Belize

After our trip to Chile, Joe returned to Colorado, and we had one more week off of school!
We were lucky enough to have our break coincide with the time that our good friend Bob was in Belize, so Alexander, Natasha and I flew there for 5 days! This photo above is what some of Belize looks like. When we were there, it was super hot (like 90+ degrees, 90% humidity, or it sure felt like it!) And beautiful.
Belize is a poor and beautiful country, that we knew nothing about, except that it is the only Central American country with English as it's first language. (Now we know that 70% of the people speak Spanish, and 30% speak Creole) It was fun for us to hear English used a lot for the first time in over 3 months. It was a British Colony, until the British removed all of the wood that they could log, and left. Now it is small, poor and struggling. The flora and fauna are incredible. Like this random orchid above that was just growing along the road.

These two photos are of three men who are changing the face of Belize. Michael, above, works with an organization called ProBelize. They do amazing work for the environment by bringing students down to Belize, who help create green places that can bring money into communities. Google ProBelize to find out more about this wonderful organization, and how to participate if you are interested.
This photo is of Richard and Bob, who are doing so many projects in Belize that is hard to talk about all of them. They do everything from painting schools to raising money to send girls to high school and college. ( Kids in Belize can go to school for free until they are in 8th grade. Then they have to pay. Many families can't pay, and if they can, the girls end up not being able to go to school, while the boys can. These guys believe that if you educate a girl, you help the entire family) They brought lights to the local police to use on their bikes in the night. They are bringing $300,000 worth of medical supplies into Belize for public hospitals. They are constantly coming up with new ideas to help Belize. There is definately a book in this story! If you want to find out more about their projects, go to Doroteia Pathways on facebook and you can see photos of all of the girls they are sending to school. Amazing. I am so honored to know these guys.
An amazing breakfast burrito in San Ignacio. Yep, he ate the whole thing.

Somehow, we got Bob, who we know from the Peace March, to take a break from everything, to be our tour guide. He picked us up at the airport in Belize City, and we got on this water taxi and spent the next two days on an Island Called Caye Caulker.

We landed at this pier, walked to our rented house, changed and walked to the end of the road, and jumped into this warm wonderful ocean.

Here are my kids, exactly how they are. Loving the turquoise water and warm sunshine.


Then next day, we walked across the street and went snorkling at three seperate spots, and Bob got our camera to take some awesome underwater shots!

The colors were amazing.




I think this one looks like a hand coming up from the bottom of the sea.

We left Caye Caulker the next day, and drove to Cayo, where Michael lives and we had the chance to go to visit some Mayan ruins.

There are tons of unexplored ruins in Belize, because there hasn't been money for digs here. This area was super cool. My kids hadn't ever seen anything like it.

We climbed up onto what they think was the palace of the royalty who lived there. In front of which was a playing field. We learned that the losers were killed after their games. Talk about high stakes!

This is Natasha half way up. The guy behind her had an interesting tatoo, so Alexander snapped this photo.

Often times, you can't see much detail on ruins, but these were truly breathtaking.


Seven miles away from these ruins is Guatamala. Alexander took this photo. If you look closely, you can see a road. That is the border.

This photo cracks me up. We were very near the top, and we wanted to look over. We thought we were right on the edge, so Bob was holding my arm, and Natasha was holding on, so she wouldn't fall. Look how far away from the edge we were! Funny.

This is Alexander in one of the passage ways inside the ruin. Hard to tell what kind of room it was, and it was cool to try to figure it out.

Another view of the details of the ruin.

Our actress, posing on the chopping block, used after the games? Maybe?


The next day, Michael and Bob took us on a hike, where we found a lot of caves. Michael and Bob were telling us tales of climbing down into caves and finding pottery and treasures.


We went into a lot of caves that had no light. The only way we could see was with the flash of my camera and the light on my cell phone.

Climbing around. If Joe had been there, this would have been our holiday card, I think!

One of the caves that the guys had been inside of. Something like 35 feet down, dark and tight. Not for me. Alexander decided that day that this is what he wants to do . He wants to be an archeologist. He used to say that when he was little. How exciting to imagine exploring for your lifes work!

Then of course, we got lost and wondered around for a bit. Then Michael found a cave that we hadn't been in. With no light, again, we climbed over a wall and went in. We took the next two photos in the dark, and were amazed at what we saw. (Michael never wears shoes, and I love this photo cause it shows his feet and the untouched pottery right there.)

Alexander just held up the camera and took this photo. We only saw the pots when we looked at the photo. How crazy.


