Saturday Evening - but you will probably read this Sunday Morning

We slept in until 6:00 Am this morning after a late Friday night.  We packed up, loaded the vans, ate breakfast and said our goodbyes to the staff of the Bible Camp and to Jane and Laticia, our Belize family and cooks.  We look forward to seeing them again in February.

The zip line course had six lines from one tree platform to another.  After a short run to get used to it, the next ones were longer.  Most seemed to skim over the lush rainforest/jungle, but actually it cleared with plenty of room.  Two of the runs crossed the Caves Branch River, which was real cool.  While waiting at one platform we saw four monkeys fairly close overhead in the trees.  They crossed over our heads in the treetops.  The guides said they usually weren't that close.

From the zip line we got our tubes and headed to the Caves Branch River.  Much of Belize is limestone karst and so there are many caves formed by water filtering through the limestone.  The Caves Branch River flows across the land, but in places it flows through a cave and exits farther downstream.  We walked/hiked upriver for about 30 minutes to the place where we put our tubes in the river.  Before starting there was a rock to jump from into the river at a deep spot.  Soon after we began to float on our tubes into the mouth of a cave.  The light from the mouth was enough to see the walls and the formations on the ceiling.  Farther ahead it got darker, and our helmets and headlamps showed the way.  Our guides kept us together and gave a push when needed.  The river was surprisingly slow through the cave.  At two places the wall of the cave opened up to the rainforest with sunlit views of vegetation.  Leaving the cave thew river wound through bamboo and trees.   After tubing we had lunch at the tubing center and changed clothes for our trip to San Pedro.

We drove to Belize City to catch a water taxi to San Pedro.  We were lucky to step right on to a boat at 3:30 for the 1.5 hour ride to San Pedro.  Our luggage and all of us made it to Banyon Bay Resort by 5:30.  The resort is on the Caribbean Sea with the reef in sight offshore.  Pool time, showers and dinner were followed by devotions.

Approaching San Pedro on the water taxi.

The pool at Banyon Bay - some of our boys in the pool.

Most will go snorkeling tomorrow morning followed by pool time, shopping, and resting.

Signing off after a long, god, active day!