Gaviota Coral Reef Resort Tobacco Caye

... nice enough, i still have all my limbs and Rebecca with me...
And then headed pretty much straight down to the coast in the south. At every bus station we changed at (3 in a country only 140km long!) i was the centre of attention. Belize is a slice of the carribean in central america. English is their first language with a heavy Creole influence. Hand shakes that take an instruction manual to decipher, So much Nike air jordan that you feel you are back in the 90s and of course as ...

This weekend we went to Tobacco Caye which is just a 30 min boat ride away from Dangriga. Having been told that the last boat left at midday we arrived at the dock at 11:30 to be told there wouldn't be a boat until 3 (!) Having left the hospital early we didn’t really want tot hang around in Dangriga for a few more hours and so started asking around (there are a number of Captains who take people across and there is a standard $35 rate ...

... after 7 p.m. last night to watch their television and free movies. There are 2 bars which people hang out in, the Sunset, on Tobacco Caye Lodge's property or Reef's End Lodge's bar at the well, reef's end of the island. Most everyone liked the Sunset, it's bright orange and open all around out onto the dock.

Like Cheers, living on Tobacco Caye is like being in the middle of a sitcom with its own cast of characters.

- George, the defacto 'President ...

... didn't get much better though when our guide Edgar started to regale us with tales of a people falling off the ledge, breaking ribs and needing to be carried out by 11 guides to the hospital. Edgar and Arnold's stories of flies that lay live larvae inside you wasn't doing much for our hot, humid, bug filled 1.5 hour hike through dense jungle.

Let's be very frank, I have more than a slight disliking for bugs since ...

... of danger just to be that close to real lava. As everyone can imagine it was super hot and you had to be careful about your shoes. Some of the highlights included roasting marshmellows (no marshmellow will ever top that one), trying to stay away from the really hot rocks, yelling at the IDIOT who decided to throw a firecracker onto the lava right beside me and screaming at the guy who, while trying to take his own picture, almost had the lava roll down ontop of him ...

... which by comparison made Tobacco Caye look positively vast! Carrie Bow Caye is owned by a wealthy New York family who for the past 30 years or so have leased the island to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC. Of the two buildings on the Caye, the main one is used by visiting biologists, who come to study the marine life of the surrounding reef and mangroves. We were invited to look around the facility ...

... you all!!! - Brianne Side Note from the Leaders: The girls really did fantastic today. They slowly, but surely, became more and more comfortable with the kids who were following us and started giving high fives and making friends. By the end of the hour, most of them had a child in their arms or holding their hand. We were eaten alive by mosqitoes but the girls have barely complained, they are true ...

... the premier flats fishing grounds of the Caribbean. I feel extremely privileged to have been in the company of Cody Kittleman and to have felt the excitement as he introduced me to his passion of fly-fishing. I have always enjoyed fishing and have spent a lot of time fishing with my dad. Fly fishing is truly an art form and although I quickly picked up the fluid motion of the arch, I can certainly appreciate how difficult this sport is to master. Your sight must be trained to ...

... using machetes and the girls practising raking sand, hehe cracks me up. Didn't get up to heaps else exciting this week except for going out for a yum three-course Valentines dinner (minus mine and Jodie's and Kathryn's boys boohoo). Jono bought all his wifeys chocolate hearts for Valentines Day how sweet, bought Nicola a fake rose too though talk about favouritism!