ATM Tour, Guatemala, Belize Zoo & back to San Pedro

This past week has been absolutely amazing. I had some once in a lifetime experiences. On Wednesday we went to the ATM Tour. I don’t have pictures from it because you are not allowed to bring your camera and take pictures. The ATM Tour was the highlight of the trip for me. We drove about an hour to the mountain. On the way, we stopped at an orange field and picked some fresh oranges and ate them. The best orange I have ever had. We then got into the jungle and hiked for about 30 minutes until we got to the huge mountain/cave entrance.  We each had a helmet with a headlight attached to it so that we would be able to see inside the mountain. As soon as you enter the cave, you are in deep water and are swimming through the cave. You are walking/swimming through water for the rest of the time on the ground level of the cave. This experience was absolutely mind blowing. At one point, it was pitch dark and the tour guide told us to turn our head lights out and hold on to the person in front of us. We walked in the pitch dark for about 15 minutes and it was absolutely insane. All you could hear was water flowing through the cave and us walking through it. Being inside this cave was actually very relaxing. Not only did we walk through it, but we climbed the cave and squeezed through rocks to get to other parts of the cave. At one point, we climbed up the side of the cave and got to a higher level of the cave where there was a HUGE open area, similar to a ballroom. In this area we saw some pretty insane sights. We saw a lot of broken pieces of pottery and clay work. But the biggest surprise was that we saw real skeletons. At first we just saw a skull, which was a surprise to me, but as we walked on we came to a full skeleton of a teenage girl at the time. I could not take my eyes off of it! I have never seen such a sight. It was mind blowing. We were inside the cave for about 4 hours! Our tour guide was the best, he told us stories in so much detail and I learned a lot about the cave and the purpose it held. The ATM tour was amazing. On the way home, we got a flat tire unfortunately. We got it fixed though and as we were waiting, we got out of the car and looked at the stars. I have never seen a sky full of so many bright stars. There was no light pollution whatsoever where we were and it was absolutely beautiful.

Orange tree field

picking oranges

before entering ATM Cave

just holding machete's with one of our tour guides

flat tire:(

On Thursday, it was our free day and a group of us went to Guatemala. Best trip, so glad that I went. We went zip lining in a jungle near Tikal, but not normal zip lining. The guys let us do “superman,” which is when you are on your stomach with your legs and arms in the air, not holding on to the line. It was so exhilarating. Then we went to Tikal, where the biggest Mayan Ruins exist, and it was incredible. I thought Caracol was huge, but Tikal is massive. We explored and climbed the ruins for about 2.5 hours. The largest temple had the most beautiful view. I wish I had a panorama camera because I could of looked at that view forever. After Tikal, we drove to Flores, which is an island in Guatemala. Flores is so beautiful; a very laid back island with LOTS of shopping. This is where I did a TON of my souvenir shopping for my family and friends. One American dollar is equal to 2 Belize dollars. And 1 Belize dollar is equal to 3.5 Guatemala dollars (Quetal). So..1 American dollar is equal to 7 Quetal. Basically, I got a bang for my buck..Flores is the place to shop. And you need to bargain everywhere you go to get the price even lower. If only you could do that in America!

Friday we traveled back to San Pedro but on the way we stopped at the Belize Zoo while we were still inland. I saw so many exotic animals. The one that surprised me most though was the cheetah. It was so beautiful. I got a bunch of good shots of it. After the zoo we drove to Belize City, which is on the shore of Belize. From there, we took an hour and a half water taxi to our beautiful island of San Pedro. It has been great to be back here. Last week was one of the best, most adventurous times of my life. Every day we had some sort of amazing excursion. It is nice to be back in San Pedro and relax this weekend. It was a gorgeous weekend here and we spent it at the beach and pool. On Saturday, Kenly, Julia, and I went to the Kid’s Sailing Club practice to watch and hang out with them. Then, on Sunday, we went to their Sailing Race, which was so much fun to watch. The kid’s love it and I am excited to be doing my documentary on them.

toucan

jaguar

harpy eagle

San Pedro Kid's Sailing Club Race

We start teaching in the schools tomorrow for the next two weeks and I am really excited. I have not taught yet and am ready to start back up with the students. I have no idea what I am teaching this week but I guess I will find out in the morning. That will be very interesting.