July 8, 2014
Current Location: Belize City, Belize
Good evening everyone! Today we are docked in Belize. Up until 9:00 pm last night, we thought we were swimming with the sharks today, however, at 9:00, someone slipped a lovely piece of paper that said whoops your excursion is cancelled under our door. We were very angry at the fact that Carnival has had our reservations for weeks and never mentioned that this could happen. I get that there must be a certain number of participants for the tour. That part definitely makes sense. I just don't understand why we weren't notified until 11 hours before our tour. That's the frustrating part. So, after our activities last night, we had to spend a few hours deciding on a new excursion. We finally decided to use our day in Belize to go horseback riding. We began our day around 7:00 am when we ate breakfast. After breakfast, we went down to the auditorium, The Amber Palace. We met with our group and we were off by around 9:20 am.
Belize is an interesting port because it is not large enough to dock a cruise ship. As a result, we were required to send about 100 people at a time to ride a boat (which met us in the middle of the sea) over to the pier. It ended up being around a 20 minute ride to the pier.
After we got to the pier, we had to wait about 20 more minutes for the rest of our group (who was late) to arrive. That was fine by me though because that gave me 20 minutes to walk around and do guess what? Shop! :-)
After the remainder of our group arrived, we were split into groups and given a tour guide. Our tour guide's name was Liz. She was a hoot! We spent about 40 minutes driving through the country side. Close to the port, Belize was beautiful, but as we got further away that changed.
Above: Near the port; Below: The "real" Belize.
There is so much poverty in this country. Multiple families cram into one tiny house and spill out into the streets. There were also children out doing chores like cutting wood. I don't mean they were doing "American chores" like sitting on a lawn mower to mow grass. I mean these children were four or five years old doing labor intensive activities like cutting wood. I know some American kids have these chores too but for them, it was the only option for survival. There was also trash everywhere - in the streets, in the yards, in the ditches, literally litter everywhere. This was such a sad, but humbling experience. It really makes me see how lucky we are. You haven't seen poor if you've only seen poor in America.
After our city tour, we ventured to Bacab Eco Park. It was land enclosed in a "gated community." Liz told us the houses were some of the highest end houses in the entire community. Some of these houses were run down and would barely pass for "nice" in our area. If the nicest ones (like the two below) were sold here in our area, they would be listed for about $65,000-$80,000. The lots were about 1/4 of an acre, but there was very little litter in this neighborhood. It was just heartbreaking to see the amounts of poverty in this country.
Once we arrived at Bacab Eco Park, we took a tour of the facility and met our new instructors, horse experts! Kieran was our main instructor. Kieran paired a few pairs of horse/rider combos based on experience. Then came my turn. I was paired with a cutie named Tequila. That sounds like a perfect pair to me! Ricky was paired with a horse named Guinness.
Tequila was a feisty little man! At one point, a guy in our group was standing a little too close to my Tequila. Tequila snipped his head back and tried to bite the other horse. When the other horse backed away, Tequila kicked his left back leg out at him. It scared the bejesus out of me. I thought he was going to buck me right off! I was terrified.
After all the riders were paired and ready to ride, we prepared to depart on the trail. Now, this is not my first time at the rodeo. In the states, everything is very safety oriented and organized, however, this was not the case with this excursion. We were all over each other -- there was no organization of a line or procedures. It was basically just do what you want. Some horses were walking, some were trotting, and others were full on running (ahhhh!). Tequila walked most of the way, but he did decide to trot for the last 1/8 of our ride which was fun but made me nervous.
The only issue I had with this ride is one thing... There was a worker (who shall not be named) that was a big trouble maker. He had a colt and I totally get that colts have to be broken and have to learn to take on riders. I also understand that this takes time, but the way he did this was extremely unsafe. He would pop his colt on the bottom and make the horse run as fast as possible. He took the horse and ran it directly through our group of 20 riders!! Some of our horses bucked while others got excited and tried to run with the colt.
