Vacation update

My vacations for the past few weeks have been awesome! Three weekends ago we were able to have our three day weekend for working six weeks. Our team chose to go to Caye Caulker. We rode the bus to Belize City and stayed with the Dunfords for a night and then rode a water taxi out to the Island. It was amazing!! I can’t even explain how beautiful and peaceful it was. We stayed in a resort called Tropical Paradise and it was right on the beach. We had a private dock (for the resort) and our room was loaded with AC! We had it blasting and we slept with blankets! I loved it  So much fun. For the first day we kinda just hung out on the beach looked at some shops, laid out got burned and tan. We enjoyed every minute of it. The next day we went snorkeling all day. This was my favorite. I almost got run over by a sea turtle. I was about an inch away from it. I was surrounded by and I touched a sting ray and an eagle ray. The ocean is amazing. After that stop- we went to a new location and saw so many different types of fish and coral. I practiced diving down under while still trying to breath- it was hard at first and my tube would fill with water and I couldn’t breathe but I soon got the hang of it again. Then we rode over to another Island called San Pedro. It is very similar to Caye Caulker but much more touristy and busy. We went there for lunch. We were looking at the menu and noticed that there was a pool. So we went swimming-they waiter came over and took our order from the pool- it was so cool! We kept playing until our food was ready. We hopped out and ate; so relaxing. I had this tropical bbq or teriyaki type burger. There was pineapple and marinated chicken-yummy! After lunch we went back out to the reef. We went to Shark and Ray Alley. We swam with tons of sharks. Our tour guide tossed food to the sharks to have them all come right by the boat, then we all jumped in, I was about a foot away from a bunch of sharks- I dove down under the water and it was one of the most remarkable experiences underwater for me! After swimming with sharks he took us to some coral gardens. We went a little out of our way and found two manatees. This was one of Raymon’s life goals: to swim with Manatees…so he was super excited. We got to just snorkel around and look at all the coral and fish while our tour guide cut up fresh fruit for us. We ate it on the boat and then we headed back to Caye Caulker. We were exhausted! We went to dinner later that night and I had some amazing sea food. The rest of the time we pretty much just hung out- it was Jake’s birthday that Thursday: Melissa and I planned him a birthday party. We did party hats, those blower things, and we had Sis. Kay make a cake that we snuck to the island without Jake knowing. It was a lot of fun also.
The weekend after a few of us worked at a health fair. Chris, Jacob, Melissa, Dominique, and I went to Punta Gorda. It is in the southern part of Belize. We were able to do some house visits in different villages and take vitals; after we had their results we would tell them how they could improve their health whether it be by eating more fruits and veggies or exercising more. So that was pretty cool. I always love helping Collet at his health fairs.
Since we worked at the health fair that Saturday, we got to take a three day weekend. On the next Friday night, Jake, Melissa, Chris, and I went to some Mayan sites. The first one we went to was about a seven minute drive from San Ignacio towards the Guatemalan border; it is called Xunantinich. There were amazing temples that we climbed all the way to the top and took some awesome pictures. I loved exploring them and trying to picture people there so many years ago. Xunantinich seemed more of the “downtown” area. It was where the temples were and the markets or plaza’s. I couldn’t really see how anybody would actually live in these places. I’m sure that they would have just lived around them in areas that had not yet been excavated. We then went to another Mayan site called Cahal Pech. This is just up the street from our house- about a five minute walk up the hill and we are there. It was incredible. There was a lot more to explore and I could actually picture people living there. I could imagine them living in one section and then walking over to the market. The four of us were discussing what would have happened to have them all just leave their home. It is very interesting!
The next day most of our team went to Tikal. This is an astounding area. It is located in Guatemala and we had to get special permission from the HELP Office to travel outside of Belize. The temples were huge. We hiked through the jungle to get to many different sites. We were able to see the temple that is shown in Star Wars. There have actually been a lot of movies with parts filmed in Tikal. You should look on the internet to find pictures of Tikal- soooo mind blowing!
This past weekend we were suppose to go to Mt. Pine Ridge. This place is full of pools, waterfalls, and rocks to jump off. Part of my team has already been but we were all going to go again except we go hit by a tropical depression. It rained for two days straight and everything shut down for the storm. So we played a bit in the rain, watched the world cup, played games, and watched movies. It was a super chill day and nice not be traveling or working- we got to just hang out with everyone. I enjoyed it a lot.

Well, I wrote that last week and so this past weekend we got our three day weekend again..yay! We went to Caye Caulker again and we just chilled- I didn't spend very much money and it was just very nice!