Saturday, March 14, 2015

2015 Spring Break Cruise

Philip and I decided to getaway for awhile aboard this Norwegian Jewel cruise ship for Spring Break.  
We left out of Houston and sailed for a day and a half to our first stop, Cozumel. In Cozumel we had an excursion booked for driving dune buggies through a jungle to Jade Caverns.  The trail was too dirty to take our camera but here's a glimpse of  what we looked like afterwards. 
We cleaned up a little and found an authentic Mexican food restaurant (recommended to us by our excursion driver) just off the main tourist strand in Cozumel.  
It was interesting to say the least! But with pretty bland food, no air conditioning, very little lighting, and no one seeming to notice a dog just passing through, it's not a place I would recommend. ;) you live and you learn!
Tuesday morning we woke up in Belize! 
We went snorkeling on the Angel Ray boat early in the morning.  The crew was fantastic, so was the rum punch, which could be why I thought we were in Brazil most the day! After snorkeling they took us to starfish beach, a small private beach where we spent time enjoying the beautiful blue ocean! Here's a picture of me picking up a starfish, right after this I moved my foot and a big crab scurried over it, I got out of that water so fast!
Once back in Belize City, we ate lunch and found a chocolate store where they made chocolate!  The scent was almost overwhelming when we first walked in.  
They have machines they use to process the cocoa beans that were behind glass but these rocks and cocoa beans on display.  We got a drink and chocolate samples before reboarding the ship. 

Wednesday morning we woke up to a beautiful sunrise with the gorgeous green mountains of banana coast Honduras. This is a brand new port that cruise ships have just recently started visiting.  One lady explained it as what the Caribbean was like 20 years ago.  
We took a non-airconditioned bus to an environmentally protected river.  Here are a couple fb pictures from the drive:
Our tour guide explained to us that school children attend school from 8am-6pm, but walk home for lunch.  We saw many children not in school clothes but shirtless and without shoes playing with sticks on dirt roads.  After a lil of my own research I learned that 
- 65% of the country is illiterate
-only about 12% of students in Honduras who finish 6th grade go onto middle school. 
-fewer than 2% of Hondurans ever go to Universidad 
- the unemployment rate in Trujillo is about 70%


So strange to see so many adults,men and women sitting around or laying in hammocks instead of at work.  Many families here still farm for a living, I suspect with the new tourist $ coming in it won't be like that for much longer. 
The kayak trip was great! We stayed at the front of the group with our tour guide for most the way and he asked us if we exercised, which was funny because I suppose he thought we were good kayakers which meant we must work out.  We did go to the gym one morning while on our cruise :) While kayaking we watched fish jumping out of the water and these great big birds dive straight down (seriously completely vertical) to catch fish in the water.  We also saw what out our guide called "water ducks." In my head I thought aren't all ducks "water ducks," but these ducks can go under water for a long time and when their necks come back up it looks like a cobra rising out of the water.  
Each evening the enertainment on the cruise ship was wonderful!  We went to the shows nearly every evening, and I spent one evening up on stage with the comedian/magician, Jean Pierre Parent, not by volunteering.  Philip videoed the show, and it's pretty hilarious, but I think it's too long to share here, if I can figure out how to post just a clip of it I will.  

So thankful for a relaxing getaway with my favorite person! 













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