Recently we returned from our second Lindblad/National Geographic expedition, to Belize and Guatemala. For the Belize portion, we were on the Quest and sailed the coast and cayes of Belize for five days.
As with our Alaska experience, everything was top notch on board – in fact, I liked the Quest even better. It’s slightly larger (though still small by most standards, at just about 100 passengers) and newer; our cabin had a double bed and a balcony, and the lounge and dining room were more modern and spacious.
The food was really excellent, lots of variety and great flavors – think jerk chicken, Moroccan cous cous, fish with green curry. There were always lots of vegetables, homemade breads, and fresh baked cookies at lunch.
One thing I missed compared to the Sea Lion in Alaska: because of the nature of the itinerary, we never spent time on the bow as in Alaska since there wasn’t much interesting to see and besides, it was too hot!
Instead, we went out on excursions each day: exploring Monkey River by small boat, shuttling by Zodiac to offshore cayes for snorkeling, or heading inland to a wildlife sanctuary.
My favorite stop was Ranguana Caye, a 2 acre private island with a few colorful buildings, a swath of white sand beach, and fabulous reefs all around.
The snorkeling was really great here, and I also enjoyed poking around the island and trying out different seats!
The crew always unloaded kayaks and stand-up paddleboards for us, and I had my first successful stand-up paddleboard in the ocean (vs my prior experience on a very quiet lake). It was definitely more challenging to deal with the ocean waves, not to mention trying to avoid taking out any of my fellow passengers snorkeling all around me!
On another day we headed into the little beach town of Placencia for a trip to the Cockscomb Basin Forest Preserve, an important jaguar sanctuary. No, we didn’t see any jaguars!
But we did see lots of beautiful tropical forest, and my favorite sight of the whole trip – leaf cutter ants!!
Here they are in action, basically an ant superhighway that stretched as far as I could see; I could have watched them for hours!
On the way out of the preserve we stopped at the Mayan village (now home to the couple dozen families who voluntarily left their lands in order to enable creation of the preserve, and relocated to its edge) to shop for handicrafts and… chocolate! Yep, about as bean-to-bar as you can get, though very prone to melting. The dark chocolate with ginger was delicious, even if a bit misshapen by the time I ate it back on the ship.
Ahoy for now!
Making wagashi
Among the glaciers in Alaska
Thinking of Japan
Cafe Versailles, Miami airport
Wow, Jen. This one is terrific – even without a lot of edible photos! Captured the moments!!