Day 3: Belize!

Day 3 was the day I was looking forward to the most, it was pretty much the only reason I chose for us to go on this specific cruise. I've always had an interest in all parts of history so getting experience this place and hear about its history was great. This was one of our more expensive excursions at 95$ per person, and this excursion included lunch. With the exception of one tour guide with a nasty attitude, it was worth the money!

With this stop, we had the longest tender to shore, which really was no problem. It was a beautiful morning and the water was pretty calm. Once we got to shore we got on a big bus with everyone else that was going on the same excursion. It was a very long two and a half hour bus ride to where the Mayan ruins were, but we had two great tour guides that spent most of the time telling us loads of facts about Belize and sharing their history with us. Once we got to the area we all got off the bus and jumped onto three separate small vans and rode up the mountain to the ruins. Once we got there, we were joined by another tour guide who took over. She walked us around and told us more history all specific to the ruins. When we booked this excursion, we were under the impression that once we got there, we would just get to climb the ruins at our own leisurely pace and pretty much just explore on our own, which was not the case.

The tour guide started about telling us a general history of the ruins, what the name meant, and how some parts were obviously not the original structure. After talking for about 20 minutes she told us to go ahead and start climbing up, so we did and let me tell ups, those stairs are A LOT steeper than they look! Once we got up the main steps on the front we came to a sort of "landing" on the side and she stopped us again (more so yelled at us not to go any further). Here she told us what the carvings and designs on the side of the ruin meant and a few more history facts before telling us to go ahead and continue climbing.

After this we were free to finish climbing to the top, which for me was kind of tricky because being the person I am, I chose cute over sensible. Note to self, don't where sandals when climbing a ruin made of slick rock! All the climbing was made worth it when we got to the top and got to see the beautiful view. Xunatunich (best pronounced Tuna sandwich, as the guide said) is the second tallest Mayan ruin, and once you've made it to the top you can see Guatemala, which was super awesome!

We got to stay at the top for a little bit, the tour guide spent all the time at the top yelling at us to stay away from the edge and telling us how to get down. We eventually finished taking our pictures and made our way down. Once we got down, they told us a little more history before we just finished up and walked back down the vans. By this point we were kind of ready to get to lunch. Every time we asked the tour guide a question about Belize, she kind of just dismissed us most of the time so we just went on our way. After we took the vans back down, we got back on the bus and took a quick 10 minute ride around the corner to lunch which was pretty good!

Plantain, rice & beans, Chicken && Slaw. Don't forget all the hot sauce!

We ended up also grabbing some Ice cream for like 1$. It was made by the mennonites in the area (apparently theres a large community in Belize!). It was the weirdest tasting ice cream I've ever had, but A loved it. After we finished our ice cream, we hopped on the bus and road back to the dock and took the tender back to the ship. This was probably one of our longest and most exhausting days so we followed example of the first two days and pretty much went right to bed!

Next up, our final day on our Caribbean cruise! xo-B