28th July 2009

Today was more relaxed, we were driven up to the Mountain Pine Ridge to take in all the sights and one huge cave.

While we walking around we bumped in to a Miss Rainforest calender photoshoot, it made the girls laugh that the models we climbing on top of rocks in high heels!

In the afternoon we went swimming at Rio on Pools for a few hours. We had a nice time relaxing and taking break from sight seeing.
In the evening we had a traditional Belizean meal cooked by Linda's mum at their restaurant.

27th July 2009

oday we explored the Mayan Ruins of Xunantunich. To get there we hand to cross the river by ferry that was cranked by hand, a few of the girls took turns in having a go at this.

The ruins were huge and really impressive to still be there in reasonable condition after so many hundreds of years.

It was hard work climbing to the top of the ruin, but it was worth it as the views were fantastic. We could see all around us for miles. Due to the bad weather over the few days before we arrived the river was rising fast so we had to get down from the top and leave quickly as the ferry would be closing shortly.

In the afternoon we were meant to go canoeing to some mayan caves but it was cancelled due to the height of the rivers. So we went to a dry cave instead, this meant we got to trek through some jungle before reaching the entrance to the cave. It was very hot walking to the cave but well worth it.

After caving we all went swimming in a waterfall to cool off before heading back to out hotel and going out for dinner in the evening.

26th July 2009

This morning our Belizean driver, Carlos, picked us up from our hotel to take us to our accomodation in Belize. We had an interesting experience crossing the border as we had to carry all our bags accross while the van drove and met us on the other side.

The scenery changed so much once we entered Belize, it was soo green and lush, the weather wasn't great but it was still very warm.

We arrived at our accomodation in San Ignacio, we were very lucky to have air conditioning in the rooms. It was lovely and clean. There was also a toucan that lived here and was quite tame so the girls had fun feeding him.

We went out for a nice meal in the evening with our tour guide Gonzo. The food was delicious and there was lots of it too! After dinner we were lucky enough to see fire flys in the long grass.

25th July 2009

Due to the time difference the girls were awake at around 4am, so they sat in the lounge and watched a dvd. We had a lovely breakfast and then went on a city tour of Mexico City for the rest of the day. We saw lots of sights, ruins and traditional mayan dancing.

After the city tour we transferred back to the airport to catch our flight to Chetumal. This a town on the border of Mexico and Belize. Our hotel was lovely and in the evening we had our first tropical storm.

24th July 2009

Our wake up call was at 4am so we could get the Heathrow Terminal 2 for 6am. Even though we had checked in online it took ages to hand our baggage over the que was soo long!

We had a short flight to Paris, where we then hand a 2 hour wait for the flight to Mexico City.

The girls took the time to catch up on some sleep or start writing their travel journals.

Our flight to Mexico City was very long and boring as there weren't any individual televisions, only a few along each aisel and all the films/tv shows were in french! Some girls caught up on yet more sleep!

We were met by a member of staff from Ticalli, the Girl Scout Hostel we were staying in that night. We arrived later than expected, so we got some dinner, showered then went to bed.

23rd July 2009

We all met at Hawkey Hall ready to leave for our 3 week adventure through Belize and Mexico.

Today was also Demi's birthday, so once we were all settled in our Hotel at Heathrow we had birthday cake to celebrate! All the other hotel guests in the restaurant joined us in singing happy birthday.

Everyone was really excited about starting our journey the following morning.

Our Week In Belize

We arrived in Belize on the afternoon of 26th July, we settled into our accomodation and met our Tour guide Gonzo, who would be taking us to places and do activities.

27th July we went to a site of Mayan Ruins, and learnt all about the history of the site. All the girls had great fun climbing to the top of the biggest one 13 stories up, from the top you could see all aruond and over into Gutemala. IN the afternoon, we trekked through the rainforest to a mayan cave at the top. Once in side the cave there were lots of mayan artifacts still in there original places, it was quite odd being in a cave knowing that hundreds and hundreds of years ago people used it in their lives. It was very hot and sticky after coming back down the hill. We all went for a swim in the waterfall to cool off.

28th July Mountain Pine ridge was our destination today, we thought there would lots more walking up hills from the name! but there wasnt it was quite flat! We took in the sites and visited another cave, where we bumped in to a Miss Rainforest photo shoot for a competition, all our girls found it amusing that the models we climbing around rocks in bikinis and high heels!!! hehehe! After we went to swim in another waterfall and relax, We had a picnic on the rocks and swam some more before heading to Linda and Lenny's house they run the Belize Explorer Tour company, for a nice traditional belizean dinner cooked by linda's mum.

29th July today was Lauren C's birthday, all the girls signed a birthday card and got some small presents. We spent the day at a butterfly farm and learning how caterpillars change into butterflys, there were even caterpillars at the different stages of changing for us to see. We went to another hotel in the afternoon to go swimming in their pool. In the evening after dinner the girls threw Lauren a suprise party for her birthday and our guide got an Oreo Birthday cake.

30th July Today we transfered to Belize zoo, before we did that we went to an Iguana Sanctuary near where we were staying. All the girls got to hold and fed them and had them sat on their heads. Once we arrived at Belize Zoo Education Centre we were taken for a tour of the zoo, it was very different to an english zoo as the animals we alot closer and we got to fed some of them including parrots, monkeys, crocodiles, puma and a young Jaguar called Junior. Tonight was also ourfirst night with no air conditioning as we had been very spoilt by having it everynight.

31st July We transferred to Caye Caulker today by water taxi, it is a little island about 1hour off the main land. With beautiful white beaches and blue sea it was perfect to relax for a few days after lots of adventurous activities. We arrived and checked in at our hotel, then headed straight to the beach to for a dip in the warm sea. We had a lovely dinner on the beach front before heading back to the hotel for the night.

1st August Today we went snorkelling on the reef about 20mins from the island, seeing the reef wildlife up close was amazing. We were taken to 3 different spots along the reef, in one place we even saw a sea turtle! the last place was called Shark and sting ray alley we didnt see any sharks but the sting rays were over 1 metre accross, one had a really tiny baby shark swimming with it though. As it was our last night on the island we went to a nice restaurant for a meal and the girls then all went shopping in the markets, some even got their hair braided!

2nd August We started our journey back to mexico City today to get to Our Cabana on the 3rd.