Monday, December 23

We drove from Hopkins up the Southern Highway, got $20 of gas (uh, that was like 2 gallons L) at the Shell station on the Hummingbird Highway.  Full service.  We then made our way towards the Blue Hole National Park, paid the entrance fee, and saw the spring. 

Then we went to the Visitor’s center, rented 4 head lamps, and walked down to the lowland trail to St Herman’s cave.  The boys descended all the way down into the cave as far as unguided folks can go, while I kept watch basically at the mouth of the cave. 

No bats, only a few birds, a river, and mosquitoes.  After they returned, we ascended again and took the Highland Trail back to the Visitor’s Center.  Beautiful overlooking views of the jungle. Curtis and the guys spotted what they thought was a coati, which is a raccoon like animal that is brown with a very long tail.  According to the GPS, there is a geocache located at the Visitor’s Center area.  Couldn’t find it anywhere there, and with the coordinates given and we weren’t about to go back to the entrance of the cave.  We returned to the truck with exceptionally muddy shoes – all of us…until they are cleaned off, we won’t be wearing them again!

We drove through Belmopan, through the area where the Embassies and government offices are located.  We found the very nice and big US embassy compound, found some nice houses, saw the Costa Rican, Salvadoran, Brazilian embassies and/or the homes associated with them.  Filled the truck up to just over ¾ full at the Shell station there on the Ring Road for $80.00!!! We drove on to the Western Highway, headed to San Ignacio in the Cayo district and the landscape began to change into rolling hills, mountains, trees, etc.  Along the way, we stopped at The Orange Gallery – a gift shop that we’ll stop at again on our way out on 12/27…..great woodworking items, jewelry, souvenirs, etc.  Another ½ hour and we were in Santa Elena, then found that the wooden bridge across the river we were supposed to take was out…on purpose, we discovered later, so we continued on til we found the metal suspension bridge.  Then, just like that, we were in San Ignacio. A lot of traffic going across that one lane bridge in both directions.  We got our bearings sort  of….then accidentally found the road that   led us up the hill to the Cahal Pech Village Resort.

We have a family suite with 2 bedrooms and a sitting area for 4 nights.  Older  resort, but overall, very nice! Dinner on the terrace was nice atmosphere, and my food good – Cinnamon Chicken with  curried mashed potatoes and vegetable medley.  Glenn had Chicken Cordon Bleu with vegetable rice. It was also very good. Curtis, on the other hand, had the Bacon Marinara pasta. It wasn’t quite what he expected. So he opted to get some chicken wings…which came with BBQ sauce. That didn’t work out too good either. Timothy had plain chicken wings and hamburger sliders…which had mayo…which didn’t work out too good, either. Lesson learned: food in a foreign country may end up being…foreign.  I've challenged them to each try 5 different things....they are both up to, well, one item...good grief!