4th of July - Belize Style

So instead of spending our 4th of July on the water in Virginia, or up at the O'Brien's picnic in Rhode Island or at Jen's cabin in Wisconsin, we spent it here in Belize.

On Saturday, July 2, Jim, Jackie, Colin, Melissa and I rented a car to go to Jaguar Paw where Melissa's boyfriend Paul works as an Aeriel Trek guide. We woke up really early to get the car and hit up the farmer's market. We rented what the agency called "A Brand New Trooper from the States with CD player". Let me describe to you what "Brand New" in Belize means. It means it has just arrived in the countr but has been in existence for sa 10 - 20 years. This "Brand New" Tropper had over 200,000 miles on it! It came from Santa Barbara and had your typical UCSB stickers on it. It drove though so no complaints there :)

Jaguar Paw is a resort in the middle of the jungle on the Mopan River. Paul was our guide and took us on the Zip Lines/Aeriel Treks through the jungle canopy. We put on our hard hats and harnesses and ziped through the canopy enjoying the ride - along with the scenery and wildlife. It was crazy fun - we took video cuz I know you all are dying to see Jim strung up in a harness.

After we zipped, we had lunch and picked up our tubes to go cave tubing. To get to the caves, we had to hike 45 minutes through HARDCORE jungle. We had ants and bugs crawling ALL over us by the time we got to the cave entrance but had learned a lot about all the local trees. We now would know how to survive in a jungle if we had to - though, our memory might not serve us that well under stress if we had to.

We hoped on our tubes and entered the cave which had a deep river flowing through it. It was insane and SOOOO COLD! We never thought we would be that cold in Belize - I had goose bumps the entire time! It was crazy when we all turned our headlamps off and enjoyed the vast darkness of the cave. We passed through 3 seperate caves, one which had a waterfall inside it. It sounded SO large from the back part of the cave but when we came upon it, it wasn't as loud as it had sounded! It was beautiful though.

Jackie, Colin, Jim and I treated ourselves to a lobster dinner (it is in season here and pretty cheap) Saturday night because we had a car and could drive to the restuarant. We also had Cayo Twist for the first time, the legendary Soy Ice Cream place in San Ignacio. It is about a mile up a HUGE hill so we hadn't been there before. Belize is pretty advanced with tons of vegan options - Michelle and Robert would love it here.

Sunday we were busy cleaning up our house to get ready for the July 4th/Canada Day party we were throwing that night. It was pot luck so all our friends brought over some great food. We played flip cup (even though we had to teach 1/2 the Americans & Canadians as well as all of the Brits and Aussis) and had a sing off between the Americans and the Canadians. It was HILARIOUS. The Canadians read a beer poem before their anthem talking about the misconceptions of Canadians. It was awesome. We started off with Yankee Doodle, then broke into America the Beautiful and then ended with the Star Spangled Banner. It was classic. So we didn't have hot dogs and burgers but we did have National Spirit :)