Adventuring through BELIZE

Jan 16th- 22nd
So Bre and I continued on our adventure to BELIZE!!! Wahoo!!!!!! It was quite a long bus ride. We took the all night bus to the border and then took a van to a city just across the border called San Ignacio. We were told by a fellow traveler that we had to stop there and go to some caves... so that we did!

 

San Ignacio 

We had a very enjoyable couple days in San Ignacio. We made sure to book our tour for the following day to go to the cave and then we found some things to do while in town. We found a Belly Dancing class! We just couldn't resist! We really loved it! We felt super feminine! The teacher was all about GIRL POWER! We all took cards at the beginning of one woman goddess and read it and then said how that woman represents us at this time in our life. I got Freyja... the goddess of love and war. She's known as the goddess of adventure because she was so versatile! Perfect fit, huh? :) Breanna and I really got a hang of the dancing. It was fun to learn the history of belly dancing too! So it was awesome! We had a ton of fun! It was very empowering! 

Ultra feminine - super empowered women!

Then someone gave us free coupons to get margaritas at the bar, so we spent the evening there. Mmm...Mmm.

Free Virgin Margaritas

The next day we got up bright and early and drove out to these ancient Mayan caves we'd heard so much about!
Here we are marching one by one... hoorah, hoorah :)

And the ants were marching one by one, hoorah  hoorah. ;) They're strong ants!

It was a nice little hike and it was beautiful! Check out this tree:

Okay and now for the ATM CAVES aka Actun Tunichil Muknal
This is a cave that the Mayan's used to perform ceremonies and to make sacrifices. We were so excited to check this out! 

The gorgeous opening of the cave:

You have to start off swimming in!

Then you get to the point that you can start walking through.

The ceilings are dripping with stalactites. They're huge! Check those out!!!

The cave had ancient artifacts everywhere. Our tour guide explained that the broken pots were brought in full of food or various items to pay a type of tithe to the gods. And it was ritual to break the pots when you got in there. Interesting huh? So there were broken pots all over the place!

There was also quite of few bones and skeletons from actual human sacrifices... now that was crazy to see.  It's just crazy to walk by and see human bones laying there from over 1000 - 1500 years ago.  All over the cave you could see small bones sticking out of the dirt. Most are partially under dirt because they've been there so long in a moist cave. Check out this skull!

 Then at the very top of the cave where there is less moisture... there are 2 bodies that have all of their bones in place. One was sacrificed on his knees so it's just a pile of bones and the other was sacrificed on her back. Check this out!!!

They call her "The Crystal Maiden". They call her that because her bones have calcified so they sparkle and make it look like they've crystallize. So when you shine your flashlight on her she kinda glows. It's kinda hard to tell in the pictures that I took, but she really does glow!!!

(better photo found online) Isn't that incredible!

The tour really lasted several hours. It was awesome! Then we all had lunch outside the cave. What an experience. Our guide was very knowledgeable. In fact he guided the national geographic magazine people when they came out because he knows so much about the Mayans and the caves surrounding the area. It was really cool to hear all that history. I'm so glad I didn't live back when they sacrificed people!!! I just can't even believe that!

So the next day we made our way to the city. We took the local bus and had a good time just enjoying the sights of Belize from the bus. We're so lucky with the couple of switches we had to make here and there that we didn't get on the wrong bus and end up in the middle of nowhere! :) I could see us doin that. But we got to the city and found a nice hotel for the night. We'd missed all the ferry's that take you to the islands, we got in kinda late.  So we spent the night and went on our way in the morning. 
Caye Caulker
The boat ride was beautiful and the island was no disappointment either!  After finding a nice little cottage to stay in we walked all around. It was sure beautiful!

Check out the Iguana that lived under our little cottage :)

So of course we booked a sailing and a snorkeling trip!  That was a must! We had a blast!

The tour guides threw in a ton of bait so the sharks would gather all around and then they had us all jump in! AH!

Petting and swimming with the sharks!

Loving all the wildlife in the ocean!

We saw some awesome things! Including this....
STING RAY

GLOW-IN-THE-DARK BEAUTIFUL FISH

AND A SEA TURTLE!

We had a ton of fun snorkeling in 3 different locations. They brought us to all the best spots!

Then we enjoyed the luxury of sailing in Belize, just soaking up the sun! Talk about a good time!

We spent the rest of our time just relaxing by the beach and finding some places to eat. It was too expensive to do much of anything else. The internet was like 12 bucks an hour to use, so we hardly even went to an internet cafe. :) It was really nice though to just have that relaxing, fun time on the beach.

We also had a good time watching the fisherman from our little cottage area. They caught a ton of fish and lobster!

Then we walked past and caught them doing the dirty work of gutting the things! Yuck!

 We only stayed on Caye Caulker a couple of days! I really missed Matt and Bre needed to see a doc about her eyes. (They were acting up and we got worried) So we decided we'd go back a little early. I didn't tell Matt, I wanted to surprise him! Plus we needed to get back and get all ready for our upcoming cruise. What a life, huh?  So we filled our pack back up, bought a postcard as a souvenir (that was the only affordable thing! :) and headed for the airport.

So crazy that I've been gone about 2 months now! I've had the adventure of a lifetime! I'm so glad I could share it with my amazing hubby and my amazing sisters! I'm sooo grateful to have such wonderful people in my life to share adventures with!