Honeymoon! Jungle Week

For our second week, we made our way into the heart of the Belizean jungle, with a stop on the way to ride inner tubes on an river through enormous caves.  We stayed at the beautiful Black Rock Ecolodge, which was only accessible by a 45 minute drive from the highway, on one of the bumpiest roads we've ever experienced.  Due to the remote nature of the lodge, meals were served communally in an amazing open air deck.  The natural surroundings were conducive to lots of relaxing, reading, and hammock swinging in our riverside bungalow.  We did partake in a few more energetic activities at the lodge, including, hiking, tubing down the river rapids, canoeing, horseback riding, and some close encounters with rabies!

There was beauty and culture beyond the lodge as well. The highlight and most difficult day trip was to Actun Tunichil Muknal(ATM). After a short mile hike you spend nearly three hours spelunking through water until you reach artifacts and actual human remains of the Mayan people. We also took a day trip to Tikal in Guatemala, one of the largest archaeological sites from pre-Columbian Maya civilization, which was informative and impressive but didn't hold a candle to ATM. 

To close out the trip we drank too much wine on our last night, struggled through the bumpy car ride & Ziplined across the jungle before boarding our plane home. 

 Honeymoon - Belize Photo Gallery

Honeymoon! Beach Week

After arriving in Belize City we took a puddle jumper for a brief 15-minute flight to Ambergris Caye.  We stayed for a few nights in a cabana at the lovely Victoria House resort, which was beautiful and relaxing, although the service was a little too good (they insisted on doing everything for us, almost to the point of spoon-feeding)!  We slaved the days away lounging by the pool, drinking fancy cocktails, and getting couples massages, but soon found ourselves growing restless.  So we kick things up a little, by jet skiing up the coast as well as doing a snorkel trip to Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley.  We saw an abundance of beautiful sea life, including nurse sharks, sting rays, sea turtles, eels, lobster, and all sorts of fish. 

Later in the week, we migrated to more modest accommodations at Caribbean Villas Resort, which included a kitchen so we could prepare a few meals on our own.  This was our home base while we went on several amazing dives, after which Jess became officially certified as an open-water diver (and Gil got a much-needed refresher after a 10-year hiatus)!  We spent the remainder of our week on the Caye enjoying excellent seafood, and there were only a handful of meals that didn't include some form of lobster.  We even took a day trip to nearby Caye Caulker for the annual Lobster Fest, and although we endured some minor injuries cracking open the spiny shells with our bare hands, it was a small price to pay for the deliciousness contained within.  After a week of thoroughly enjoying our fun in the sun, we took the smallest plane ever back to the mainland, for our jungle excursion.