Anna's Visit

My amazing friend Anna came to visit me for a week at the end of August. We are great Peace Corps travel buddies. We met my freshmen year of college when she was my RA and lived across the hall. She served as a volunteer in Cape Verde and I visited her in 2007 and she visited me in Burkina Faso in 2009. I wonder where we'll meet up in 2013? She worked at Peace Corps headquarters in DC until recently so knew some of the staff here in Belize. Therefore our first stop after she arrived was at the PC office. We then travelled on to Cayo for a couple days.

The next day we took a tour to Caracol, the largest, most impressive Mayan ruins in Belize. This is considered one of the Big Four of Mayan ruins throughout Mexico and Central America. Not many people visit here though because until recently, it was nearly impossible to reach. A few years ago, the road was fixed up a bit and a part of it is paved due to the frequency of it being washed out. Even with the improved road, it was a three hour drive in a private vehicle to reach the site. It was a beautiful drive though that included going through the Mountain Pine Ridge National Reserve, one of the only areas in the region where you will find a pine forest. We also passed a few abandoned villages. It was strange because it looked like one day everyone just got up and left. The houses seemed in pretty good shape and were just left there. The guide explained that the villages were built when there were many loggers in the area and when this work was prohibited, everyone moved out of the reserve.

At the ruins, I was stunned at the size. Only a part of this ancient city has been excavated but they had a model showing what they believed was there. Even with only a part of the buildings visible, it was obviously much larger than any of the other sites I've visited. There were plenty of temples and other buildings to climb around on. I'm afraid to admit this is my favorite part of visiting ruins - the taller, the better and Caracol was the tallest I've seen in Belize! We took a long tour around the area to learn about the city that thrived here over a thousand years ago.

On the ride home from the ruins, we made several stops to visit natural wonders. This included a large cave that was more like a tunnel. We walked along the side to enter the huge cave and could see the large opening in the back. We also stopped at a series of natural pools and small waterfalls. Unfortunately it had been raining a lot so these were flooded and not nearly as beautiful as some of the pictures I've seen. Finally we stopped at a large sinkhole.

The following day I took Anna to Cahel Pech, a smaller Mayan ruins in San Ignacio so she could compare it to Caracol and understand just how impressive the first site was. We then travelled home to Dangriga for a couple days. Another day I took her to the Blue Hole, one of my favorite sites here. We walked into St Herman's Cave only to find it was flooded. I was very confused because all of the sudden the path was cut off by a river. Its pitch dark inside the cave and my flashlight wasn't very bright so I couldn't figure out where to go. Finally we realized it was flooded and we couldn't go any farther. We then hiked to the Blue Hole to find it flooded as well. On that day, Blue Hole was not an appropriate name. Instead of the gorgeous blue clear water thats usually there, it was several feet higher and green and murky. I've been here numerous times and never seen it like this so it was quite the shock.

For a final few days, we went out to Tobacco Caye which I had visited previously with my parents. This small island is just off the coast of Dangriga and is reached by an hour ride in a speed boat. We were the only guests there as its low season so had complete privacy. Unfortunately the snorkeling wasn't as great as I remember as there had been green algae blooms and the visibility wasn't great. We did enjoy laying in hammocks and relaxing all day.

I love having visitors here in Belize and showing my friends and family this beautiful country that I can call home. I think Anna was my last visitor before I leave unless any of you are still interested in coming. Let me know if you want to plan a trip before January! I'd love to host you!

Short Update

I know I haven't written in a long time. I feel like my life is pretty boring these days. I don't have much going on with work now and I've mostly just been hanging out.

I wrote a while back about the HFLE (Health & Family Life Education) training of trainers that I helped plan and facilitate. About a month ago we had the second part of this activity; the participants from the first training taught the material to other teachers in our district. It went pretty well and now another group of teachers is more prepared to teach this curriculum to their students. Schools started on Monday so hopefully they will begin using the materials and lesson plans we shared with them.

Belize faced its first storm of the year a couple weeks ago. Tropical Storm Harvey made landfall in Dangriga Town, Belize though I never would have known it. Peace Corps was overly prepared for the approaching storm. We received frequent updates that it was coming days before it hit and all the volunteers on the coast or in the southern part of the country were consolidated in Belmopan the day before. The day of the storm, it rained all morning but wasn't too crazy. We were expecting it to hit mid-afternoon so when winds and rains picked up we thought it was the outer bands of the storm. It started to clear up and nobody knew what happened. We thought we were possibly in the eye of the storm. Well it stopped raining and the skies cleared. Turns out that was the whole storm. There was a lot of flooding in Belmopan including in the Peace Corps office but not much damage. Two tornadoes were spotted throughout the country which was all over the news here. Nobody remembers every seeing a tornado before in Belize, let alone two. When I returned to Dangriga the next afternoon, I was surprised to really not see any damage. I guess there were a few trees that fell and a couple shacks that were knocked down but nothing serious. I guess it was a good practice storm because we're all still expecting more for the year as September is usually the busiest time of the year.

September is also holiday season here. This Saturday is National Day and Sept 21 is Independence Day so everyone is in a festive mood and ready to party. I hear the days involve parades and lots of drinking.

That is about all thats been going on here. I'm down to about four months of service left and am starting to think about whats next. Will keep you all updated!