The Never-Ending Adventure! PART FOUR

Thursday, Jan 31, I didn’t sleep well. I actually never slept well on the ship, and I was awake early each day. Thursday I had lots of time to get ready to meet Mom and Dad for breakfast at 7. We had the buffet. I made myself a yummy croissanwich, but I should have gone easier on the bacon. They had great bacon there!

We met at 8 for the shore excursion, and the boat moored off the coast of Belize. The water is too shallow there, so the boats throw anchor and you have to “tender” on a small boat from the ship to the shore. So we sat in the theater while we waited for them to call off our names to go. The tender boats only held 100 people, and the ride to the shore was a good 20 minutes. We got to shore about 9:30, where we had to gather and wait for the bus. I took advantage of the opportunity to purchase sunglasses, which I badly needed.

The bus was a big tour bus (as were all the ones we rode on), the road however….. It was a one lane road with large, gravel shoulders. So when you encountered oncoming traffic, you didn’t slow down, you merely swerved onto the gravel shoulder, and passed within inches of the other vehicle. It was a hair-raising ride and I’m just thankful I wasn’t in the front to see what we were nearly missing! We bucked, and swayed and jostled for an exciting hour. I couldn’t nap in that! The guide was informative and interesting, and that was good. The driver was great too. He stopped to point out interesting things, like a giant iguana in a tree. We had a couple avid photographers in our group who got pictures of everything, and the guy was sensitive to that.

We stopped at the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha… Or Altuna, if you are Steve! These were way cooler that Quirigua! The guide was good and he talked a bit about the structures and let us climb up them. I think he said they were dated 700-400bc, but I can’t remember. I think they were within the Book of Mormon time period. We were suppose to have an LDS perspective on them, but the second group had Bruce Porter and our guy had gone on a different excursion, so we had no good stuff. That was disappointing, but the place was cool! The site had 2 main plazas and was quite large (although I hear it is small compared to others). I climbed up one of them, but there were a lot of steps and it was so hot. We’d been told that this was a place you wanted to wear long pants and shoes to, so I had. Some others did not, and they did get bug bites, so I felt it was worth it to be a little warmer…. And sweatier, and smellier….

Anyway, the neat thing for me was that this stuff looked like the backgrounds in some of the pictures of Christ visiting the Americas. It was awe inspiring to me to see these giant, pyramid-like structures, and think that Christ could have come here. That when he visited people here, this is the kind of place he came; it looked like this! For me, that was really neat, and I really enjoyed it all.

We even had some time to wander and shop. I enjoyed that very much too! They had the most fantastic wood carvings. They were all hand done, usually by the vendors themselves, and the talent was humbling to me. The things they could do was just amazing and so beautiful. I would have loved to have some of the larger carvings, but how would I lug it home, and where would I put it? They had a lot of different things, and I found a lovely carved shark for Dan. He likes sharks. I didn’t want to pay the $20 or so they were asking, but they wouldn’t go below $13. Mom said I was being ridiculous, and handed me her $3 so I would buy it! It is neat.

We got on the busses and had crappy sack lunches- bologna and Velveeta with wilted lettuce. I think I could have eaten it, but the lettuce did me in. So I ate the chips and the most fantastic banana I’ve ever eaten- local grown. Yum, it was worth it for that banana!

It was an hour drive back to Belize City and it was just as exciting as the way out. Our driver was great enough to drive us by the LDS chapel building there (surrounded by high chain link fence!) and the mission home. He was very good, even if he wasn’t able to give us the LDS lowdown. We got off the bus around 2:30 and we had plenty of time to wander the flea market. It was funny, all the venders would call to me “Hey sweetie, come look over here!” Mom said they called her “Momma” and Kathy was cross that they called her “Grandma!” I finally found some things for the kids: a shirt, a wooden snake, and maracas. We caught a tender back to the ship and were on board about 4ish. I was so hungry, but Mom and Dad wanted to go to the restaurant that didn’t open till 5:30. So I read and relaxed till then. We had the 2 hour, 4 course meal that ended with orange Bavarian cream and a strawberry soufflé. I got both! Can you say YUMMY!

I went back to my room and finished my book. Dad was obsessed with chocolate chip cookies and we had discovered that you could order them from room service. So I did. I got the brownies too, but they were not so tasty. I ate one of each and bagged the rest for the next day.

I want you to know that I had put on sunscreen again, and it did not hold up all day again. I had a red and white stripe on my neck where my bag strap sat. Oops. I had a bit of head ache all day, and surprisingly, it was gone by evening. I wandered up for an evening stroll on the deck. See, in the morning, they come and make your bed and tidy the room. In the evening, they come and turn down the bed and replace towels and stuff. So I had a little time to kill. Oh, they fold your towels in to fun things, and leave mints on your pillow! Talk about pampered!

As an aside here, I had made it a goal to not use the elevator at all. I did get on it once, because Dad made me. It was the huge glass one that you can see all the floors from at the top, and I only rode it for that purpose! Otherwise I ran up and down the stairs. Mom and Dad were 5 flights up, so I ran them a lot! It was odd to be walking, or running and have the ground not be stable. The ship rolled a lot that evening; I think it was extra windy outside. One other thing is that they have mirrors on the wall so you can see yourself as you come down the stairs. I don’t like that! I hope they are “fat” mirrors that make you look bigger than you are. It obviously didn’t help, since I continued to eat every tasty dessert I found!