June 2010 Trip to Bellize

On June 5, 2010 my daughter, Landra, and I leave for an 8 day excursion to Belize. While the trip is a business trip for me, we hope to get in at least 3 days of site seeing. I have been to Belize over a dozen times since 1997 but this will be Landra's first trip south of Florida. She has been to England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, and Taiwan but nowhere south of Florida. Ironically Katie, my younger daughter will be in Peru while we are in Belize. Sadly, Gayle will be minding the store in good old Albany while we are tripping south of the border. She was invited but could not commit to the week off of work.

We will be flying Delta, which now has a direct flight to Belize City. From there it will be a two hour drive into the Mountain Pine Ridge near San Ignatio in the Cayo District. I will post pictures and comments during our trip and hope to see and show Landra the following in no particular order:

1) Caracol - one of the oldest Mayan ruins in Central America
2) Rio Frio Cave - a creek runs through the middle of this 1/4 mile long and 100 ft high cave
3) Belize Zoo - jaguars and tapir and howler monkeys oh my!
4) 1000 Foot Falls aka Hidden Valley Falls and yes it is over 1000 feet down
5) Butterfly Falls - the most spectacular waterfall I have ever seen which includes the falls at Yosemite
6) The Cayes of Belize - either Ambergris or Caye Cauker
7) Peter's house - one of the coolest houses I have ever seen built on the edge of a mountain with picture window literally in the shower overlooking a scenic view of most of northern Belize.
8) Hidden Valley Inn - probably one of the nicer resorts in Belize: http://www.hiddenvalleyinn.com

Hopefully we will get to eat fresh mango, pineapple, papaya, pigmy bananas, and try some fresh grown hand picked, dried, and roasted coffee from the coffee plantation on site.