blogging activity

I realized that I've stopped blogging as much, and it has a lot to do with the launch of Google+.

I've found that although a blog is still useful for writing up trips, major food outings, and maybe recipes, Google+ is flexible enough that I've started using it to share lots of other things I used to put in my blog: ad-hoc photos, random observations, overheard conversations, things that I did over the weekend, etc. I have yet to decide whether this is a good or a bad thing.

Anyway, feel free to add me on Google+, and if I know you I'll add you to my circles so you can see my content.

Caye Caulker, Belize

It was late afternoon by the time we got settled at the Caye Caulker Plaza Hotel, and we found it difficult to tear ourselves away from the excellent a/c, so we didn't leave again until dinner time. After it cooled down a bit, we ventured out and ended up at Rose's Grill, where we had a variety of grilled seafood and meat. We started to get used to topping everything off with Marie Sharp's hot sauce, which they had everywhere in Belize.

Our objective for the next day was to go on a snorkelling tour. The receptionist at front desk was extremely helpful in calling around to get information and pricing for us, and in the end we ended up booking a trip to Hol Chan and "Shark and Ray Alley" with the well-recommended Carlos Tours. The cost was about 50 USD per person, which seemed pretty good for an all-day tour.

The next morning we walked over to the Carlos Tours headquarters to get geared up. After we were fitted, we headed over to the pier, where we were divided into two boats, one guided by Carlos, and the other by Romeo. Our group of eight were assigned to go with Romeo, along with one other guy who said he was from England.


The tour was advertised as having three stops, but Carlos spotted some fishermen hunting conch, so we made a "bonus" stop where we saw tons of rays:


We spent about half an hour there, and then proceeded to the Hol Chan Reserve. In the Coral Gardens, we saw sea turtles (we couldn't wait to jump out of the boat to see them up close!), eels, and schools and schools of fish:





For lunch we went to a restaurant called Celi's in San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye. They served a variety of fishes/meats with rice and beans, and also had burgers and sandwiches. I liked the food pretty well, but couldn't tell if it was due to being super hungry from snorkelling or because the food was actually good. Ambergris Caye was certainly much more built up and crowded than Caye Caulker.

We didn't have much time to digest our lunch before we headed back out, this time to Shark and Ray Alley. There were again tons of rays, and this time we saw nurse sharks too! The largest ones were over six feet long:


Our last stop wasn't at a specific location; instead the goal was to find and swim with manatees. We were very successful; Carlos managed to drop us in an area with three manatees, and we were able to get to maybe 30 or 40 feet away from them:



After all four exciting stops, we were all quite tired and ready to head home. On the way back, Romeo served us a giant plate of fresh tropical fruits. The mangoes were my favorite, but there was pineapple, watermelon, banana, and more. Between the ten of us (eight in our group plus the English guy and Romeo) we eventually managed to polish it all off before we arrived back in Caye Caulker.

We were very happy with both Carlos and Romeo, and gave them a nice tip, as well as buying the DVD (15 USD) of the photos that they had taken during the day with their underwater camera. (All of the snorkelling photos posted above were taken by them.)

It felt really good to shower and change, and soon afterwards we went out looking for dinner. Unfortunately, several of the restaurants that we were looking for were closed, so we ended up at the Rainbow Grill. I was not too fond of the food there; it was overpriced and pretty bland. It seemed quite popular with all the other tourists, though.

The next day, four of us started the long trip back to California, to attend a Memorial Day wedding. The other four stayed another two days to do some diving.

First, we caught the noon water taxi back to Belize City. I took this as we were waiting for our boat; it was our last glimpse of tranquil Caye Caulker.


We arrived in Belize City a little bit after 1pm, and then negotiated a taxi ride to the airport. Most of the taxi drivers wanted to charge us 30 USD since we had four people, but one agreed to take us for 25 USD, so we went with him. His taxi was not in great shape, and he stopped to put 0.8 gallons of gas into his nearly empty tank, but we didn't start to get really worried until the car started slowing down and finally stopped on the side of the road, a few miles from the airport.

The driver got out and fiddled around with the engine for awhile, and finally put in a new battery, which seemed to fix the problem. I remember thinking that I was going to be pretty pissed if we ended up having to walk the last couple of miles.

From there it was a pretty smooth trip back; we checked in, grabbed a quick lunch after security, and then sat around waiting for our flight to San Salvador. In San Salvador, we had a 40 minute connection, and two of our friends had to go through secondary screening, which involved removing their checked luggage from the airplane for a complete search, but we still made it onto our connecting flight to San Francisco, and then back home.

Overall I think we all had a great time. It was hard to say which part was my favorite; the snorkelling tour was amazing and rivalled our experience at the Great Barrier Reef, but the ATM cave excursion was also an unforgettable experience, and I really enjoyed our time in Guatemala learning about Mayan culture and seeing all the wildlife and ruins as well. Before the trip, we'd heard a lot about dangerous conditions in Guatemala, so we were careful with booking our tours and activities. In the end we were fortunate that everything went very smoothly, including all of our shuttle pickups, the border crossing, and even our very short international connections. I hope we'll get to do another fun group trip again soon!

San Ignacio, Belize

We arrived at the Table Rock Jungle Lodge in mid-afternoon, so we were a bit disappointed to find that they didn't have a/c. (I guess none of the jungle lodges in the area do.) I guess it wouldn't have made much sense anyway, as our rooms were located in thatched cottages which were not airtight.

