Today our ship docked at sea a few miles away from the port. We waited in a ridiculously long line to get on one of the tenders to take us to the port. Since there was already another cruise ship tendering at the same time it took us an hour just to get on one of the tenders leaving from our ship. It wasn't an ideal way to start the day since we had booked an excursion and knew that we were going to be late in meeting our tour guides. Lucky for us our tour guide was at the port waiting for us. We weren't the only ones who booked through them and there were other people late just like us. After finally getting on the bus we headed out to the jungle in Belize to try zip lining and cave tubing. Belize was poor and run down just like Roatan. It was another eye opening bus ride for all of us. After 45 minutes on the bus we stopped at a convenient store so the guides could pick up some water for all of us. Water in Belize is not packaged in bottles like it is in the US. They package their water in plastic type bags. To drink the water you just bite off the corner and squeeze it in your mouth. Our kids thought that was the best thing ever. The bus ride took us a little over an hour to get to our destination. Since we were already running a bit behind we had to hurry over to the zip-line. Zip lining was definitely the highlight of our day. We were a little worried about Abby and how she would handle it. After the first trial run we knew she would be ok. We hiked uphill quite a ways to get to the 2nd run. From there we zip lined another 7 times from tree to tree and over rivers and creeks. It was absolutely amazing. We wished we could have done it twice.
After we got back to the buses we took off our outer clothes and headed in our swim suits to get our lifejackets for our cave tubing adventure. We hiked with our group about a mile up the trail to the head off the river and the beginning of the caves. Since our group was large we were short one guide. Apparently there are always local guides to take groups down the river. We were the "lucky" ones to get the local guide. He was absolutely nuts. Half way through the cave he just let us go and told us to push off the rocks assuming that we could just steer the 6 tubes that were tied together. Mike shared a tube with Abby, I shared a tube with Emma, and the boys each got their own tube. There was also an older couple that took the last two tubes in the back. As we were pushing off the walls of the cave one of the back tubes popped. The guide gave the old lady his ghetto tube and tried to help her but he was completely useless and totally off his knocker. We did enjoy floating through the cave during the parts where we could see openings in the top of the cave. It really was beautiful. If we hadn't had a crazy guide and weren't worried about getting back to the bus so we could get back to the port on time I'm sure we would have had more fun. As it was, our cave tubing excursion seemed a bit rushed. The entire bus ride home we were worried we would miss the last tender. As soon as the bus pulled into the port we breathed a sigh of relief when we realized there were TONS of people still waiting to get on the last tender. It was a crazy day.
