My break kicked off with a fundraiser for Marla's Home, which was an impressive success and raised a crazy amount of support for the home. The event itself was a beautiful dinner and presentation at Marla's, which ended with an auction of donated items. My role for the evening was essentially the same as my daily job description: keep the kids away from the grownups. We had our own shindig instead, which in my opinion completely trumped the party outside.
Then, the Wednesday before Easter my little travel buddy Angela and her friend Molly (who was visiting from Washington) arrived in Belmopan for the night, and Thursday morning we embarked on another Belizean adventure. For the record, the reason it's entitled to be called an adventure is because we rarely have any kind of game plan or even general idea of what we're doing or where we're going, so the entire trip is one constant surprise. Anyways, we hopped in Angela's truck and drove down to southern Belize along the coast to a small town called Independence, where some friends of hers offered their home to us for several days. We had breakfast with them, and then they left for northern Belize to visit family, while we kicked it in Independence for the day, and then drove into Placencia (a small, touristy town right on the coast) for dinner and drinks and a sincerely lovely evening in the town.
Friday morning Angela and Molly took off for a snorkeling trip, and I opted to spend the day in Placencia, taking in the local life and relaxing on the beach. It was actually a really enjoyable way to spend the afternoon because the town was so quiet and peaceful during the day, and I even found a coffee shop (imagine that) to complete my happiness. It was a good day.
Speaking of good days, the next one was pretty fantastic as well. We traveled inland to a small Mayan community called San Felipe and took a tour of Cyrila's Chocolate, a Mayan chocolate factory. I agree, I thought it sounded kind of strange and a little anticlimactic when we first headed out, but it turned out to be downright awesome. We started out on the farm and picked our own cocoa fruits (which is pronounced "ca-cow" and is where the cocoa bean comes from), learned all about the harvesting aspect of the process, and then made it back to the actual factory. It was a small, family owned farm and factory, and they ran the business out of their home. Once at the factory we made our own chocolate, beginning with the cocoa fruit (which actually tastes very fruity, almost like a mango), then roasted and shelled the beans, ground them up on a stone in true old school Maya fashion, added sugar, and finally popped the product into the fridge until it hardened enough to eat. Voila, we made chocolate! I think that a good part of the reason that I was so entertained by the tour was because we learned so much about Mayan culture and history; so if you aren't very intrigued by indigenous cultures then you might not have enjoyed it as much as I did. But just take my word for it that we all had a really good time, and I would go again in a second.
roasted and shelled cocoa beans in front of the cocoa fruit
On our last day, aka Easter Sunday, we had a fairly non-conventional Easter and decided to do some more jungle exploring. We traveled to an area called Blue Creek and hiked up to a popular river that happens to run through a cave. So we took a couple of hours to swim through the cave, which included several small waterfalls inside (and yes, it was incredible). Then on our way back to Belmopan we stopped at Coxcomb Jaguar Reserve (the same reserve we visited in March) and hiked up to another waterfall. Not your typical Easter celebration, but a wonderful one all the same.
Molly, Angela, and I at the mouth of Blue Creek Cave
