Caye Caulker, Belize; Day 22

Today the sun came up so early, I think the first time I woke up it was maybe 5am and the sun was already up.. it sets early too, its dark by 7. It must have something to do with being closer to the equator and the tilt of the Earth.
We woke up, got ready and headed to breakfast on the other side of the island. It took maybe 10 minutes to walk there, so you have an idea of how small the island is. I ordered a breakfast burrito instead of pancakes, I figured I should switch it ip since I've been having pancakes the majority of the trip... the tortillas in Belize are thick like flatbread tortillas but they're airy-er. The burrito was fine, it had bacon.. I don't like bacon... shoulda gotten the pancakes, they were served with fruit!
During/after breakfast we were fitted with fins and masks for snorkeling! We got ready, separated into chicken and fish boats and headed out at about 1030am. I had fish. We had at least a 30 minute ride out to the reef. The sky was really dark and it was windy,  it looked like it was going to be pretty stormy.. I was kinda nervous because I didn't want to get caught in a bad storm.
when we were on our boat out, it started raining indeed! At first it was just sprinkling but then it started pouring! And it hurt, I thought it was hailing! We all started laughing because it was not perfect weather for snorkeling. It was like the "Perfect Storm" movie. The guides put a plastic tarp over us and we kept going. After maybe about 10 minutes, he rain stopped, it was sunny, and we were at our first stop, the coral garden.
We got in and swarm around for quite a while, there was some good coral to look at and lots of fish. I did notice that a lot of the coral was bleached - evidence of temperature change. They had a hurricane here not too long ago so maybe that's why. After that we got in the boat and our guides Patrick and Chilo (hot rasta guys) had lunch ready. There was rice with vegetables, pasta salad, and fish, that was prepared with tomatoes and green bell pepper. It was good! We had pineapple squash (juice) too.
We sailed to the next stop, shark ray alley. When we got there, Patrick threw in some shrimp and all the tuna were jumping up out of the water. It was crazy! We got in and the first thing I saw, besides the school of tuna swimming all around me, was the HUGEST sting ray I've ever seen in my life, in real life or on tv. It was at least 6 feet in diameter I swear! Not counting it's tail/stinger. I hope the pictures I got are good. We also saw nurse sharks. I got to pet one that Patrick caught. It was really cool to just swim with the sharks and fish and rays. They would get so close!
After that we had pineapple and watermelon. It was nice to eat after every dive because it got the salty taste from our mouths. We had another long "drive" to the last stop, Hol Chan Marine Reserve. This time we had to be divided into groups and stay with our guide. I went in Chilo's group. We saw sea turtles, one of which got really close to me and I got to watch it go up for air and go back down, that was neat! We got to see a green Moray eel, like in The Little Mermaid. If you clap hey come out of the dark places in the coral. We saw so many fish, some more rays, and we saw a cool cave, Chilo and one of the guys in my group went down it in but it was 15 feet down and I didn't want to die so I didn't push it. It was so cool to be down there!
We had ceviche <3 and chips after that dive! And pineapple juice and we sailed (literally with sails) back to the Caye. It was so awesome. The ceviche was good but I like mine better ;) lol. It was missing something. It was past 5 by the time we got back so I ran back to the hotel, showered and then went to dinner.
For dinner we had this awesome buffet, they had fish like the fish we had at lunch, also chicken that tasted like it had taco seasoning or something on it, mashed potatoes, rice and beans (the mixed kind), cole slaw, bread and watermelon. It was so yummyy!
After dinner I got some homemade chunky monkey ice cream and bought a few more things for souveniers for family and friends. But Now I'm almost out of belize dollars - luckily they take USD here, (all my change is in USD, but it's worth double here so that's good I guess!)
It's been really nice on Caye Caulker, the attitude is so relaxed, everyone is very much about the "Go Slow" personality, which is the town motto, they're also huge about Bob Marley and weed and just cchhiiilllin I guess but that's cool haha. Reminds me of some friends back home lol.

