3-27-2016 Start of 5 days with friends from Indianapolis

 Some of our best friends from Indianapolis arrived on Easter Sunday and we had a great time.    They got through customs at about 5 in the evening.


We picked up our Friends from Indianapolis who were able to stay for 5 total nights.

We picked them up late in the day and it was Easter Sunday so we headed off to a Black Orchid Resort which we had reserved.

The grounds were very nicely kept.  We chose this place because it was Easter Sunday and we wanted a place to hang out that night and a place that was open to eat.

There were nice river views

This river was very important to the Mayans as a major highway

We got lucky and saw some howler monkeys

That is a Howler monkey in the middle there

They had a really cool set of prayer flags hung up.  Each was made by some children who were expressing their dreams.

I wish I had taken individual pictures of some of them.  They were very entertaining and genuine.

World peace

Everybody was really nice and the resort was very comfortable

Post from RICOH THETA. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

3-26-2016 Hopkins International Parranda Fest

Parranda Fest is a huge annual music event at Palmento Grove in Hopkins, and it is held the night of Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday.  It's an all night concert featuring "indigenous cultural music" (according to their Facebook page) - it starts at 7 pm and ends at 7 am, but things don't really get going before midnight.  We met up with several friends and hung out at the concert together.  We had a blast, though we could only stay until about 5 am because we needed to get some sleep before leaving later that day for Belize City to pick up our friends.

 

Emma with Derek (sp?), who is the man behind the amazing photos of Hopkins UnCut on Facebook.

Our friend Tatiana owns Thongs Restaurant in the village

Zero Tolerance with Jess Flores

Zero Tolerance - yes, the one musician is playing turtle shells.

3-24-2016 Sailing Day

Our friend Mark got us to go out sailing on a nice afternoon. It was a beautiful day with just the right amount of wind for us.

We stopped for a break at a place north of Hopkins village, where there had been a huge two story house at one time, but now
it's just rubble.

3-20-2016 Sunday Beach Walk

This particular Sunday we felt we needed to get out and do something, so we decided on a beach walk.  Of course, for Eric that meant bringing along his newest gadget to take a series of 360 degree photos through the village.  So, we parked near the main junction in Hopkins, then walked the beach from the public pier up to Driftwood Beach Bar & Pizza Shack, then walked back down on the main north road.  These are the regular pictures that Cara captured along the way:

Jalapeno's BBQ & Grill

Luba Laruga

public pier

Looking north toward Swinging Armadillo

We stopped for lunch at Queen Bean restaurant on the beach, and we ran into friends who were also doing a beach walk.

Cara's vegetable burrito

Eric's chicken with salad and rice & beans

Dia and Ned

We stopped for drinks at Driftwood Beach Bar & Pizza Shack before heading back on the road.

They still have the old fashioned ice cream trucks that we remember as kids, and they play that same music as they go.

Back to the main junction in Hopkins

3-12-2016 Hopkins Annual Kite Festival

The kite festival is a great event for kids of all ages.  Participants build their kites in the morning, fly them all day, then
awards are given in the late afternoon.  We walked around some and also enjoyed watching the kites from the deck of our
friends' house next door.

These were the kites of some of our friends (okay, those were store-bought).

We ended the evening watching our friend's band, Zero Tolerance, play at Jalapenos restaurant.