Belize: the sounds of birds

I figure a few posts about my trip to Belize might be fun.

The first night, I was struck by the grand cacophony made by tons of birds outside my hotel.  Pretty cool.

Flying with water jets

This was extremely cool to watch!  (It's not very common... we've only seen it this one time.)

Paddleboarding

Here's a day when we got to use Paddleboards.  I spent a while doing it, and Ella (last pic) spent quite a while on one.  Takes getting used to... but we did do some standing on them!  Promise!

The Roseway

We got very lucky and got to go on the Roseway, a very old sailing vessel that's all wood and has been restored at great expense and now has a crew that goes around sailing it and running workshops and even immersive camps on the boat for kids to learn and experience sailing.  Pretty cool.

Old, Old Structures

One day I parked a little further away from work and walked a couple blocks, taking pictures along the way.  It's fascinating to see all the ruins and vegetation growing around it... some of these structures are very, very old, and you see various stages of dilapidation because this small island has had many ebbs and flows of destruction and rebirth over the centuries.

This plot of ground obviously had some kind of building previously.  Parts of the street are still lined with large shells (visible here at the bottom).

 

Moving to the right from there is part of the grand entrance way.

... and if you step up and onto the threshold and look in closer, you can see the remains of old pillars still sticking up through the overgrowth.

I left that block and walked down the street bordered by this wall, which I'm sure has been patched many times over the years, and which is due for more patches in some places.

 

We've got regular sports, too!

This set is just to demonstrate that we have normal activities just like anywhere else.  (Oh, and maybe also to show some video and pics of the boys.)

These videos are of Thomas' first track race.  He couldn't keep up the pace for both loops around the track, but he made sure to beat that guy behind him!

And here's Tolman during some shooting with the Boy Scouts, with the results of his target after 10 shots at about 20 yards.  (Not bad!)