Caye Caulker, Belize; Day 21

Today we met at 8am, loaded up the bus and drove maybe 10 minutes to church in Orange Walk. The church had 20 foot fences all around it, it was crazy! They also had the name of the church in Spanish and english, which was odd but only prepared us for what would happen in sacrament meeting.. the ward we visited was a very small branch, we made up probably 95% of the ward's attendance today. The sacrament prayers were given in Spanish, both english and Spanish hymns were sung and each talk was translated to Spanish. They speak english alot here but they have to cater to the Spanish speakers here too because its such a small branch.
After church we had a 90 minute drive in our ghettobus with Frank to the port in Belize City. From there we took a 45 minute boat to Caye Caulker. The island is pretty awesome! The culture here is really interesting. The island is really small, you can see either end of it if you stand in the right place. There seems to be a lot of restaurants and bars and tourist shops, but a lot of local housing as well. I wonder what it would be like to live here!
We went to dinner right on the beach, I had a mango fish sandwich, I think it was tilapia. It was in a mango lime sauce and was with french fries, it was pretty good.
Our hotel is right on the beach too, its kindof awesome. Some of my tourmates went down to the dock and found these huge conch shells! Ill have to go down tomorrow  and see if I can find some shells.
Yesterday at Lamanai I got eaten bad by bugs, even though I waa wearing 100% deet bug spray and pants. I have nasty bites up to my knees. Brother Stricklan told me to put nail polish over the bites to keep the eggs from growing.. eeeeeew! They itch like crazy.
Something else cool about Cayw Caulker is theres not many cars, most people drive golf carts.
At dinner, we were requires to write a poem or thought or something and share it for everyone. Afterwards they collected everything and said they'd make a poem book. I hope they do, they were all excellent and Id love to have a copy of them!

Orange Walk, Belize; Day 20

Wow. So today is such a blur I'm going to have to think about everything that happened! Haha. We woke up and met for breakfast at 630am. Our tour guide/travel agent guy Eric brought us breakfast, orange juice and ham sandwiches and bananas. It was weird to eat sandwiches for breakfast but they were good. We headed out to the Lamanai ruins after that. It was a short drive in our bus with Frank to the boat docks where we loaded HUGE coolers with our mystery lunch in it, provided by our ruin tour guide, Isidro. He was so cool! The thing I'm loving about Belize is the culture, they speak english but many of them speak Creole, and talk like they're Jamaican, and they're black! Its awesome, so different from Mexico yet we are still so close.
Our boat ride to Lamanai was great! The boats were really nice, we could have skiied behind them! He showed us lots of wildlife, there are manatees in the river but we didn't see any.. lots of birds and a couple crocs. We saw a Mennonite village! People who were kicked out of Chihuahua for their religion and now settled here. They are huge agriculturalists and drive horse and buggies.. they aren't allowed to own land, I think because they are citizens of Mexico, but they get like 150 year leases on their properties. That was cool but I feel bad for them because they are such spectacles for people taking the river tour, but they're just people!
When we reached Lamanai, we got off and headed up. We only got to see maybe 3 temples, the place is small and not too excavated, because they're trying to preserve it. They even put fiberglass on top of the masks at the main temple to protect it from human touch.
I noticed too today that the weather here is so nice, not nearly as hot or humid as it was at Palenque and those other places.. so grateful!
I forgot to mention that when we were on our boat ride, there was a baby lizard on the boat and it wad jumping around and crawling over people, it was so fast! It jumped and perched itself on my knee and then just sat, staring at me! Haha I was so scared it was going to jump in my face.. it finally jumped away but I got a good picture.
The lunch that Isidro brought us was AWESOME! Juices to drink, and then chicken in some sweet sauce, salad, coleslaw, watermelon and fried plantains.. so yummy! Oh and beans and rice, mixed together.. because rice and beans is separate, you have to know that if you order in Belize!
After lunch we had about a 45 min boat ride back and came back to the hotel, by then it was about 330.. I had Pearl of Great Price and Capstone class for a couple hours and then at 730 we had dinner. Before that though a few of us went to the convenience store to get snacks for tomorrows lunch/boat ride to Caye Caulker, and I picked up a last gift. :)
On our way back to the hotel I could hear music coming from our pool area, we were having a BBQ put on by Eric.. he totally was spoiling us! He was going to DJ too. I told everyone "we're hahvin a danz par-ty!.. can't chu hea the muuusic, mahn?" In my best Belize accent. Bro Strickland said I got it good :) haha. Eric fed us BBQ chicken, Belize style potato salad, rolls, baked beans and orange juice (its this bottled OJ, I don't know what it is but its some orange drink and its good!) It was all so yummy! He also had homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert. Incredible, right? I think we can keep this guy.
So we had a dance party/pool party, after a while I came up to my room and did some homework and crashed. Tomorrow we go to church and head to the island of Caye Caulker! Caye is pronounced Key, like the Florida Keys!