Belize!

Short post to announce that I've put a selection of photos from the first part of our holiday trip to Belize with our good friends Dustin and Cara. We took advantage of Kate's break from teaching to take a trip to Belize to do some adventuring, exploring, relaxing, diving, and whatever else we could come up with while down there.

The first part of our trip was spent inland near the Guatemala border near the town of San Ignacio, where there are lots of Mayan ruins, spectacular caves, and mountain/jungle rivers.  The highlights included lodging at two unique and memorable locations, catching the lunar eclipse on our first night there, a visit to the expansive Mayan city complex of Caracol, the amazing wet cave and Mayan ceremonial site of Actun Tunichil Muknal, a fun canoeing trip down the Macal river (with a stop at the botanical gardens), and an exciting tour called "Black Hole Drop" where we rappelled 300' down into a sinkhole in the middle of the jungle.


(click on the slideshow to go to the larger pictures on my Picasa page)

After a week in the jungle we went to the coast and spent a week in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, one of the prime scuba diving destinations in the world due to the large and very close to the island barrier reef (2nd largest in the world to Australia's I believe). I'll put photos from that leg up soon too including some good ones of Kate with sharks, along with (if time permits) a post with more details about our adventures!