The couple who ran the place, Chris and Jen, showed us around; there were only about ten cottages, plus a main lounge/dining area, but the property itself was gigantic, with acres of fruit trees. They were also very serious about sustainability; we were given instructions on water and electricity usage, as the lodge generated most of its own power and used mostly purified rain water.

As it was still quite hot out, I chose to read in the hammock area, but several in our group decided to go fruit picking, and came back with a substantial haul of mangoes, oranges, and even some coconuts.


Afterwards, they went swimming to rinse off. The lodge is located on the banks of the Macal River, so it was only a short walk, and we discovered there were canoes available as well.


There were several resident dogs at the Table Rock, and they had a great time swimming with us as well.

Our first night's dinner at the Table Rock was amazing. Chris was the chef, and he served up a papaya salad, followed by delicious pork chops. Dessert had to be ordered separately, but after tasting the entrees we decided we had to try them. I liked the coconut flan very much, but I hear the cheesecake was good too.

After dinner we sat around playing board games for awhile, but we went to bed pretty early since we had to be up early the next morning.

The next day we had a tour booked with Pacz Tours to go to the famous Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave. It was quite expensive at 100 USD per person (normally 80 USD but with an extra 20 USD surcharge because of our "inconvenient" location), but nearly half the cost was the entrance fee, and they did supply us with lunch, so I guess it wasn't really so bad. It was certainly much more expensive than any of our Guatemala excursions, though.

We were picked up around 7:45am, but drove around San Ignacio for awhile getting our lunch and such. The drive from San Ignacio was over an hour as well, so by the time we got out of the van, it was nearly 10am. We hiked for about 45 minutes, fording the river three times, before we reached the entrance. There, we stopped and ate some of our lunch food as a quick snack before proceeding.

We were all wearing mostly swim gear, but we were instructed to fold our T-shirts up and put them into our helmets, so they wouldn't get wet. We were also given headlamps, and then we jumped into water about neck deep (or maybe chest deep for the taller people) in order to get inside. From there it was about an hour and a half of walking/wading/swimming through the cave, to reach the dry area with most of the Mayan artifacts. There were several areas where it was a pretty tight squeeze; at one point we even had to turn our heads sideways so that our necks would fit between the rocks on the two sides! I'm really not sure how a large person would be able to make it.

Once we got to the dry area, we were instructed to take off our shoes and put on our socks. We were then led through several areas where there were ancient Mayan artifacts just lying all over the floor. Orange lines were drawn on the floor to keep us from stepping on them, but otherwise there were no other barriers.


There were some places where we had to climb up rocks and ladders which were quite tricky and even a little scary for those who were afraid of heights, but we made it through with no mishaps.

Near the end, our guide pointed out some skulls which were the remains of human sacrifices, and finally the famous "crystal maiden", a young girl whose skeleton was almost entirely intact.


It was all a bit eerie but very cool. After taking lots of pictures, we turned around and headed back. For some reason, everything went much faster on the way back, and we exited the cave a little bit after 1pm. We were all pretty hungry so lunch disappeared quickly, and then we did the short hike back to the van.

When we got back to San Ignacio, we stopped at the main Pacz office to pay our tour fees. The guide seemed a bit surprised at the amount (he seemed to think it was low) but the guy in the main office verified our arrangement and rang us up. Next door, there was a homemade ice cream place, so we got some dessert for the bumpy ride home.

Overall I would say we all enjoyed the cave tour very much, but I'm not sure if that was because of our guide or in spite of him. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice a lot, and was very repetitive, but in the end I guess he got us where we wanted to go.

That afternoon we did a bit more exploration on the Table Rock property, and discovered a neighboring lychee farm! The lychees were delicious; just as good as in Taiwan.


For dinner, Chris served us another fabulous meal. The starter was a chilled melon and cilantro soup, and then we had roast chicken as the entree. The chicken was good but not as amazing as the previous day's pork chops. For dessert we had peanut butter pie (yum!). After dinner, Chris and Jen let us play games in the dining room until we were tired.

The next day, we had a nice leisurely breakfast; Chris made pancakes and french toast, and there were lots of fresh fruits as well.

We weren't scheduled to be picked up until 1pm, so we spent the rest of the morning canoeing and mountain biking (yes, the lodge even had bikes), before returning to our rooms to shower, change, and pack. Once we were ready to go, we returned to the dining area for lunch, where we had giant chicken and cheese quesadillas. They were much too large to finish (I think I ate 1/3 of mine) so we took quite a bit to go.

Our driver, William Hofman, arrived promptly at 1pm. He was quite a character; during the entire drive from San Ignacio to Belize City, he regaled us with stories about his own life, Belizean life, and more. I was napping on and off, but here are a few choice tidbits that I do remember:
- The police in Belize are armed, but their guns are old and crappy, and the Mafia has much better guns.
- The women in Belize are mostly out to find men that will give them money. As a result, they'll sleep with anyone and everyone.
- There are TV stations in Belize where movies are shown a day after US release. It's unclear how legal they are, but the police don't care.
He also had an unhealthy obsession with the Fast and the Furious series, so we got to hear a lot about how many times he'd already watched Fast Five.

We'd planned to take the 4pm water taxi, but we arrived early, just as the 3pm was about to leave, so with some mad scrambling we were able to get on the earlier boat. The ride itself was pretty uncomfortable; hot and crowded, but only 10 USD per person for an hour-long ride. After we disembarked, it was only a few blocks walk to our hotel, the Caye Caulker Plaza Hotel. Despite the name, it was relatively simple, but had awesome a/c, which was pretty much all I cared about at that point.