Belize it or not, we swam with a manatee!

Sleep deprived from several nights spent sweating instead of snoozing, we boarded a chicken bus to Belize City.  The bus was packed with folks headed to an "Agricultural Fair", which from the street seemed to be the equivalent of a state fair, so we had to sit with our bags in our laps.  It was hot, but the bus was using the latest in AC technology, Model 4-50, which is four windows down driving at 50mph.  (People love telling that joke down here.)

From the Belize City bus station we got in a cab for a quick ride to the water taxi terminal, and soon were on our way to Caye Caulker.  There are lots of cayes in Belize (pronouced "key"), but Caye Caulker is the favorite of the backpacker set.  The town was surprisingly empty, it turns out May is a quiet season caught between the dryer weather of April and the beginning of summer vacations in June.  We happily splurged on a room with air conditioning, and since it was off-season were able to negotiate the rate from $60 a night down to $35.  This was still a big splurge on our $50 a day budget, but we didn´t regret it for a minute.

When we arrived the island was in the middle of a huge windstorm, which kepts things comfortably cool but stirred up sediment in the water so made for less desirable snorkelling or diving.  So we spent several days napping and walking along the beach and watching the sunrises and sunsets, and didn´t begrudge the wind for a second.  When it finally died down we scheduled a snorkelling tour of the barrier reef (second in size only to the one in Australia I believe).  We got in the boat with a pair of Aussie girls, and took a 25 minute boat ride down the reef.  As soon as we pulled up, a six foot long nurse shark passed under our boat in water that was only four or five feet deep.  As soon as we got in the water, a school of jackfish and a gigantic grouper swam through us.  We went to four different sites, and we saw just about everything we could have hoped for, including a frenzy of feeding nurse sharks, green turtles, a moray eel, sting rays almost as big as me, a school of barracuda, porcupine fish, puffer fish, a parrotfish as big as my torso, and even a manatee (otherwise known as the sea cow).  Our driver saw a boat cleaning their fish over the side, so stopped to let us watch the feeding going on underneath the boat.  A huge swarm of sting ray and even a huge spotted eagle ray were swarming around, and right in the middle was a gigantic Loggerhead Turtle.  I was amazed by the size of the turtle, and just as I was thinking "I could easily fit my entire fist in its mouth" it turned and swam right towards me.  I backpedaled furiously (we were only about ten feet away) and crashed into one of the Aussies behind me, but just as it reached me it decided it wasn´t done with the fish guts and turned around and went back into the frenzy.  I´m willing to bet turtle attacks are relatively rare, but still.

Our day of snorkelling was so successful we decided we didn´t need to go out for a dive, which would have been fun, but I´m pretty sure we just would have seen more of the same.  (The exception being the famed Blue Hole, but we´ll save that for next time.)  Caye Caulker is a great spot that I´d recommend to anyone that is ready to live by the local motto, "Go slow". 

This morning though we took the water taxi back to the mainland and took a shuttle back to Flores in Guatemala.  Our travel was delayed for a half hour when traffic suddenly halted to allow a funeral procession to march over a mile down the road - the highway! - to the cemetary.  It was a full military funeral with lots of people in uniform and even a marching band.  Our driver was extremely frustrated, but it was kind of interesting for us.  Tomorrow morning we are headed to another jungle lodge in what is billed as the "most beautiful spot in Guatemala".  I never trust hype, but I´m sure it will be a nice place to see for a few days.  We are still a little irked that we missed a week of Spanish class thanks to my dental adventure, but I´m not sure we want to spend any more time in Guatemala, as much as we love it here we are itching to get down to El Salvador and Nicaragua.  Hopefully we will find another spot to take some classes along the way, but I´m guessing we will be out of Guatemala by the end of next week.