9-13-08 (from hand-written journal)

It's getting close to the one year anniversary of the amazing Belize trip I took last year. I've been re-reading this blog, and realized I never finished transcribing my handwritten journal onto the wonderful world of the blog-o-sphere. I figure now is as good a time as any to finish up this project, so here we go!!!

9-14-08
12:15am
I can't believe we're leaving today. I have a long journey ahead of me, but will go into that in a little bit.

Saturday we were supposed to go on a snorkeling tour at 9am. A little after 8, we were informed the water was too choppy, and we would try to go out at 2pm. So, instead of snorkeling, we hopped into the pool for a bit.

A little after 10am, we decided to into town for breakfast. We grabbed a private tax with Laruen, McCloud, their son Kian, and a new couple we briefly met in the pool the previous day, Chris and Jocelyn. When we got back into town, we all went our separate ways. I don't recall the name of the place we ate, but it was good. I had a ham and cheese omlette, fry-jacks (basically funnel cakes without the sugar topping), and fresh-squeezed orange juice. After breakfast, we walked around for a bit. We ran into Chris and Jocelyn and chatted with them for a bit. Jocelyn noticed my IU shirt, and told me she was an alum as well (1991 believe she said). Then we started talking about where we're from. Crazily enough, Jocelyn grew up in Chagrin Falls!!! For those of you not from Cleveland, this is about a 10 minute drive from where Adam and I grew up. It truly is a very small world.

At 1pm, we headed back to Belizian Shores. I check with Continental and our flight still hasn't been canceled. I'm worried about not being eligible for a refund on the flight, which would make the new flight we booked through Miami with American extremely expensive.

We head out on our snorkeling our, which included two locations in a reservation area. They were both filled with tons of fish, coral annd other underwater wildlife. I forgot to mention, we went on the tour with Ping and Star. The highlight of area one were two sea turtles we were lucky enough to see. Area two was known as shark ray alley. We see three or four sharks in the area, and right before getting back in the boat, two rays showed up. Apparently a ray and a shart went for the same fish, and the shark bit the ray. I unfortunately missed this. Oh, I forgot to mention, the engiine on our boat broke when we got to shark ray alley, and we sat there for about 15 minutes while our guide fixed it (he was changing fuses, but it ended up being a loose wire).

After getting back, we immediately went to the pool. I was hoping for happy hour, but Marva had already closed the bar, so we just hung out for a bit.

Soon we got hungry, so got out of the pool and headed to our room to clean up. When walking up front to order (an electrical storm blew out all their phones some time before we arrived), Ping and Star were walking back from ordering food as well, and invited us to come eat dinner with them on their porch. We said we'd be over when our food was delivered. While waiting for our food, Adam and Amy stopped by to inform us they heard our Continental flight had been officially canceled. I was thrilled, knowing that I am now eligible for their refund policy.

When our food arrived, we went over to Ping and star's. I had a shrimp-filled grouper, and it was delicious. Adam had bought a dragon fruit while in town and we cut it open for dessert. It taste kind of like kiwi, and was pretty good.

After hanging out with them for a couple hours, we headed back to our room to pack for the flight in the morning. I turned in a little after midnight to write this entry in bed, and it's now almost 1am. The next entry will likely come when I get to my hotel in Miami tomorrow afternoon.

Until then,

Ryan