
{mostly we slept...}



The LDS church!



Here is our guide, Keith, telling us all about the history of the land and city.

I think he was everyones favorite guide.

Until he started telling us all about the jaguars,

piousness snakes,

mountain lions,

and crocs we might encounter.

{they really do have all of those on the island!}

Now,
I'm sad to say that this is the one day that we wish we'd brought our cameras.
You see we did,
but our guides suggested we leave any valuables/cameras on the bus because they might get wet.
Well,
besides walking across the river and some random drops from the ceiling of the caves,
we were dry.
So we have NO PICTURES of the AMAZING HIKE AND CAVES we floated through!
I'm pretty mad about it!!!!
But I'll tell you more about it:

Keith gave us all head lamps and tubes.
We then followed him a little ways into the jungle until we came upon the river.
This is the spot that we would be ending up.
There was a rope tied from one tree on one side,
to another tree on the other side.
And because the river was really fast we had to hold one hand with the rope,
and hold onto our tube with the other,
and cross.
Did I also mention that the river was ICE COLD?
I'm 5'3'' and it came up to my waist.
FREEZING COLD WATER!!!
It definitely woke us up from that long bus ride!
haha.

After crossing the river we had a sweet hike {about 45 min} through more of the jungle.
I really think we got the coolest guide because while everyone else's group was passing us and plowing ahead,
Keith would stop us and tell us about all the different trees and poisens and antidotes they had.
He showed us some neat side caves,
and showed us some cool leaves that were like TP,
and other leaves that were like sand paper.
Not boring at all!

When we got to the point of actually getting in the river again to float,
Keith tied all of our tubes together and we floated away!
He was either in the front or back guiding us the whole way.
It was SOOOOOO FUN and SOOOOOOO AWESOME!!!!!
Again,
let me express how mad I am that we have no pics of this adventure!
The caves were huge and so beautiful.
Floating on that river was like looking at a travel magazine.
Everything is so lush and green and there were vines everywhere.
This ended up being Kevin and my favorite excursion.

After floating back to the place where we crossed,
we walked back to the bus area and took a few pics.





A funny side story:
When Case and I went back on the bus to grab our tanks,
we pulled out some fig newtons and started snacking on them.
Keith saw us and said:

"Oh my gosh! Are those fig newtons?!"
yes......you can have some, you know.

"Really? Oh thank you so much!!!"
He was scarfing them down.

He then told us that here,
Fig Newtons cost $7 a bag.
7 freaking dollars!
Case gave him the rest of the bag and Caleb said he was gonna mail him some more.
He was in heaven.
It made us appreciate America that much more...

When we got back to the ship and our room,
we had another little animal friend waiting to greet us:


{an elephant...or aardvark maybe?}

After showering and relaxing some,
we went to dinner at Versi again {the BEST food},
and played some rook for a while.



I just wanted to show that I kicked some major butt on this round.
{mostly because I NEVER win at rook....yea....there might have been some coat-tailing, but who cares!}

There were some neat ice sculptures carved this night too.