We arrived San Pedro in the evening, checked in our hotel at Royal Caribbean, and headed to town for dinner at a great local place. I can't remember the names of all the places we ate but the food was great everywhere but one place! We were so tired but somehow made it to pack in quite a few drinks our first night which made it hard to get up our first day. The next afternoon we met our wedding coordinator to fill out paperwork. She took us to lunch and we had a great time. Later we went snorkling, it was amazing! Shark Ray Alley was so cool! The next three day we relaxed and just walked around and were beach bums! It was perfect, we hardly did a thing! We found the people of Belize to be very friendly and kind people.
The wedding- It was raining all morning! By the afternoon the sun came out and rain stopped. We ran into Kelly, our coordinator, in the afternoon and she gave us a ride on her golf cart back to Royal Caribbean. My husband (well fiance at the time) decided last minute he did want more wines so we had her pick some up and on her way back to the resort hubbie realizes he forgot his wedding shirt! So 45 minutes before the ceremony he asks her to run to town and pick out a black button down size large and bring it back. What pressure! She made it, found one, and we were thrilled. The ceremony was just the two of us, the minister, and our witnesses were coorinator and a girl brought for us. Both lovely people. The ceremony was beautiful! The minister did a beautiful ceremony and our coodinator included a heart shaped sand jar for us to fill with sand during the ceremony and take back for memories. It was perfect. The entire day could not have been more perfect and we couldn't have done it without the help. We asked them to stay for our champagne toast and hangout with us a bit, it was fun to have our "maid of honor" and second witness at our ceremony. We watched the sunset then headed to town for dinner. We are big fans of El Patio so we ate there.
The next day we continued beach bumming and the day after went to the mainland. We stayed at Five Sisters and it was beautiful. Their staff was excellent. We found food to be best at Blancaneax Lodge. This was out honeymoon and where we did all our tours. Cave tubbing was amazing! We went ziplining which was fantastic. The ruins were incredible at Xunintunich.
We are so excited to return to Belize, I think for our first anniversary we might go back. Thanks to all those that made our time perfect, we couldn't have done it without all the arrangements which were made for us.
Here's a fun zip lining story.....
Only seven women signed up for the zip-lining and cave-tubing tour in Belize, and they were half my age. With a life-long fear of heights, I forced myself to be Gutsy, and play Tarzan for a day.
Our adventure started the minute we boarded a retired American school bus and bounced all the way to Jaguar Paw Jungle Reserve, a tribal style resort located on 215 acres of jungle reserve in the heart of Belize. The Caves Branch River meandered through the jungle with several miles of underground caves where the Mayans once lived and worshiped.
Two young Belizean men led us on a steep path to our starting point in the heart of the jungle's lush, tropical canopy. After a brief lecture on the equipment we'd be using, I told Louis I was scared of heights. "You'll be safe," he said. "We have two steel cables on each of the eight rides so you're doubly protected." We each wore a metal helmet which I assumed was to protect our head in case we crashed into a tree trunk.
Oscar, Sonia and Louis at Jaguar Paw, Belize
I started working out when these young girls were still in diapers, and my years of weight training finally paid off. My arms lifted me with ease, and Louis snapped my belt to the cable. We each stepped into a harness which Louis tightened firmly against our waist and hips. He then fastened the harness clasps to the steel cables and a safety leash secured us to a massive tree trunk at each of the eight landing stations. We looked like seven monkeys tied to a tree trunk, forty feet up in the jungle canopy.
Our first platform was knee-shaking high. "So who's ready to go first?" Louis asked.
A short skinny girl raised her hand. "I will."
Louis gave a brief lecture, then instructed the girl to put on her heavy-duty industrial type gloves.
"Put your left hand around all the ropes. Your right hand slides behind you on the bottom cable. The right glove is reinforced with a thick leather pad, so you don't rub a hole through it and end up with a bloody hand. Use your right hand for braking. If you need to break, you'll pull down on the cable with that hand."
"How do we know if we need to break?" I asked.
"We'll make this type of motion," he said, waving his hand up and down.
I hoped we were done with all the instructions as I started getting confused.
"Are you ready? Let's get started," Louis said.
Oscar, the other guide, demonstrated our first ride to the second platform, about ninety feet away. He made it look fun and easy.
Our first volunteer started her Tarzanna trip, screaming, as she zipped along, though not as smoothly as Oscar had demonstrated.
I decided to be fourth in line-my favorite number for good luck. I concentrated so hard on technique, that before I knew it, I'd reached the other side. What happened? This was really no big deal. My fear of heights didn't even enter into the equation as I focused so hard on the task. Thankfully, I'd forgotten to look down. Everyone except poor Tracy, became experts at inter-tree air-borne travel.
Sonia flying through the trees like Tarzan
The grand finale was getting down from the last platform. No we didn't have the luxury of a staircase or a ladder, we had to repel. We were instructed to squat, grab the rope on the edge of the platform, hang over and control our descent with a hand lever. A slight pull could send you flying, so the exact contraction on the rope was critical.
All of us struggled with the repelling, but I reminded myself not to look down and that helped. Once again poor Tracy was last. It took Oscar a good ten minutes to prep her. She accidentally released the lever too quickly, which sent her flying at top speed. Her terror stricken shriek ended when Oscar controlled the security lever from above and succeeded in aborting her free fall a third of the way down.
"I can't believe how much I enjoyed this," I said to Louis, all proud of my accomplishment. One by one we waited for our security gear to be taken off and headed to the Jaguar Paw Lodge, where we met the less brave who spent the day at the zoo.
After a typical Belizean lunch of chicken, rice and beans, our group of seven women hiked towards the underground river and caves, each one carrying an inner-tube into the jungle. Now we were ready to see some Mayan artifacts.
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