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.