BELIZE CITY - It's a bird, it's a plane, NO... it's a big orange Jim! Jim and Kath landed today and Anna and I were lucky enough to see the plane come in. From the observation deck we saw them deplane and somehow - as if we were left-eye-right-eye - Jim and Kath spotted us waving and, well, responded in kind.
At the water taxi station we ran into Nancy and Sara - two very fun and funny girls Anna and I met on Glover's Reef Atoll - and it turned out they were staying on Caye Caulker... days passed and bottles emptied and everybody had fun and got along famously. But that's another story. Here's a picture of Jim, Kath Anna and I on the water taxi... don't they look like they regret leaving 6 degree weather?
The plan was to take a water taxi to Caye Caulker and hang out for four days at this fantastic little 2 bedroom place with a deck overlooking the ocean for four days. They we'd take the taxi back to Belize City to pick up a car, go get Leigh from the airport and the five of us would drive out to San Ignacio for a few days. After that we'd drop Jim and Kath at the airport and then go back to Caye Caulker with Leigh! Quite an ambitious plan but it worked out perfectly. Here's a shot of us at the Real McCaw. Sara and Nancy - look us up when you come to Boston, we'll surely do the same when we get to San Fran!
I think Jim and Kath really enjoyed Caye Caulker... we had another snorkeling experience with Juni (Kath was a real trooper), Jimmy gave us all a lesson or two in how to bargain with the locals, we played games, relaxed, and had some fantastic food. I can't remember all the other great stuff we did but rest assured it was a lot of fun.
At the end of our Caye Caulker stay <sniffle> we went to get the car and then swung by the zoo before picking up Leigh. This is a shot of a fancy kind of toucan from the zoo... this particular fancy toucan from the zoo flew over and PECKED me on the hand while I took this picture. And no, I didn't put my hand inside or even up against the cage... it is a toucan and as you can see has an unusually long beak. The better to peck you with.
Another and significantly more friendly toucan we saw... gorgeous bird, and very funny, it kept flying over to us and flying away over and over and over.
Ran into this guy in the woods. The well trained eye would see that it's a giant cat. Hey now!
Here's a picture of Leigh as she got off her flight... it was so cool to see her see us - once again from the observation deck. We snatched her up and took off for San Ignacio around 4:45, arriving just before dark.
After we got Leigh we raced against dark to get out to San Ignacio. You don't want to drive these roads at night... there are animals all over the place and there are giant pot holes that sneak up on you and rattle your fillings. The next day we decided to all pile into our rental car - a 4x4 Suzuki something or other - and take a drive to Tikal. If you're up on geography you'll realize that Tikal is in Guatemala, but we are in San Ignacio, Belize. That's a driving adventure story for later... stay tuned!
