Wednesday, April 12 - Day 6
We awoke early and had breakfast at the German Bakery with high hopes of having some good, strong coffee and yummy pastries. We scored on the pastries and completely missed on the coffee. We drove to the Belize Zoo, which is a natural treasure of Belize. All the animals at the zoo have been either rescued, found, or donated: none have been taken from their habitats, which we thought was nice. We parked the car and began loading up on sunscreen. Brian tried to make out with me in the car in the parking lot, and tried to convince me that it was okay since there was “nobody around.” I conceded, and about 30 seconds later, a gigantic tour bus pulled in and very white American tourists began disembarking. Brian started making fun of how uncool a couple of them were, and I had to remind him that he, too, was a very white American tourist and that he was barely cooler than them.
The zoo was wonderful and full of funny signage. (A zoo with humor = a zoomor). Amidst seeing really cool animals we’d never heard of, like curassows, we got stuck in a brief, yet torrential, downpour. While walking around the zoo grounds, we turned a corner and saw a giant alligator just sitting there on the sidewalk. We freaked out and ran away. After calming down for a minute, we deduced that there would never be a real alligator just wandering around the zoo and carefully, carefully turned the same corner again and realized that the alligator was fake. Yeah, we felt really dumb, but it made for a good laugh.
After the zoo, we stopped at a restaurant called Cheers to have lunch. We decided to then go to the Blue Hole or cenote, which is a hole filled with water that shines a brilliant blue.
This phenomenon is the result of an underground river meeting an above ground river. So we got there and realized we were not wearing our bathing suits, so we changed in the car (NOT an easy feat). We walked to the blue hole (and passed some changing rooms on the way – information that would’ve been helpful before) and found many other people there, which was reassuring, because god knows how deep this hole was. We went swimming in the rather chilly water, and it was sooooo refreshing. A family there had a tour guide with them and I overheard him saying that he was taught (in tour guide training) that the hole was created by a meteor millions of years ago, but that he doesn’t believe that because he knows that God created it.
We awoke early and had breakfast at the German Bakery with high hopes of having some good, strong coffee and yummy pastries. We scored on the pastries and completely missed on the coffee. We drove to the Belize Zoo, which is a natural treasure of Belize. All the animals at the zoo have been either rescued, found, or donated: none have been taken from their habitats, which we thought was nice. We parked the car and began loading up on sunscreen. Brian tried to make out with me in the car in the parking lot, and tried to convince me that it was okay since there was “nobody around.” I conceded, and about 30 seconds later, a gigantic tour bus pulled in and very white American tourists began disembarking. Brian started making fun of how uncool a couple of them were, and I had to remind him that he, too, was a very white American tourist and that he was barely cooler than them.
The zoo was wonderful and full of funny signage. (A zoo with humor = a zoomor). Amidst seeing really cool animals we’d never heard of, like curassows, we got stuck in a brief, yet torrential, downpour. While walking around the zoo grounds, we turned a corner and saw a giant alligator just sitting there on the sidewalk. We freaked out and ran away. After calming down for a minute, we deduced that there would never be a real alligator just wandering around the zoo and carefully, carefully turned the same corner again and realized that the alligator was fake. Yeah, we felt really dumb, but it made for a good laugh.
After the zoo, we stopped at a restaurant called Cheers to have lunch. We decided to then go to the Blue Hole or cenote, which is a hole filled with water that shines a brilliant blue.
This phenomenon is the result of an underground river meeting an above ground river. So we got there and realized we were not wearing our bathing suits, so we changed in the car (NOT an easy feat). We walked to the blue hole (and passed some changing rooms on the way – information that would’ve been helpful before) and found many other people there, which was reassuring, because god knows how deep this hole was. We went swimming in the rather chilly water, and it was sooooo refreshing. A family there had a tour guide with them and I overheard him saying that he was taught (in tour guide training) that the hole was created by a meteor millions of years ago, but that he doesn’t believe that because he knows that God created it.
After swimming, we went back to the hotel and went for dinner at the ever elusive Café Sol, which we finally found even though it didn’t have an address. After dinner, we had many many drinks at the hotel bar and took goofy pictures.
