Belize... Welcome to Paradise.

Right now I'm sitting on a dock watching the sunrise in beautiful Belize. What could be a more beautiful moment?

Wednesday morning at 4:00 AM Ashley and I got picked up from our hotel in Antigua to get to Guatemala City in time for our 7:00 flight to Belize City. We had a stop over in El Savador where we had just enough time to buy a cross and take a picture to document our beautiful 30 minutes in that country. Then after about a 40 minute flight we landed in Belize City. We didn't spend anytime there. We caught a taxi to the dock where we caught a boat taxi to our island. The water here is beautiful. It was stunning being out on the boat for the first time.

We got off of the boat taxi at San Pedro then were picked up on our hotel's boat. Our hotel is about a 30 minute boat ride from San Pedro (not complaining... It's beautiful!) So here is something I learned this week. When Ashley books a hotel (or really a resort) it is MUCH different than a Kelly Cragg booking. I've heard Ashley say so many times "yep... This is how I travel" and it makes me smile every time. This week has been beyond amazing with her.

Anyways... Here is how Ash travels (which I could totally get used to. I would just have to start winning the lottery). We got off the boat and were met at our dock with cocktails (who else thought that only happened in movies??). The place we are staying is called Sueno del Mar which means Dream of the Sea and their slogan is Welcome to Paradise. I can't wait to get back to Guatemala and upload my pictures to share with y'all. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

Now on to all the fun things we've been doing. When we got here on Wednesday we spent some time getting settled in and exploring then we laid by one of the pools. Ash read her nook and I made note cards from my "Spanish for Gringos" book I bought in Pana a few weeks ago. I think I should earn some kind of points or gold stars for studying on vacation... Just saying. After a few hours we took a boat to a neighboring resort for dinner. We first asked if we could walk there (it is only about a 5 minute walk), but we're told it would be difficult to walk through the jungle at night. One girl who works here just laughed at us and handed us a flashlight. Then we found out from Jose (dude who works at the front desk who we ask our thousands of stupid questions to) that they would come get us in a boat. Why the first chick didn't tell us that who knows. It was fun to take the boat at night, but it made me a little nervous. Big bodies of water when you can't see anything terrifies me. I think it's the whole "I am ridiculously accident prone and I know that my chances of falling in are higher than the normal persons".

Ok... On to yesterday. We woke up and were suppose to go kayaking and snorkeling, but it was crazy windy out so they didn't feel safe letting us go out on kayaks. Here is where it got interesting. We decided to then bike ride to the reef. Neither one of us could remember the last time we rode a bike so we were both a little shaky at first, but we eventually figured it out. Also let me just point out that riding a bike on sand is much more difficult than on a road. There were several times we would have to stop and walk out bikes... So much laughter. After riding for about 30 minutes (and realizing however long we biked for one way we would have to bike that long going back) we decided to turn around and take the 10:00 boat into San Pedro. San Pedro is cool, but after spending 4 hours there I'm glad we are staying on the deserted part of the island. When we got to town we really didn't know what to do. We looked into parasailing, but it was again too windy. The streets are linked with golf carts you can rent to drive around, so we decided to do that to see the rest of town. You would have laughed seeing me drive the cart. It was larger than a normal cart and felt like it was the slowest thing ever. We rented it for an hour and I got to drive the whole time which I loved. We didn't really know where we were going (we have discovered getting a map of where we are going is an after thought to us everywhere we go), but we just drove to one side of the island then to the other.

After our joyride we ate lunch at Fido's. We had grabbed an appetizer there the day before when waiting for our hotel water taxi and wanted to go back for lunch. We ordered conch for an appetizer then I also got it for my meal. I had never heard of it, but it is apparently the animal (don't know if that's the right word) that lives in the pretty pink shells you see people blowing into in movies (you can laugh at that description, but I bet you knew exactly what I was talking about). It was good. It kinda tasted like lobster, but a little more chewy.

After lunch we walked around town for a little longer then caught the 2:00 boat back to the resort. When we got back we went out on a little sailboat. The dude I mentioned above Jose took us out for about an hour and it was so much fun. Ash is actually a certified sailor, but I had never been. The boat we were on is called a hobie cat, and was the perfect size for 3 people. Ash and I sat on opposite sides (whole boat was about 6 feet wide)and Jose switched sides depending on which side the sail was on. There were several moments where he popped the sail to the other side (I'm sure that the professional sailing way to say that) and told us to duck. It flew to the other side with so much power than I'm way impressed with myself for never being smacked in the head and knocked off the boat (see earlier comment about being accident prone).

After sailing Ash and I walked back through the jungle path to the rows and rows of palm trees. I had been talking about wanting to climb a tree to get a coconut and thought this was my chance. I thought climbing the tree was going to be the challenge, but once I got us the tree it was actually more difficult pulling the stupid coconut out of the tree. I almost fell backwards off the tree when it finally came out. Also please picture me up in the tree while Ashley is taking pictures and we are both dying laughing. Then imagine a golf cart driving by... that was our experience. Next we went back to our room and spent awhile hacking it open. We used all the kitchen tools in our little kitchenette (pizza cutter, wine opener, peeler, knives) and scissors from the front desk (they looked at me like I was an idiot), but we finally got it open.

After our coconut victory we hung out in the Palapa which is the main area at the resort where the restaurant, front desk, pool area is and waited to be able to shower. The water was broken in our room, so we had to wait awhile. To kill time we played board games, walked along the peer, walked in the ocean (which I discovered is like quick sand because I wiped out at one point and flew into the water so fast... Hilarious). Next we just chilled with some of the resort staff. Ash and I have discovered that we must be a delight to everyone. We are absolutely those tourist that make friends and ask stupid questions. Did you know that apparently Guatemala is trying to steal half of Belize's land? Everyone here I've told that I'm in Guatemala right now tells me about it. I keep telling them that happened before I moved there and that I'll fix it. It makes them laugh. Like I said we bring joy. :)

Today we are chilling around the resort this morning then snorkeling at sting ray and shark ally (for some reason that doesn't scare me as much as it probably should). I'll update later maybe. Hope it's a beautiful Belize day!