Doing her best to help Belizean farmers ... as a "Screw worm Poster Girl."
Ann's first trip internationally (and for that matter, mine too) was in 1991, when we travelled to Belize for two weeks of sea kayaking, snorkelling, hiking, caving, and horseback riding. Funny things sometimes happen when you're out of the country ...
Highlights (or in some case, lowlights) included:
 |
Ann squashing my new hat the first night in our tent on the beach at Placencia |
|
listening to the sounds of the hermit crabs crawling around in the dark outside our tent on "Crab Key" a mangrove island off the coast of Belize |
|
having a crab invite himself to my dinner, climbing right up on my plate while I washed out my cup |
|
finding huge brain coral, angelfish and a school of reef squid while snorkeling |
|
learning a great rum punch recipe |
|
finding a scorpion in my shirt at Mountain Equestrian Training |
|
meeting Festus the spider monkey and other critters at Banana Bank Ranch |
| eating our first "cheeseburger in paradise" at the Belize Fair, after a week of chicken and beans and rice ... and chicken and beans and rice ... and chicken and beans and rice (and before that, a week of seafood and fruit ... and ... well, you get the picture) |
|
drinking what are still the greatest cups of coffee in our lives at the Fort George Hotel, Belize City, our last day there. |
The only real "story" involved my jumping off a high cliff into a jungle pool below - and receiving bruised thighs for my trouble TWICE.
I climbed up, telling Ann before I went that my camera was ready for her to shoot a photo of me making my jump.
After I jumped, and swam out, Ann said something happened to my camera, it wouldn't shoot. I couldn't figure out what happened. I badly bruised my thighs, but was willing to try again except it was too dark by that time.
Just after I jumped a second time the next morning - adding bruises on top of bruises - Ann says, "Oh, now I remember ... while you were climbing the cliff, I shot a picture of the sunset and forgot to advance the film!"
I should have buried her under the screw worm sign for that blonde moment ...
All that time in the jungle brought out "the animal" in Ann.
(That spider monkey, Festus, starred in the 1994 film, Heart of Darkness, as the pet of Kurtz)
|
Coconut Bananie Raises Hell in Central America |
|