If you missed it, Part 1 of our trip to Belize was posted earlier this week here.

Friday, we ventured to kayak to the reef, again!  This time went much better! Dylan even caught our lunch bare-handed! Just as he was diving for the second time, a storm blew in! Hard! I paddled out to him as he swam back and we raced the storm to shore. It was super windy and the waves, which there are usually none, were crashing over the kayak! We made it fine – it helps to have a kayak that floats! Once back, the chef took Dylan’s catch of two queen conchs and made ceviche for us. It’s pretty cool to say that Dylan caught our lunch! He’s so resourceful and I’m quite proud of him!

It was a little creepy when the thing inside the shell started to look at me.  Seriously, it freaked me out.  In Belize, they sometimes eat the eyes, as nothing goes to waste there.

They made their ceviche with carrots and cucumbers, not the normal tomato based ceviche. 

After lunch, we biked up the beach to a neighboring resort that has a trampoline in the ocean. Dylan had been wanting to jump off of it since we first saw it.  He did! A few backflips, too!  We kept going down the beach and saw lots of beautiful property! This is definitely somewhere we could live.  Some of the sand was super soft and caused the bikes to turn real hard.  Biking on sand is quite the workout!  On the way back, I crashed my bike trying to save our bottled water. It had come open through the basket wire.  I hit soft sand just as I reached for it, and crashed into an old fallen tree. I wasn’t banged up too badly (although the bruise has lasted 3 weeks) and Dylan didn’t laugh at me.  We took the jungle path back home and almost got hit by a small truck! You can’t see very far in front of you, so as soon as we saw it, we both jumped into the bushes.  Dylan landed in a thorn bush. :(

We had our Valentine’s Day date a day early at El Secreto, which was voted in the top 50 places to go in 2014 by the New York Times! The boat left after sunset, so the ride there was crazy dark.  With the storm winds still in, it was freezing as well!  So much for doing my hair…    We arrived to the resort which had a ton of up lighting! Everything was so romantic!  They had lounge chairs, hot tubs, and hammocks to enjoy and most of the tables were set for two outside on the deck facing the ocean. We took the corner table and Dylan ordered a zombie drink. Whew! It was powerful! He had seen it once on Anthony Bourdain’s TV show, The Layover, in San Francisco, and wanted to order it ever since. It didn’t disappoint!

We both ordered the bisque. Me lobster and Dylan seafood, with the chief’s special of red snapper with a dill sauce, coconut rice and grilled veggies.  Dylan added a baked potato. Everything was more than delicious, like best meal I ever ate quality! SERIOUSLY!  To drive this point home: Dylan, my meat-etarian husband, ate all his veggies and didn’t even mind the bell pepper! He even wanted to get a second order of the bisque for dessert! We got the key lime pie, instead, which is supposed to be what El Secreto is known for with dessert! So worth it! Our resort sent us complimentary local drinks to enjoy with dessert, but piña coladas were the wrong decision. Too sweet to enjoy with dessert and too filling after the meal we just devoured. After dinner, they brought us back and we were the only boat on the water. There is no better view of the stars than there was own that boat.

Saturday, Valentine’s Day 2015, we photographed Tammy and Brian’s beach wedding at Mata Chica Beach resort.

Sunday, we opted to go to the mainland to tour the second largest Mayan ruin in Belize.  The boat driver fed us home-made breakfast burritos, that I can only imagine his sweet grandma making, since we had to catch our first boat before sunrise.  After a quick bite to eat, he put us on a second boat to get us to the airport.  We took a little puddle jumper into Belize City and were greeted by our tour guide!  We jumped in the car with him and headed to Xunantunich, a Mayan ruin whose name means “Stone Woman.”  Before we got there, our guide saw an old man selling ice cream and demanded that the car be turned around.  He said that there is no better ice cream in the world, as it is still made by hand every day by that very same old man.  It was pretty good!  He only had two flavors.  The one we got was “sour sap” – which is closely related to an apple, according to our guide.  It was delicious! Our guide giggled at us for being “up for” ice cream before 9AM!  HA!  The trip there was pretty neat, we learned a lot about the culture, the landscape, and the history of Belize.  The drive took us past the Sleeping Giant Mountains, which truly looks like… a sleeping giant!  Just before we hit the bridge to get into Xunantunich, they asked us to get out of the vehicle to cross the river.  Apparently, it’s so that if anything happens while crossing on the man-pulled ferry, you aren’t trapped in a car in the river.  Safety, first!  :D

Once past the river and up the mountain, our guide showed us a plant that closes if you touch it.  Dylan and I could have stayed here and been perfectly happy!  It was so neat to watch this plant close up and “hide” once touched.  We’re easily entertained, apparently!  Past the monkeys, our guide started explaining the lifespan of the Mayans at this site and some of their patterns/habits.  We climbed all three of the ruins, and I was terrified at each one.  I’m not one for heights, as I don’t trust my own feet.  The stairs were as tall as my knee, so it was quite the climb!  Having no hand rails combined with my aversion to stairs (or the more likely chance of falling down them), I was nervous!  Dylan held my hand the whole way, though, sweet husband that he is!  I may have made a slide out of the stairs on the way down, but I don’t care!  130 feet is a LONG way to fall!  You could see into Guatemala from the tops of the ruins and there were border patrol guards all around.  

This is my scared-of-falling-down face! After the ruins, we headed to zip line!  On the way there, our guide stopped for lunch and opted for Belize style BBQ!  It was delicious!  We got chicken, bones in, in one of the largest tortillas I’ve ever seen in my life!  He said it was the best place for BBQ on the mainland, so we’re so glad he let us stop at an authentic Belize food joint!  He believes Belize BBQ is all about the sauce!

I know what you’re thinking – why the heck would I zipline when I have such a fear of falling from heights, right?  Well, you only live once!  I’d already swam with sharks (also a huge fear of mine) and I believe that getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things makes you a better person.  A stronger, more well-rounded person.  If you always stay in your bubble, you’ll never know what you’re missing out on.  So, I trusted a complete stranger to buckle me safely into a harness and push me out on a line that they promised wouldn’t drop me.  HA!

There is video of the 6-run zipline experience, but I’ll spare you those.  After that, we went cave-tubing! You have to hike through the jungle about 30 minutes to get there, while crossing the river at three different points.  Which was great – you work up a sweat before you jump into the COLD water.  Once in, the caves are pretty cool!  Our guide shared with us what he thought certain formations look like: sharks, eagles, people.  He took us to the waterfall inside the cave and dunked Dylan in it!  HA!  He put us in complete darkness by having us turn our headlamps out.  It was just the three of us.  It wasn’t too spooky, until he told us that large catfish lived in the caves. ;)  The bats didn’t like our lights and started to stir.  Once out of the caves, our guide swam pretty hard towing the two of us with him so we could make the 4:30PM flight out of Belize City.  Once out of the water, our tour guide had packed us a lunch of pork, plantains, and rice n’ beans.

At the airport ON the plane, Dylan realized that part of our plane was being held together with bailing wire.  This really shouldn’t have surprised us, as the plane in had duck tape on it.  We made it back to the island in one piece.  We were greeted by children running around and attacking each other with paint.  It was Carnival.  Crazy dancing was going on and some of the buildings were covered in plastic, to avoid the full-on paint fight happening in the streets.  Numerous locals has suggested Carambas as a place to eat, so that is exactly where we went for our last night in Belize and it did not disappoint!  

That was our trip and we cannot wait to go back!  (Please know that most of these images were taken on our decade-old point and shoot.)

– Mylah Renae