Better the Second Time...

Ten years ago, I went honeymooned in Hawaii for two weeks. We stayed at luxurious hotels and did all the honeymoon things - and we had a wonderful time, but at the same time I had some regrets. We had dreamed of honeymooning in Bali, had done all this research, but had ended up choosing Hawaii to make life easier. Although we had an amazing time, we regretted not stepping off the beaten path a little more for our big adventure.

We started planning our ten year anniversary trip a few months ago. This time, we were determined to not take the conventional route. Belize had always been on our list of places we'd like to visit - the jungle and the barrier reef sounded awesome. So we did a lot of research, found some little hotels, and went off last week for five glorious kid-free days.

Belize was everything we dreamed of. We spent our first night in the jungle, at this wild little hotel called the Maruba Jungle Lodge. It was so romantic - the perfect place for a second honeymoon. Our room had a beautiful tiled hot tub and our bed was draped with vibrant fabrics. There were hot pink hibiscus flowers everywhere - on our bed, on our towels - around the hot tub... We got mud massages in a little hut and rinsed it off in an outdoor tiled tub under the moon (we weren't totally alone - a few thousand mosquitoes were dancing around us).


We left the next morning to explore the jungle with a guide. The roads are barely paved so this was an adventure from the get go. Our first stop was at the Baboon Sanctuary - a collection of villages that have agreed to not cut down trees howler monkeys like. A local volunteer from the sanctuary took us into the woods and left us alone for ten minutes. We were just beginning to freak out when he reappeared and beckoned us into the bush. We stepped over a couple of very rickety bridges and stopped in a clearing. And then the monkeys started coming down from the trees - check out our video.

After a beautiful stop at the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha, we took a little propeller plane out to the island of Ambergris Caye. I was particularly nervous because Steve was asked to sit next to the pilot. He didn't touch anything, and I eventually relaxed long enough to take some pictures. We spent the next three nights at the Mata Chica Lodge, another boutique hotel with little casitas on the beach. We dove, we snorkeled, we relaxed... and we encountered a few more mosquitoes.

I can't believe I'm home again, driving my minivan in the rain. But at least I have my memories, my peeling skin, and my itchy mosquito bites to keep the magic going a little longer. I'm hooked on adventure travel (although I'm not sure how adventurous our luxury boutique hotels were) - I'm shooting for Tanzania for our fifteen year anniversary!