Central American Adventure May 31-June 2

Unfortunately I hit a low point as photographer (being totally and completely pictureless) during these few days of our trip. I can take no credit for any of the pictures on this post but wanted images to help recreate the events. We traveled into Belize and stayed first in Belmopan, the capital city. There was not a lot to see there . . . the government buildings look very much like an old college campus, almost every restaurant serves Chinese food (with a little good barbecue to be found at street grills), and it poured rain. I mean it POURED. This point marked the beginning of a tropical storm in Belize that would wipe out many roads, bridges, homes, and even take several lives, making the entire southern half of the country inaccessible to us.

Despite the rain, we had an awesome adventure. We went "cave tubing." Which means that we floated through 7 miles of caves with only headlamps for lighting. We also managed to sneak in a little cliff jumping into the river (in the almost completely pitch blackness of the cave). There was a German Sheppard named Lucky (our guide's pet) who swam with us the entire length of the river. In one of the caves we left our tubes for some time and went exploring. This cave was called Crystal Cave for the quartz crystals that lined the walls. It was beautiful! Throughout the cave there were remains of Mayan pottery, with some pieces almost completely intact.

Back at the Jaguar Paw Resort there was a rescued baby howler monkey. He was sitting on a table, eating food that had been left by a guest. Knowing that he had a certain familiarity with humans, I walked over to him, and put out my arms as you would to a little child, wondering if he would let me hold him. He jumped immediately into my arms and climbed to my shoulder; he then jumped to Dustin's shoulder, and then to Joe's. He started getting friendly with Joe, nibbling on his ear, then on his nose. His nibbling started to become a little more aggressive, and Joe started to become nervous. He tried to pull the monkey away from his face, but the little monkey was very determined (maybe Joe needed to clean his nose out). I can still see Joe's profile (with a terrified look on his face) and a little monkey with all 4 limbs and his tail wrapped tightly around Joe's head. Joe was pulling away, and the monkey toward, as with as much energy as either could muster. The little monkey's teeth were bared, his mouth open and stretching toward Joe's nose. We were all helping Joe out by laughing hysterically. Joe eventually won, and therefore, still has a nose and no complaints.