Mel is on vacation through January 6, 2009. While Mel's away, Waldo will be guest-blogging on his behalf.
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Backing up a bit to our day in Santo Tomas, Guatemala the other day (Dec. 31st, Cruise Day 4), it's fair to say we had a fairly uneventful port call. It was raining when we pulled in. About the most active we got was when Tobi and I tried getting a reaction from a local burro. Mule? What's the difference again? Not surprisingly, he wasn't a talky fellow. We took our cue from him and accepted the downtime as an opportunity to hang out on the deck and read books all day. Technically, that's what Mel did. Tobi and I, on the other hand went into one of the local shopping areas. She and I have been getting along much better since the beginning of the trip and just pal'd around for a couple of hours while Mel lounged on deck imitating a beached whale.
Then of course, was the whole New Year's eve celebration, which I posted updates about yesterday. (Much to my embarrassment.)
Now that I'm caught up on the stream of events, I can say yesterday was a different day in every sense. We pulled into Belize at 8 a.m. I was a little worried at the start with stories I've heard about big cats in the jungles. And where did the two jokers I was tagging along with want to go? But on a jungle excursion, no less.
As it turned out, even I have to say I had a great time in Belize. As you'll see from the video slideshow below we did see a lot of local wildlife. (The video's okay for general audiences. It only has a gag-factor of 3.5.) And since the predators (from my view anyway) were either on the other side of a fence from me or at least a boat's length away, my concerns about blogging from the inside of some cat eased up after a while. You'll see at the beginning of the video and from this image to the right, we left our mark on the Belize zoo. (It's okay, it was encouraged.) So, if you ever find your way to Belize and see our signature, make sure and post a comment here and tell us about your story.
From NCL's descriptive:
Belize is indeed an adventure paradise. It's an english-speaking country on the Western side of the Caribbean. It's roughly rectangular in shape, measuring about 180 miles from north to south and 68 miles from east to west. It's bordered on the north by Mexico, and Guatemala to the West and South. The total land area, including the over 1,000 offshore islands, is a little over 8,800 square miles for a total territory, including the territorial sea, of about 18,000 square miles.
In terms of government and stability, Belize is a democracy which operates under the British parliamentary system. Known as British Honduras until 1973, it gained independence in 1981. As a member of the British Commonwealth, it has an excellent human rights record and freedom of the press is practiced without any censorship. The population is about 280,000 with over 50% reportedly being less than 18 years old.
Some of my friends who scuba dive would love it here. It sports the longest Barrier Reef in the Western hemisphere and three coral atolls all spanning 185 miles. Many parts of it have been declared World Heritage Sites. The ecosystem is apparantly home to more than 400 species of fish, 540 species of birds and a broad range of mammals, reptiles and some 70 different types of coral.
Forty percent of the country has been protected as national parks and reserves, including the world's only Jaguar Preserve. One sanctuary in particular, the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary encompasses some 100,000 acres of tropical moist forest that rises from 300 feet above sea level to about 3,675 feet at the summit of Victoria Peak.
At the time of posting this article (now Day 6), we're just pulling into Cozumel, Mexico. We hadn't really planned an excursion here. I think we're planning for one of those "multiple choice" days, as Mel likes to call them. The kind where you stroll off the boat about mid-morning, saunter up and down the boardwalk and eventually plopping down on a solitary patch of white sand.
Until next time.
~W