Here are a couple of photos of San Ignacio, in Cayo. Just to show what the town looks like. With English on the walls! How funny for us to understand everything.

On our last day in Belize, Bob took us to the farm. It is a beautiful piece of land, that he is slowly turning into Paradise. This is Jorge, who is the caretaker of the land. They hope to turn it into an Eco Tourism kind of place. Super peaceful and lovely.

It was really important for Bob to find land with running water. When he found this place, he knew it was right. The water is so clean and inviting.



A view from the porch, overlooking many trees growing all kinds of fruit. Super place to catch some ZZZZZZZZZZZZ's.

Oh, I forgot to introduce you to Alexander's best friend in Belize, the machete! He had more fun learning how to use it, and carrying it around. Natash wanted to eat something from one of the trees, so Bob and Alexander used their machete's to get her a coconut. It was a fabulous trip. We would recommend it to anyone, and would go back in the blink of an eye!

Chile, pt 4 Villa Rica, y Pucon

After Valparaiso and Vina del Mar,
we boarded a plane and flew to the lake district, in the southern part of Chile. It is amazing how little we knew about Chile. We flew into an area that had a ton of snow covered volcanos . I started snapping photos in the air!
This volcano is named Villa Rica, and the town that is near it is also called Villa Rica. It is awesome to see this huge volcano as you drive around! I once asked Andy Young, some of you know him, if he could go anywhere in the spanish speaking world for a year, where would he go. He said the lake district of Chile. I had no idea what he was talking about. Now I do! It is so beautiful.
The family at Lake Villa Rica, with the Volcano in the background!
We are constantly trying to get Natasha on a horse, as we haven't been able to find good riding near us. We went on this amazing ride, with the volcano in the background. There was a ton of open grassland for us to walk around, and Natash had the chance to run as much as she wanted to! It was beautiful to see the smile on her face.
We were trying to get Natash with the volcano, it would have been better if I had made a movie. What a glorious day!

Then we went to Pucon, which is a sweet town near Villa Rica. It is a gateway to some amazing adventuring, like skiing and climbing on the volcanos and rafting. It sort of felt like Estes Park, except less cheesy. This woman had a little shop that sold flowers. All of these flowers are made of wood. They were so cool.

It is hard to believe they are wood, isn't it?

She let us try to make some. It was much easier when she did it.

Painting the middle, then they blow the color on. It was so pretty and cool.

These were our guides. Juan Pablo on the left, and Patricio on the right. They are at a lake outside of Pucon that has a volcano inside of it. They were super sweet, although Juan Pablo was sick, and after this part of the trip, Joe and Alexander both felt crappy for a while.

A nice photo of the kids, near an old boat at the same volcano lake.

Alexander at the same lake. I like how this photo came out.

The lake goes underground, and resurfaces at these beautiful waterfalls. The color of the water was amazing. We hiked around. it's funny how we are all doing well traveling around, but we all feel really good when we are near nature. This place had beautiful trails all around. It was hard for me to stay with the gang and not take off for a run!

Here is a rare one! I'm really on this trip! You can tell that Chile was cool. It was the beginning of Spring there, sunny, and cool enough for a scarf and a fleece. Hard to think about spring in October.

We don't know why this photo came out this way, but Alexander took it and we love the movement of it.

I have finally convinced Alexander to try to smile in photos, after showing him so many photos that would have been much nicer if he had been smiling. Wait til you see the ones in Belize. We thought if he had been a Junior it would have been cool to have his senior photo taken in Chile.

Chile part 3, Vina del Mar

After we finished our tour of Valparaiso, we continued along the beach, for about 10 minutes, max, and we were in a very modern beachfront community called Vina Del Mar. We had lunch in a yummy restaurant with Hugo and his dad, who drove us around, Renee. It was lovely.
The Pacific ( Do you know it means peaceful in Spanish) Ocean is very cold in Chile. The Humbolt Jet Stream, which comes by way of Antartica, moves through the water here and it is always cold. Natasha told us that she has always wanted to travel to Antartica. Knowing her, if she really wants to, she will go someday!

This photo shows the hillside in Vina del Mar. It is super modern. Such a difference from Valparaiso!

This is my crazy daughter, checking out the water! The rest of us put our toes in!

Chile part 3.1

I wanted to post this photo. It is the justice center in Valparaiso. Check out the statue. You know how Justice always has her arms out, with balanced scales? Well this one has everything in one hand and she is really tired. Our guide Hugo didn't know why she was like this, but I think there must be an interesting story behind her!