As a relatively new rider, I was horrified when I had to grab my reins and hold on for dear life. The worker laughed and said some snarky comment about the horses in Spanish. This happened about 4 times and each time it was just as terrifying. He would literally stand back to get some space between him and the group and then smack the horse and scream "ya, ya!!!" What if one of us had fallen off? What if the fall caused an injury -- paralysis of even death? Seriously, patron safety is no joke and I thought it was very unprofessional how this guy was behaving. I almost just got off and walked because I was so fearful.
Now, bear in mind, I will admit that I am a worrier. Not a warrior, but a worrier. I will worry myself into shock if allowed. Typically, I am the only one who worries but even Ricky said he thought it was unprofessional/dangerous. If he had this thought, you know it was scary!
During our ride, we saw the coolest thing. Get ready... Get ready... We saw a howler monkey!!!! A real, live, no joke, for real for real monkey! Then another! We saw a total of four monkeys swinging through the trees, jumping around, and making noise. What a fun experience!
We also saw cute and exotic birds, huge insect nests, ginormous spiders, and more iguanas. The trail was pretty sweet and I loved seeing all the critters!
After our adventure on the horses, we headed back to the park for a genuine Belize feast. We had chicken, rice & beans, plantains, potato salad, and juice. Of course, these were cooked by natives in traditional Belize fashion. I tried everything. I am a pretty picky eater but I actually liked it all except the plantains. I was very surprised because normally I don't like new things. I am always adventurous enough to try it though! Once, I even tried alligator but it was absolutely vomit invoking! Ricky enjoyed it all, even the rice. He is normally not a big fan so you know it was delicious!
After lunch, we had about an hour to swim and relax. While we were hanging out by the pond, guess what happened by? A big ol' iguana! I am sensing a pattern of iguanas being big here in this part of the world. Liz told us some disturbing news about iguanas. She said they are known by another name in this country... Lunch. Gross!
After our visit with the iguana, I was about to head to the changing room to get myself ready for the pool. Splash! A giant fish jumped. The weight of his plunge caused another little fish to bounce out of the water and land on the dock. Ricky to the rescue, thank goodness! He saved the little guy and tossed him back to his home.
The pool was great. It had a huge area for non-swimmers or sitters to hang out. I didn't see the feet of depth but it was above my head in the deepest point. That's hard to find nowadays, you know? The best part of the pool was an awesome sauce slide that was attached. I don't know why or how, but that slide was incredibly fast! I slid around so fast that I plunged to the bottom as soon as I hit the water. It was awesome!!!! It was definitely the best built in pool slide ever! I want to build one like it. :-)
Check out this slide ride into the pool!
After our ride back to the port, we had some extra time to spend at the port. We were dropped off outside the main area and I will forever be grateful for this! We found the coolest souvenirs that are handmade and unique here. Our final products? A beautiful hand carved shark that is absolutely gorgeous. You know how I love sharks! It is stunning. We also bought a tile with a Mayan calendar (you can obviously tell Ricky picked this out) and a Belize map, a handmade drum (that I almost didn't buy but now I am so glad I did! Wonderful purchase for my classroom!), and leaf earrings made from... Coconut! Yes! They are so neat! I am so excited about these unique crafts.
We also bought Harley Davidson shirts (whoohoo, they had my size!) and a few little souvenirs. Great experience while shopping in Belize!
One thing I noticed at dinner was the diversity of our languages on the ship. And by "our languages," I mean everyone else but us. People here regularly walk around speaking French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and more. I also love that they mostly all speak English too. So they have a rich and diverse culture but we can still communicate through English. So cool! It makes me realize that I need to learn a second language!
We did one more awesome activity on the ship tonight -- we saw another performance in The Amber Palace! Whoohoo! It was amazing, as usual. Today, the show was called Divas and it was about... Well, American divas! Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston etc. Guess what? It was still that same group of eight performers! I am extremely impressed! There is one more show which means these performers have to memorize four shows worth of material. Wow!! I can't imagine.
Nighty night!
Amy & Ricky
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