Tom, Lyanda, and Claire

Tom, Lyanda, and Claire from Washington State stayed at the Belize Zoo’s Tropical Education Center (TEC) when they first arrived here in Belize. We recommend this to anyone who is flying into Belize late in the afternoon and would like to do the day and night tours to see ALL of the animals. They loved their stay and especially liked the night tour when the guide got the howler monkeys going.

I picked them up in the middle of the day after they had eaten lunch at the TEC prepared by Ms. Muriel, their queen of the kitchen. We returned to the farm where they got the quick tour of where things are located and then they headed up to Rio On Pools for a nice relaxing swim and climbing on the rocks. Claire, a good swimmer and adventurous around the water, found a few of the natural water slides to try out.

The following morning the family went on a ½ day horseback ride with Joe Tzul, touring some local small caves, back jungle trails, and small creeks and waterfalls. In the afternoon they all went up to Big Rock to test out the deeper pools (than Rio On) and larger rocks to jump from. They had the site to themselves so Tom had to set up his camera and
dash to his position to get full family portraits!

After a few pretty full days of adventures they decided to take their next day a little easier so they ventured about a mile up the road to the Butterfly Ranch. Claire wore a very colorful summer dress and flowers in her hair to attract the butterflies. One thing that we have to remind our guests of is not to wear bug spray and suntan lotion to butterfly gardens since they are sensitive to the chemicals. In the afternoon, Lyanda decided that she would like to wander around the property to do some bird watching (she had worked with raptors in the past in Vermont) while Tom, Claire and I went back up to Big Rock (by popular vote) for swimming again. This trip to the falls I showed them some different rocks to jump from, how to get up into the smaller pool near the large falls, and we all swam to the base of the falls. You have to be a good swimmer to make it in but Claire showed she was strong and made it all the way to the base of the falls.

Their final morning they all ate a hardy meal in preparation for their journey to Tikal. They opted to have me drive them to the Guatemala border where the crossed, found a taxi driver, and set off to experience the sunrise tour at Tikal the following morning. After Tikal they were scheduled to go to Caye Caulker to round out their trip with some ocean swimming and snorkeling.