Chile part 2

Hi! Sorry it has been so long since I have added anything on our blog. It has been a crazy and great month of travel and visits. This is the second part about Chile. We drove to two cities next to each other on the Pacific Ocean. The first is a beautiful place called Valparaiso. It is an old port and is absolutely beautiful. It has a long history of pirate attacks and travel, and you can feel the history as you travel around. We drove to the port first and walked around a bit. There was a slight smell of tear gas in the air and we found out that there was a dock workers strike that morning which was taken care of! Things in Chile have changed since Pinochet, but the sense of police there is still powerful.
Joe took some photos of the strike and this huge armored truck! Yikes.

There are these cool rail cars that go up to the hills all around the city. We rode one up to walk around. This is us above the port. It is like an artist colony now and the graffiti and murals were amazing.

The photo below shows how steep and funky the roads and buildings about the port are! This house was modeled after a ship. Cool, huh?

There was graffiti all over the place. This was stenciled on one of the walls! Interesting.

This is one of the old buildings that was a rich merchant's home many years ago. Now it is a museum. Check out the artwork!

More Graffiti. This one is for you Jim Jones. I could hear you laughing as I was taking this photo!

This green head was one of my favorites. It was so huge. Ethan, It reminds me of the artwork that you and I do.

This is a row of houses in the town. I think it would be very hard to be in a bad mood waking up everymorning to these amazing colors. Valparaiso was incredible!

Chile: Santiago

After 9 weeks of school, the kids have a two week break, and we decided to go to Chile.
Joe has been working with a wonderful guy named Carlos, who lives in Santiago, for 12 years and has never met him. This was the moment of the meeting!
We stayed in this amazing hotel, in downtown Santiago. It was so cool to think that we were in South America. I kept trying to compare it to something that I knew, but I couldn't.


This is a view from our hotel window. It is through the glass, but it shows downtown, sort of. It is definately a city, 6.5 million of the 16 million people in Chile live in Santiago. It is super clean, and a lot of fun to walk around. It felt safe and exciting. Joe had been on a business trip in Sao Paulo and Rio in Brazil, and met us in Chile! How cool. We spent the first day touring the downtown area. Sounds kind of boring, but it was so interesting.


Sorry this is sideways, but this is the place that we had lunch the first day. It is called, "Como Agua para Chocolate" ( Like Water for Chocolate) after the book by Laura Esquival. If you haven't read it, you should. Anyway, why it is here in Chile... no clue, but was beautiful and yummy.

This is Alexander overlooking the city. The next few photos are from this overlook, which is on the tallest part of the city. It was beautiful. I'm not sure if you can tell, but pollution isn't a problem here. It is very clean.

Another view of Santiago.
Those mountains are the Andes. You can't see them every day, but they are huge, like 20,000+ feel. So cool. And of course we talked all about the Uruguayan Rugby team and the whole plane crash story. Another must read, if you like adventure stories. Joe actually flew the route that their plane took from Montevideo to Santiago to meet us.

This is in the downtown area, just across the street from where the president of Chile works. Our guides name is Hugo, and he was awesome. Speaks Spanish, English, French, who knows what else. We were with him for a few days.

This is the presidential building. It was this part of the building that was attacked and destroyed in the military coup that ended Salvador Allende's career and life in 1973. Hugo told us the story of the events that happened that day. It was amazing to stand there and to listen to the story.

This is the changing of the guard at the presidential building. The guards work 48 hour shifts inside the building and then change. It was cool to see. And if you look close, there are women guards. Oh, the president is a woman too! She is very well loved in Chile. Unfortunately, they have 4 year term limits and she is about to leave her position in December.


The photo below is a statue of Salvador Allende and the one below is the quote under it. It is right in front of the presidental building.


It says, "I have faith in Chile and her destiny" Sept 11, 1973. The day he was overthrown and killed? Or committed suicide?? We heard both stories. They call ours the other Sept 11th.


We happened to be in the square on the 20th Anniversary of the end of Pinochet's rule. People were holding a rally to support the end of his reign at the Allende statue.

This was taken in the presidential square, too. I thought it was interesting that the old buildings were right next to this modern one.


Another view of the square with a statue of O'Higgins, one of the heros of Chile. Irish father, Chilean Mom.
The next day we left for Valparaiso, and Vina del Mar. I wanted to post something about Chile, cause we are leaving for Belize tomorrow, and I haven't posted in a while.
I hope to post a bunch upon our return.

Joe is in Colorado for a week, til Sunday, if you are reading this from Colo, give him a call!