20th Anniversary in Belize!

Michael and I celebrated our 20th anniversary by taking a special trip to beautiful Belize.  We spent half of the week at Chaa Creek in a thatch hut in the jungle, and then the second half on the beach of Ambergris Caye.  It was a glorious trip in all respects, and we thank my mom for coming up to stay with the boys while we were away.  I took hundreds of photos, but here is a compilation of a few highlights.

While in the jungle, we stayed in a little hut on the edge of the resort.  It was simply stunning, with a thatch roof and screened windows.

It had a lovely hammock on the porch, and it was so relaxing to lounge out there while listening to the howler monkeys and other jungle creatures!

Chaa Creek has a butterfly farm that we visited and learned all about the gorgeous Blue Morpho butterfly.

Their pool is stunning... and with the humidity, it was a refreshing way to spend an afternoon.

For an excursion, we visited the Maya ruin, Xunantunich (pronounced "shoo-NAN-too-nitch").  It was raining the day we visited which made for some treacherous climbing... fortunately, everyone remained on their feet.

On another excursion, we toured Barton Creek cave - a Maya ceremonial cave - by canoe.  We meandered about a mile into the mountain where the only light came from our headlamps.  There were bats everywhere and it was definitely one of those "mind over matter" moments for me.

We did a lot of hiking on the Chaa Creek property and here is one of the beautiful views we came across:

We also went on a bird walk and with the help of our keen guide, we saw this toucan.  Now, I must tell you that this photograph was actually taken through a telescope!  The bird was a few hundred yards away and BARELY even visible to the naked eye!  It's amazing how our guide spotted him!

Here's another photo taken through the telescope - these huge lizards were everywhere!

Another fun lizard we saw was nicknamed the "Jesus Christ" lizard... he is pictured below.  They call him that because he can walk on water.  We saw this guy run across the grass and it was quite a sight!  He actually gets up on his two back feet and just runs like the wind!

Some of the nice guys working on the property cut down a fresh coconut for us and opened it up so we could have a taste of fresh coconut water... yum!

We met a wonderful couple while we were at Chaa Creek - David and Jamie.  They are actually from Colorado Springs, believe it or not!  We hung out with them quite a bit, including a late-night nature walk where we discovered that Jamie is deathly afraid of spiders.  (and it's a shame that that was basically all we saw during that walk!)

For our last day in the jungle, Michael and I took a canoe and paddled on up to the town of San Ignacio where we browsed the city streets and had some lunch.

Our last evening happened to be our actual anniversary, and we enjoyed a quiet evening in the dining hut.  Chaa Creek was truly a beautiful place!!

The next morning, we checked out and headed back to the airport to catch our "puddle-jumper" over to Ambergris Caye.

This was the photo from my seat - directly behind the pilot!

We stayed the first couple of nights in San Pedro at Ramon's Village in this "honeymoon suite."

We booked a snorkel cruise one day and had a blast looking at all the marine wildlife.

One evening, we went to the bar where they have the famous "Chicken Drop..."  This is where folks bet upon which number the chicken will poop.  We didn't win, but that's okay, because the winner has to clean up said poop.  :)

We took many walks up and down the beach, enjoying the views.

I was fascinated by all of the little hermit crabs I found, but I have to show you the most intriguing of all!  Look at how TEENY TINY they are!!

For our last 24 hours in Belize, we ended up renting a golf cart to explore the rest of the island.  While driving around, we came across this little piece of paradise and fell in love!

Being the spontaneous folks we are, we checked out of Ramon's and moved into this place - the Grand Caribe!

 We got a one bedroom condo that was out of this world!!

 Note the romantic swans...

I won't bore you with more photos, but suffice it to say that the bathroom was like none I've ever seen!  

More walks along the beach... we did this a lot.  Walked for miles and miles!  And we were rewarded with views like this...

One evening, we walked down to a restaurant on the water and while we were walking, we ran across several blue crabs like this one:

Since it was dark, and we only had a flashlight, the crabs would startle us and jump out right in front of our path!  It was very entertaining - for Michael, mostly, as I continued to shriek each time!

And on our very last morning in Belize, we got up very early to watch the sunrise.  It was amazing... and a perfect ending to a simply glorious trip.

 20 years... and still living the dream!