It's un"Belize"able!

When we came to Belize the ship had to dock about a mile out because the water was to shallow and the dock was to small for a cruise ship. Chris had done obsessive, I mean extensive research on all of our destinations and he found a cave tubing excursion that was the same thing the cruise line was offering, but at half the price. We took an hour bus ride to a river where we were given inner tubes and we set off for a 45 min hike through the rain forest. Don't be too impressed, it was far from strenuous and there was a clear path for us to follow. The only complaint I had was due to my own vanity. My crocs would have been the perfect shoes because they are good for water, and comfortable for walking. I had been doing a lot of painting the week before we left and my crocs were covered in paint so I decided not to take them. I rented some swim shoes so that I wouldn't ruin my tennis shoes, but let me tell you I felt every single rock on the path and in the water. We came to a point in the river and floated down the river in our inner tubes. We went through a long series of caves and ended up at our stating point. It was pretty interesting, but the part that impressed me the most was the baby that was traveling with our group. He was about nine months old, and we hardly heard a peep from him. He sat on his dad and just took everything in. I thought he was asleep, but he was just looking around the whole time. You know your a mom when a baby's behavior is more exciting to you than the rain forest. I did learn about the cashew, which you might think is no big deal, but I had no idea how it grew and I thought it was very interesting. The seed (the cashew nut) grows on the bottom of a fruit. We were told that the fruit is so acidic that it has to be dries out for a couple of days before it can be used for anything. It sounded like it had the same sort of effect that pepper spray does, so you know potent stuff. Lunch was included in our trip, but we were running out of time so we ate on the bus. Valencia oranges are an export of the country and our lunch came with some delicious juice. It was all very tasty. We got back to the dock about an hour before we had to get back on the ship so of course we did more shopping.

Crossing the river to get to the path.

Getting ready to go into...

the rain forest.

They had us linked up like a train

Into the caves.

There were a lot of palm trees that grew like this, it was kind of cool.

This is the cashew fruit. The top is where the nut grows.

There were photographers from the ship every where.
Brian decided to turn the tables and get a picture with the photographer.