I didn’t know very much about Belize prior to going there. I can’t say that I know that much even now, but I certainly know more than I did before (LOL). It’s northern boundary borders Mexico. It’s southern and western boundaries border Gautemala. And it’s eastern side is 174 miles of Caribbean seashore! Sounds like paradise to me. English is the official language. It’s in the same time zone as the Central U.S. and if I remember right it rarely gets below 80 degrees. Above is a picture of the tourist area where the tenders dock letting all of the tourists from the cruise ships come on land. Below is a picture of part of the city further away from the tourist areas. Quite a difference.

We traveled out of the city about 45 minutes to the mountains where we would be cave tubing and of course I don’t remember the name of the mountains… and I don’t have time to search the internet to look it up right now. I’m hoping that all these vacations pictures aren’t boring you all. I’m HURRYING to get the last few vacation blogs entries posted so I can get back to “real life.’ (LOL).

For some reason I was surprised to see such tall mountains. I guess I always think of the Caribbean as being more flat. Belize is not. There are quite a few mountains visible in the distance.

The further from town and closer to the mountains we got the thicker the vegetation and trees became.
After we started going into the rainforest our tour guide said we were going to get free back massages! That’s from being bounced all around on the bumpy road (LOL). No extra charge for the back massages. This is what most of the homes we passed looked like. It seems like this is a rather poor area.

Every once in awhile you would see a cleared out area that was very nicely manicured with a beautiful homes. The guide said they are mostly owned by Americans who have purchased land here. Here is one of those homes.. barely seen in the background, but you can definitely see the difference in the landscaping and general look of the home area.

Cave tubing experience is in the next blog down… but for now we’re talking about Belize. After our cave tubing excursion we stopped at a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere! They had DELICIOUS FOOD for $5.00 per person. Our tour guides called ahead to tell them we were coming. I think they only have one thing on the menu and that’s what you get (LOL).
Chicken, rice, and coleslaw with water. It was VERY YUMMY!

It also appears that the cave tubing guides are the waiters and we also pitched in on the clean up. While the adults all sat around visiting the boys went out into this backyard area to play and look at some birds that were in a cage back there.

It was really interesting to visit another country. Someone asked me why I like cruising so much. I have several reasons…. NICE dinners every night, being waited on, variety, etc. But the MAIN reason I like cruising is because it allows us to visit countries we wouldn’t visit otherwise. I mean, really. I wouldn’t just book an airline ticket to Belize or the Caymen Islands. For starters it would be MUCH TOO expensive for our family to fly to any of these places. Cruising takes us places we just couldn’t go otherwise. I LOVE IT! I hope to take several more cruises in upcoming years… Jamaica for starters. I’ve also heard cruising through the Panama Canal is breath taking. I also think AK would be fun, but I don’t know that we could ever get away in the summer time to take a vacation. Anyway…. Royal Caribbean’s saying is GET OUT THERE and really… cruising is a great way to see other countries without the expense of flying to them. I LOVE going to bed while you’re out at sea and waking up in a different country or port each day!