unBELIZEable part 1

When I travel I’m a huge nerd and keep a journal. In all the chaos leading up to our honeymoon I didn’t even get a new one nor did I even think of it until the trip was almost over. I’m bummed so I’m going to try and remember it all now:


Day one: e-a-r-l-y flight. But we made it to Belize and waited about 40 minutes for our puddle jumper to San Pedro. There were a handful of other newlywed couples waiting for flights but no one was staying at our hotel. There was an older couple who was going to Victoria House—this made me nervous since we both had anticipated going out and doing something with at least one other couple one night…or more! The little plane was hilarious and hot. We flew over the like bay and pulled in on a concrete runway to a dilapidated shack and dirt baggage claim area. We jumped in a taxi with the other couple and giddily scoped the landscape until we got to Victoria House.

Once we got to the hotel we were given a delicious fruit drink and shown to our room. Gorgeous! Small but exceptional and we had a private balcony overlooking the grounds. We stripped down and put on bathing suits (dirty minded people!) and toured the hotel property. AWESOME! Then we napped by the pool.

Mark made a reservation for Sunset Grill, we were still on our wedding high and had a great dinner though the food was less than stellar. I had shrimp for the first time in ages and it was good. I think the bottle of wine was a help in eating that.

Day two: Pool day. All day, we ate breakfast at the hotel and we took a bike ride up over the bridge. It was so early that none of the restaurants/bars were open on that side of the bridge. The bridge was about 2 miles from our hotel and it was 86% humidity on top of being in the 80s. but it was actually pretty cool to just tool around like that. After the long ride we cooled off then got hot again and laid out while mapping out the rest of our vacation. Dinner was at The Tackle Box. Local joint by the water taxi station that was actually pretty good. Not sure if we were still tired from the wedding or not but we went back to the hotel, played some Rummikub (score! We saw this at lunch and were so pumped!) and went to bed. It was like 8:30.

Crap I’m on day two and not remembering—boo! Wait, I’m remembering (I went back and filled it in!)


Day three: Snorkel trip to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Absolutely amazing trip, we saw so many different fish and in pretty deep water. For some reason I was FREEZING while we snorkeled, maybe it’s because my back was slowly frying into a gorgeous shade of crimson. While in Shark Ray Alley we definitely saw lots of nurse sharks and when I jumped off the boat I managed to land on a Sting Ray that had been chilling UNDER the boat until the moment I decided to plop in. Mark got a big kick out of that. I should have reminded him that Steve Irwin was probably laughing about sting rays too!


The other couple on our tour, Kristin and Hamilton, was a super fun couple from Chattanooga. Hamilton’s parents were originally going to take the trip but couldn’t make it at the last minute so they left their four(!) kids with the neighbors and came down instead. They were very fun loving and so nice—so nice in fact we were pumped to find out they were going fishing the next day too and booked the same trip. Once back on dry land we decided some adult beverages would be nice. So we had a few and split a delicious blackened grouper sandwich. Then we met another newlywed couple who we decided were pretty fun. We made plans to go out that night after dinner with Wade and Betsy.

Tackle Box was the meeting point and also where somehow we decided to forgo dinner. Next stop was some bar, with no people at it. We took a drunken golf cart ride to hotel (thanks Betsy) while searching for food since we skipped dinner. Stopped at Karaoke bar near hotel hoping for food, again no clue on the name, and there was no food. Betsy sang that song by Four Non Blondes. I couldn’t tell you how it goes at the moment. But Mark was singing it in the shower the next morning and didn’t know why. HA!

Day four: Deep sea fishing day. I started with a hearty breakfast of Huevos Rancheros. My stomach wasn’t 100% since we were out late and drinking the night before. I wasn’t too sure how this boat ride was going to settle that at all. So I pulled the trigger. But after emptying out the Huevos Rancheros I knew there was more and it was only a matter of time before that wanted to come out too. I was seriously debating skipping the tour but I so, so, so wanted to go. So I did.


That “matter of time” turned out to be about 7 minutes. At that point I heaved so violently over the edge of the boat I couldn’t breathe. Awesome. Mark tried to give me some water, Kristin suggested Coke so the bubbles would settle my stomach and she kept saying, Sara I’m so sorry. I had to let her know it was 100% my fault as I can’t recall EVER being sea sick. Neat. I took a nap and laid down in the shade for about 94% of the trip. When I did try to fish I wasn’t quite ready and gave my seat to someone else. Hamilton then proceeded to catch four fish in a row. I then felt better and fished some more with no luck. Now my sweet groom fished for an hour while I napped and chatted with whomever was sitting out. Then he heaved for quite some time as he claimed to suffer from seasickness. Oh well, we had a blast anyway!!

I felt perfectly fine on our way back in and once we were on land, so did Mark. Light lunch and then some relaxing on our private balcony. The cool thing about catching fish on the trip is that the hotel chef would prepare it for dinner. So we ate in the restaurant which was quite good and it was fun to eat our catch of the day. Sort of “ours” anyway! We took the Rummy game up to our room and had the delicious molten chocolate volcano dessert sent up. SO delicious.