Day 7 - our last day finally arrived. Our hotel bill reflected our little one's presence: $25BZ for a broken vase, and $50BZ for a broken clock. In my opinion, the clock had it coming to it - it was way too fragile to belong in a hotel room with tile floor.
Our main adventure for the day was making it from our resort to the airport. We made a cursory attempt to visit Belize City - but we really didn't have the time, nor energy, to visit this chaotic city. I did get some ice cream from a random shop on the street, and found it pretty blah. Who messes up chocolate ice cream?
We made it to the tiny airport with plenty of time. There was absolutely no line when we went through security - what a pleasure that was. And our plane left on time. We flew through Miami, which was a heck of a lot more chaotic than Belize, but painless none the less. Our flight was delayed 30 minutes due to weather in DC. I suppose that's a preview of what we have to face when we land in DC.
All in all, I'd say our Belize trip was an outstanding one. The sites and activities were absolutely top notch. The Mayan ruins are on par with our trip to Pompei - though they are on different scales. Our accommodations - both Mystic River Resort and Lamanai Outpost Lodge, exceeded expectations. The staff at both definitely went above and beyond to make sure we were happy (Mystic River cooked us pancakes with soy milk so our little one could eat them; Lamanai had a waitress who would carry our little one around and let us get a few minutes of peace during dinner).
The biggest surprise was just how underdeveloped Belize was. I always thought of Belize as an exotic getaway, not a country filled with crumbling shacks and roads in massive need of a good paving. It's easy to forget just how wealthy a country I live in, and this trip reminded me in stark detail how much this is the case.
I think Shira summed up the trip best when she remarked that she felt like we were on a Reality TV show. Challanges kept popping up (quick - your child has a 102 degree fever, and the nearest doctor is 2hrs away by rough road. What do you do?!) and it was our job to negotiate them. Sometimes we'd gracefully rise to meet them, other times we'd trip all over each other. But, in the end, nobody was kicked off the island, and we had an excellent time.
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