Because of our rigorous sailing schedule and all of our business in the last week or so, we haven’t been able to get a blog post out. Although, we haven’t been able, too, because we’ve been doing so many blogworthy things. So without further ado, Alexander and myself (Christopher) will be doing a short summary of everything that’s happened over the last week or so.
Alexander’s part:
About a week ago we went to our friend Beth’s birthday party. Katie is her age but unfortunately was ill and unable to make it. We went to the party in the R.V. of Beth’s family, picking up a girl Christopher’s age called Africa. The party was to be held at a place that was a bit of a natural reserve where people could go and have picnics and such. Unfortunately due to it being the week of Semana Santa this place was packed! We managed to find a spot and laid out a table with snacks and pop. A bunch of other adults came too.
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| The Castillo San Felipe. Beth's birthday party was in the grounds around the Castillo. The whole thing is quite a big park. |
The first activity was the piñata. A bunch of Guatemalan kids saw the piñata and decided to hang out near by until it broke. This wasn’t a problem because there was plenty of candy, but those kids were the fastest candy grabbers I had ever seen! After the piñata had been smashed to pieces there was cake and presents. We gave Beth a bunch of hair bands, a stuffed animal and some goldfish (The snack). This is actually a better present than it sounds because Beth, being fructose intolerant couldn’t have very much sugar. Goldfish were nice and salty though.
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| For some reason, we don't have any pictures of the birthday party. So here are some crazy long neck turtles that we found at a restaurant on the Rio Dulce. |
Next all the kids went to the main event. The Castillo San Felipe. A huge Spanish fort right in the park. We went over a moat on a drawbridge and under a portcullis to get in there! There were lot’s of towers and rooms to explore. One room was super dark and had a lone candle sitting on the floor. That was pretty creepy. We spent a bunch of time hanging out in one of the towers but, our favorite part was down in the depths of the fort. There was a room with tunnels branching off with absolutely no lights in them. We went and explored through the utter darkness. Not exactly the best thing if you’re claustrophobic. It was so much fun that we did all the tunnels multiple times. The party was amazing fun.
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| Still no birthday pictures. But here is someone bungy jumping off the bridge over the Rio Dulce during Semana Santa. |
A few days after that we left the Rio Dulce. We have been sailing for a few days and now we’re in Belize. Christopher’s part begins here in the town called Placencia…
Christopher’s Part:
So, we had arrived in Placencia, and we needed to check in to the country. Naturally we lowered the dinghy and as a family, we drove off in search of adventure or Ice Cream or the place where you check in to the country.
So we went to a fairly nice looking town (compared to Guatemala) and we began to walk around looking for the place where we check in. When we asked some other tourists walking around (It wasn’t a very touristy town, and the locals speak English) we just thought that since they were there, we would ask.
They directed us to a small ferry boat, that was crowded and just leaving when we arrived. we spoke to the man at what looked like the ferry terminal (it was just a wooden bus stop-looking thing that provided shade and was next to where the boat had left) and he confirmed that it took us there to the customs. When we told him that only Dad was going, not all of us, He bellowed in a loud baritone voice for the boat to come back.
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| We like Placencia, Belize. It was a nice town - not too touristy, but still had some good restaurants and ice cream. |
When Dad had left, we were wondering what to do in the town while we waited, My Mom spotted a little ice cream store called tutti-frutti. We went in and were greeted by a nice lady and the tastiest looking gelato we will most likely ever see (and eat). So we each ordered a cone, and we all could not get over how deliciously scrumptious the ice cream was. We ate all of it and Alexander even got another.
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| Gelato at the Tutti Frutti ice cream store. Thanks to our friends on S/V Madcap for recommending this to us. |
After that we went back to the dinghy and picked up Dad. We headed back to the boat and when we got there Dad said that we were lucky we had not decided to just go along the outer islands and not check in to the country, which we had considered. He said that when he had been checking us in to the country, he had heard that as of last month, they were cracking down on people who didn’t check in. Anybody they caught doing what we had planned to do, got a $3000 fine. That was made quite a bit of sense considering that the only reason we had considered not checking in was because we had heard lots of other people say they had done that with ease.
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| Another view of Placencia. Cleaner than the towns we had gotten used to in Guatemala. |
For dinner we decided to go back to the town for dinner and ice cream. We ate at a restaurant called the Purple Space Monkey. It was kind of a silly name, but fun all the same and the food was really good. After dinner we went back to the ice cream place and had more ice cream, this time with Dad. It was as good as before if not better.
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| Dinner at the Purple Space Monkey to celebrate our arrival in Belize. Note the cool "Monashee" crew T-shirts that our Grandma sent us for Easter. |
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