Merry Christmas

Today was amazing. It went like this:

Lou Jones will understand this because she's witnessed it at least once. I set my alarm for 6am to make a 7 am boat pick up at the pier. I wake up with the alarm blaring, and it's been going for an hour. It's 7am. Shit. So I roll out of bed, throw on clothes, grab my bag and shoes and run out the door. When I get to the pier, a sunrise watcher tells me that no boat has been there yet so I relax. The boat gets there at 7:30, and the driver apologizes for being late. Everyone else has been late too due to a collective night of drinking.

We take a speed boat ride from Ambergris Caye to the mouth of a river (don't know which one) and start heading up. It's all mangrove, basically. We see a small crocodile and many beautiful birds. Our guide has a sense of humor and gold teeth. Good time Charlie.

It's a full day, as we take a speed boat ride through mangroves, get drenched with rain, stop at a cool village with no electricity and small, skinny dogs. At the village, we switch to an old, old schoolbus and speed as fast as is possible on a pothole-filled road for an hour. We then switch back to another speedboat, with a new guide who is a little bit more of a nazi. Ok, not a nazi, just more...serious and specific about what he needs us to do. He's also a wealth of information.

(to be continued)