3-5-2017 Waterfall and Sunday Beach Walk - Family Edition

We had to show the family a waterfall, and the one at Mayan World Adventures is the easiest to get to, as well as beautiful.

Of course, their new marker on the road is a natural photo opportunity.

This is supposed to eventually be a restaurant.

View from the restaurant-to-be

Cheryl and Paul and the upper falls

Eric, Mom (Nancy) and Cara at the upper falls

Panoramic view from the platform by the upper falls

Paul and Cheryl by the upper falls

Eric has always enjoyed his Uncle Paul's company, and it still holds true.

They never cease to have things to discuss.

The ladies enjoyed getting a free pedicure from the little fish that eat the dead skin on your feet.

Another view of the ladies enjoying their pedicures

Cheryl, Paul and Cara at the lower falls

Looking downstream from the lower falls to the restaurant in progress.

Cara at the lowest falls, which is hardly a falls, and nobody swims in that pool.

A big flock of beautiful white birds (herons, maybe?) along the roadside on the way home.

We returned home to Villa Rising Sun and found that Tango, the dog of our friends (the owners), had got a new bone, and she
was mighty proud of it.

She carried the new bone everywhere and eventually (inevitably) tried to bury it. That is a long process, though, because she
will cover it with sand, nudge it (partially uncovering it) to make sure it's still there, then recover it with sand, nudge it again,
recover, nudge, recover, nudge, recover, nudge...you get the idea.

After lunch and naps we headed out for our normal Sunday beach walk. First stop - Luba Laruga!

Cheryl wanted her picture taken with EazyBreezy, who had been helping out as the bartender on the (very busy) night we ate
at Luba Laruga.

We also stopped at Queen Bean Restaurant.

We made it to Driftwood again and took at photo at the "fence of lost soles".

We ended our wonderful, long day at Rhum Shak for happy hour!

3-4-2017 Day in Placencia

Placencia is definitely touristy for Belize, but it's still a nice place to take people for a day. We started with smoothies from
The Shak at the end of the sidewalk.

We walked along the sidewalk and the family stopped in the stores for some souvenir shopping. Then we needed a rest.

We stopped in for a drink at the Tipsy Tuna. Of course, several people approached us selling things, which turned out to be
good, because one of them had the exact type of Mayan mask that Cheryl had been searching for all day.

We left the Tipsy Tuna and continued our walk.

Beauty is everywhere in Belize!

We cut over to walk the main road back to our car.

We had lunch at a nice place called Wendy's Creole Restaurant. Normally, you don't go to Placencia without stopping for
gelato at Tutti Frutti, but everyone was so stuffed after lunch we actually skipped it!

Eric always stops to see the parrots near the end of the road.

That night we had a delicious dinner on the beach at Luba Laruga, then headed down the road to Jalapeno's BBQ & Grill for
live music. Nancy and Cheryl liked the "No Working During Drinking Hours" sign, so they had to get their photo in front of it.

Cheers to a lovely day!

3-3-2017 Mayan Chocolate Making Tour

Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Paul at Maya Center Village. We did not check out the Butterfly Farm (another time, perhaps), but we did walk down to the creek.

This is where the local Mayan women come to wash their clothes.

We came for the Mayan chocolate making tour, so we headed in to Che'il Mayan Chocolate Factory to inquire about it. (Che'il Mayan Chocolate is our favorite chocolate in the country for both of us.)

There were enough in our group that Julio, the owner, gave us a private tour and started it early for us. We started at the cacao farm across the road, where the farmer Narsiso (sp?) gave us a tour of the grounds.

The cacao fruits grow on every part of the tree - branches and trunk!

Narsiso opened a cacao pod for us to reveal the white seeds inside. You can take one of those
and suck on it until the sweet fleshy meat around the seed is gone. The flavor is delicious,
though the texture is a bit slimy.

The inside of the cacao seed - the seeds are dried and roasted and ground into chocolate.

Discarded sample cacao - how beautiful!

After seeing the farm, we went back to the factory to make our chocolate.

Owner, Julio, explaining how cacao is processed to become the various products they sell (i.e. chocolate, cacao nibs, roasted
cacao beans, cacao powder, cacao tea, cacao vinegar, cacao wine, etc.). He still uses the same basalt grinding stone that his
mother, grandmother and great-grandmother used - it's 150 years old!

Cacao in various states of processing, and some finished products.

Everyone took their turn grinding the cacao, which liquefied it. Here is John's turn.

Mom (Nancy) taking her turn

Neighbor Dean's turn

Neighbor Janine's turn...okay, I won't go through them all...

Cocoa oil and sugar are added

No milk is added, so we made dark chocolate (about 70% dark).

Then, more grinding...  Uncle Paul was one of the best at this, according to Julio.

Paul got lots of practice in!

Julio scraped the chocolate into the molds, and they went into the freezer. After about 15 minutes
we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labor, and it was delicious! This is a great tour!

That evening we went up to a friend's rooftop deck to enjoy the view.

We just missed the sunset, but it was still a nice view.

That night the folks went home early, and we headed to Windschief Beach Bar. It had happened that Eric tied Luckie for the
lowest round of the month, so they had to have a play-off round.

It drew a large crowd of spectators. Good thing Eric is not affected by outside pressure, and he beat Luckie.

After that Luckie and Eric teamed up in foosball and beat our friend Terry and his son Greg.

3-2-2017 Party for the Family

Eric's family is staying at Villa Rising Sun, which is our friend's house on the beach where we first lived here in Belize. It's
now a vacation rental, and the perfect spot for family to gather. Of course, there is the private beach bar, so we had to have a
party for the family.

Neighbors Dean (waiving) and Janine, with Mark, the owner of Villa Rising Sun. The family enjoyed meeting our friends, and
everyone had a great time.

2-28 to 3-1-2017 Eric's Family Arrives

Some of Eric's family (his mother and step-father, plus an aunt and uncle) arrived, and it is their only Tuesday here so we had
to take them to Driftwood Beach Bar & Pizza Shack for the jam night featuring local Garifuna music.

Aunt Cheryl, Mom (Nancy), and Uncle Paul

Try as we might, we could not get a photo of everyone without someone blinking, lol!

The following evening we went on the Bioluminescence Tour with Happy Go Luckie Tours. Here we are just before the boat
arrived for our tour.

We joined with some other folks for the tour. It's best to go when there is no moonlight so it doesn't interfere with the light
from the water. We had a small moon, but thankfully it was a cloudy night. Unfortunately, our cameras do not capture the
beauty of the bioluminescense anyway, but the water shimmers and glows blue with any disturbance (i.e. your hand splashing
the water, or a fish darting below the surface), and it's amazing.