Ripley's: Belize It or Not

A week ago yesterday I was in Belize, hiking through the jungle. The JUNGLE where we saw a very large cat paw in the mud where I was walking, passed the swamps where the alligators live, saw leaf-cutter ants (sans the leaves), and enjoyed cave tubing at it's finest. We were a fast group of hikers, so we made it through the jungle and mud in record time, (there were 24 people in our group) and then we got in our tubes and formed 3 chains. Each person put their feet under the armpits of the person in the tube in front of them and down the river and into the caves we went. The water was really cold at first but felt great after awhile. We had miner's lamps on our heads and so we could see the inside of the caves and the stalactites, as well as the "evidence" of bats. I was hooked to a person that I had just met that day, and I had Brian's feet under my arms. He had a lady with that was wearing cross trainers instead of sandals for the hike. Every time we started to drift close to the side or if the current picked up, she began to squeeze Brian's chest like that woman in the Bond movie Goldeneye. This was not comfortable for Brian, as he was wearing swimtrunks with no shirt, and she was wearing the aforementioned cross trainers. At one point, we started to get pulled one way so she dug in ever harder but then Brian went ahead and let her go as she scraped the skin of his chest. She lost a shoe in the process and when it was just Brian behind me he exclaimed "she scraped my ni**le!!" It was sooo funny, and sure enough, he had red marks on his side and ni**le (I don't want people to be searching for this word to find my site!) So, when she returned to once again form the chain, she had one cross trainer on, and one wet sock under his armpit, next to his face. It was too funny people, too funny.

I took this picture on the hiking path to the cave tubing.












This was looking up from the tube as we were about to go into a cave. Obviously the cave pictures didn't come out and my one tube picture didn't come out well at all, but it was much fun anyways.














Here's an orange grove we passed while on the bus back to the port.














We ate a fabulous Belizian lunch of rice and beans, coleslaw, and chicken. It was delicious and only $5! This was at the restaurant, which was not enclosed at all and beautiful. I wish I had taken a picture of their Christmas tree. Because where else do you have a Christmas tree up when hibiscus are still blooming?







They had a cool palm tree too.