Wow! What a trip. Except for the part where we have to leave a student in Boston because her passport was too damaged to be valid (it’s OK – she already has a new one and is meeting us here tomorrow!!), traveling went flawlessly. We walked onto the plane in Boston, had enough time in Miami to find some food, and landed in Belize City right on time – 11:30 a.m. All bags were present, and our old friend Junior, an employee of Bowen & Bowen (owned by Barry Bowen ’63), was right outside waiting for us with Mr. Carlos Lopez (“best tourguide in Belize”) and his air-conditioned bus. Carlos gave us a great guided tour as he drove us the hour up the western highway to our first destination, Jaguar Paw Resort.
Along the way we stopped for our first Belizean lunch at a restaurant called “Cheers (with a tropical twist)” (seriously, that’s the name – some expatriate Canadians came down about 5 years ago on vacation and never went home …) - the food was great.
Then we ran into our next snag … Carlos called ahead to the resort to announce our arrival, only to find out that, due to an ugly split between the owners of the place, our reservation had been lost in the fray and they were not expecting us. Really, this was too much adrenaline for this blogger in one day. Luckily this is our 4th time at this resort and we know a lot of the staff, so they recognized us and were able to shoehorn us in (the last night we’ll be a bit tight as this is a holiday weekend, but we’re grateful just to be here!!) Phew!
As we settled in we met the newest addition to the Jaguar Paw menagerie – Gumbolimbo the 6-month-old howler monkey (orphand in Hurricane Dean), who is semi-domesticated and seemed to think our son Jake was his long-lost brother (which didn’t’ surprise us at all …) So a number of our group have officially had their first encounter with a wild monkey, and we’ll be sure to get good pix and video for the families for your next set of holiday cards!
Ensconced in this wonderful place, the students had a chance to explore the river, caves, trails, pool & hot tub (and shower off the road dust and crash in the air-conditioned rooms!) We ate together (burgers and fries) and most headed off for bed – having been up since 2 a.m., we were zombies.
First adventure: aerial trekking on the canopy zipline, a 10-minute walk from here. Pictures and video to come!!
All are healthy and happy, and we miss SeoYeun but will be happy to have her with us tomorrow.
More later …
Along the way we stopped for our first Belizean lunch at a restaurant called “Cheers (with a tropical twist)” (seriously, that’s the name – some expatriate Canadians came down about 5 years ago on vacation and never went home …) - the food was great.
Then we ran into our next snag … Carlos called ahead to the resort to announce our arrival, only to find out that, due to an ugly split between the owners of the place, our reservation had been lost in the fray and they were not expecting us. Really, this was too much adrenaline for this blogger in one day. Luckily this is our 4th time at this resort and we know a lot of the staff, so they recognized us and were able to shoehorn us in (the last night we’ll be a bit tight as this is a holiday weekend, but we’re grateful just to be here!!) Phew!
As we settled in we met the newest addition to the Jaguar Paw menagerie – Gumbolimbo the 6-month-old howler monkey (orphand in Hurricane Dean), who is semi-domesticated and seemed to think our son Jake was his long-lost brother (which didn’t’ surprise us at all …) So a number of our group have officially had their first encounter with a wild monkey, and we’ll be sure to get good pix and video for the families for your next set of holiday cards!
Ensconced in this wonderful place, the students had a chance to explore the river, caves, trails, pool & hot tub (and shower off the road dust and crash in the air-conditioned rooms!) We ate together (burgers and fries) and most headed off for bed – having been up since 2 a.m., we were zombies.
First adventure: aerial trekking on the canopy zipline, a 10-minute walk from here. Pictures and video to come!!
All are healthy and happy, and we miss SeoYeun but will be happy to have her with us tomorrow.
More later …
2 comments:
Am so glad you're finally there! sounds as though you've already had enough adventures for one vacation! Hope all got some sleep and are ready for the zip line!
Lots of love,
Mom
What a trip! I hope you all got some well needed rest last night and had a fabulous time on the zip line today! Miss you Rosie (Jenna)!! Danny wants to make sure you take some pictures of the wild monkey.
Have a ball!
Love,
Mom
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