Trip To Belize: Day 11 & 12

May 22, 2008

Today was kind of a throw away day, really. We woke up, had a nice breakfast talking to a CBC documentary guy who was staying at Coral House and then biked down to the local post office to send some postcards. This was actually quite the experience as nobody in the town seemed to know where there own post office was. "The white building" said many people but it took us 15 minutes of checking out the myriad of white buildings before we found it. It was fun meandering around though although, biking through the streets. At one point a police officer informed me that I was biking the wrong way down a street. This seemed amusing as there were no signs indicating this. But, chastised, I meekly apologized and turned around.

We felt sad as we checked out of Coral House Inn. Not only were we leaving this great little place to stay, but we were also preparing to leave this exotic little country and I had mixed feelings. I was happy to leave and get back to my kids and my regular life and I'd felt like the trip had been extremely satisfying emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Yet, I felt there was so much more to see and do in Belize and you never really know if you'll be back or not. As Shakespeare said "parting is such sweet sorrow. We flew to Belize city (via Placencia and Dangriga) and this time the short flights were not nearly as harrowing as when we arrived. A view from the plane enjoying the view of the cayes to the east:


Here's a final picture of us in Belize enjoying our final "little plane" ride:


From Belize City we flew to Miami and then flew to Toronto. Along the way I finished reading The Shack and watched "The Bucket List" on the plane. Both were meaningful experiences and I was hit hard again about the importance of relationships. We arrived in Toronto and went to the hotel (no upgraded room this time sadly) and promptly froze as we were unused to normal temperatures. We were exhausted but content and promptly went to sleep.

May 23, 2008
The flight to Winnipeg was nothing out of the ordinary except that on check in security found my swiss army knife that I had forgotten to take out of my carry on. Belizean and American "security" had both missed the fact that I had taken a weapon on board their flights, but the Canadians found it and confiscated it. I was both proud of them and annoyed that my knife was gone (actually they offer for you to go back through security and mail it yourself but I didn't want to miss my flight). After we arrived in Winnipeg we were met at the airport by Jobina's mom and the kids. Jobina cried quite a bit and I was a "little" emotional myself. Sometimes you don't know how much you miss something until you take a break from it. When Jobina asked if the kids had missed us she found out, well . . . not really. It appears Mom missed them alot more then they missed her! I think that's probably for the best.

When we got home we gave out some gifts to the kids. First we gave them some shells and sea glass that we had collected for them at Coral House Inn. Trinity also got a cute little Mayan doll from the PG market. And Riker? Well, he was VERY excited about what we gotten him:



Giving him his "mini-machete" was one of the highlights of the whole trip for me!

So there you go. After a total of 13 days (including travel days) we were home. I find that when people go on vacations they usually fall into a choice-reinforcing pattern. To justify the choices they make (say as in going on a vacation) there is great pressure for them to tell people it was good, otherwise they look foolish. And I would say I've done that in the past (especially about certain sketchy winter camping experiences). But I can honestly say that this was the trip of a lifetime, that it was worth the money, and that given the choice I would do it again. I had an adventurous second honeymoon in an exotic locale with great people and it was better then I even hoped it would be. Why? I think because I met God in Belize and that made all the difference.