Christmas in Belize, Part 5

We spent the last couple of days of the trip on the mainland after saying goodbye to Jamma on December 27th and flying over to municipal airport. We’d booked a rental car for our first foray into driving on the mainland by ourselves. This Honda CRV was our trusty steed for the next two days.

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We had a two hour drive from Belize City to our hotel for the first night, Cahal Pech Village Resort. We stopped about halfway there for lunch at Amigo’s, a place we’d been to a few times before. It looked exactly the same. There’s never been a crowd when we’ve been there, but we assume all those tables are to accommodate large numbers of people from cruise ships.

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We made it to the hotel about 2:00, which should have been check in time, but they were running a little late. So we waited around (for over an hour!) until they finally had our room ready. The grounds are wonderful — high up on the hill so that you can see the valley below, and lots of little casitas as accommodations.

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Our room, however, wasn’t great — it had a broken lock and was just kind of crappy. Oh, and it had an overwhelming smell of pot. Overwhelming. It would have been funny if it weren’t so smelly. We complained to the front desk and they fixed the lock and “freshened up the room” since they didn’t have anywhere else to put us. It was marginally better and was fine for one night. It did have a hammock.

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While the room was being “freshened” we walked a short ways down to the Mayan ruin that the resort is named for. It’s one of the smaller ruin sites and we’d visited it last time we were in Belize. We hired a guide who showed us around. Here are some photos.

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I love all the arches in their buildings.

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As always, we climbed up a pretty steep incline … and it’s always the way back down that’s the scariest.

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When we finished our visit we bought a few souvenirs at their little gift shop and then went back to the hotel for dinner. After dinner we broke out Exploding Kittens again and had a grand old time.

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After a pretty good night’s sleep we enjoyed breakfast at the buffet and then spent some time at the pool. I snapped another shot of the view on the way to the pool — so lovely.

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The boys really enjoyed the pool.

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When it was time to check out, we packed up and drove down the hill to our next destination, the Green Iguana Conservation Project at the San Ignacio Resort Hotel.

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We got a great tour there — very informative and hands on. Ezra made a new friend.

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So did Bruce.

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Finn and I preferred to keep them at arm’s length, but enjoyed feeding them.

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Lots of iguanas!

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Once we were done with the iguanas, we had lunch at the hotel and started our drive to our next destination. Along the way I shot a short video of the Belizean road.

Our hotel for the night was called Cheers. We’d never been there before, but it’s sort of a jack-of-all-trades restaurant, farm, and hotel with three little cabanas they rent out. We got this one.

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It was small but nice (except for the no hot water thing) and the owners and staff were all really friendly. They even have a little playground off to the side of the restaurant. Of course, Ezra hit the swing.

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After a restful afternoon and an early dinner at Cheers, we went to the Belize Zoo for a night tour. It was great to see some of the nocturnal animals being more active than they are during the day. I had a heck of a time getting any good photos, but it was a great experience. Here are a few photos.

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The main attraction for me is the black jaguar, Lucky Boy, who we saw last time when he had only been at the zoo for a few months after his rescue. He looks great. And totally fierce.

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Ezra took this shot.

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Between his dark coat and the fence, night shots are nearly impossible. Some of the other cats were easier to photograph.

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The owls were also up.

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After the zoo tour we went back to our cabana and slept well. In the morning we got a tour of the Cheers farm from the owner Chrissy. The baby pigs were a favorite.

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There were also goats.

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And lots and lots of fowl — chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks …

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They had an old school bus repurposed as their house.

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After the farm tour we went back to the zoo to see the daytime animals, like the scarlet macaw.

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The toucan.

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The harpy eagle.

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And Lucky Boy in all his glory. It’s so wonderful to see how well he’s recovered.

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We stopped to watch the spider monkeys for a while.

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And then we were done. We went back to Cheers to have one last meal and pack up our things. We made it to the airport on time and returned the rental car. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed, which we knew, but it kept getting more and more delayed. By the time we finally left, we held out little hope that we would make our connection in Houston. However, as luck would have it, that flight was delayed as well so we actually made it through customs and the luggage shuffle and ended up having to wait for the second flight. We finally made it home about 3:00 am. Our house was freezing and the kids were so tired they couldn’t see straight, but we had several days to rest up before school and work started up again.

We had a mini Christmas the next morning and the boys were thrilled to open the rest of their presents.

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Great trip!