Lamanai Ruins with Tanisha Tours

Debbie got a good tip that Tanisha Tours is a good outfit to use for a tour of the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. If you head out from San Pedro, you get the pleasure of a fun zipping boat ride on the river through the mangroves. This was for sure more exciting than the ruins though the ruins were interesting. Your tour guide Daniel has been doing the tours for 20 years so he is quite experienced and has loads of knowledge on the wildlife of the area. He and his helper can amazingly spot a small bat or lizard amongst the mangrove as they wiz by in the boat. They are always willing to turn around and show the animals to the people. If you come from San Pedro, breakfast of banana nut bread and juice, lunch of local styled food, and water during the tour, and a rum punch or beer is provided. The only down side is that the trip to the ruins from San Pedro via boat is about 3 hours (including an unpleasantly bumpy 1 hour bus ride), but the fun boat ride makes it well worth it. The other option (not with Tanisha tours) is to fly with TropicAir and you will still get to do one portion of the boat ride but I think the portion you do if you go with Tanisha is more interesting (possible dolphin spottings when traveling through the sea and sharper turns when navigating through the mangroves).

Natural Scaffolding

One thing that is refreshing is the use of natural, unmanufactured materials for various purposes. Granted, this is probably done out of necessity but it keeps open the question of how much we really need to manufacture. (This is really a post for my mom because she was wishing she could get into the scaffolding business the first time she went to Europe and I know she loves natural "construction".)

Critters

This little crab somehow managed to crawl into our bathroom at night and die. It was there first of what to be some critter visitors in our little cabana at Hotel Del Rio in San Pedro, Ambergris, Belize. The "hotel" has a nice little common area where the guests seemed to use quite frequently which gave it a nice community feel. So much of a community feel that Debbie and I had no qualms of dashing to one of the other cabanas late at night to get a guy to come kill what was the biggest spider either Debbie or I had ever seen. Really...it had to have been at least 6 inches in diameter (including the legs). It moved to fast for us to get a picture of it. The owner and manager of the hotel says they didn´t know what type of spider it was. We are still alive now so I suppose it doesn´t matter now.

Belikin Beer

I took the opportunity of drinking Belize's beer to test out my handy-dandy Swiss Army knife. It worked wonders! I was pleasantly surprised by how good the Belikin beer is. One could even call it pretty good. I'm definitely surprised that the national beer is good...at least from the comparison to the "national" American beers.

TropicAir Flight to San Pedro

We opted to fly to San Pedro from Belize city which meant we flew on a plane that takes about 15 people. It's only a 15 minute flight. The Belize City International Airport is quite small and the flights on TropicAir leave as soon as the plane is full so we left about 15 minutes earlier than the scheduled time. It's a nice view over the ocean to the island of Caye Ambergris. There is another airline (Maya Air) that flies to San Pedro and they have the same flight schedule and similar prices. Not sure what their planes are like but I had no complaints about our flight with TropicAir.

Let the adventures begin...

Well...my around the world trip started in luxury. Debbie and I got upgraded to first class for our flight to Belize which meant we could get into the American Airlines lounge. We lounged in-style while we waited for our flight. I had to soak it up because it is probably the last vestige of luxury I will have for a while :).

The Power of the Consumer: Carrot Mob

This is a great demonstration of how we can put our over-used power of the consumer to good use.

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

Wall-e

Come on people...really...you can't in the first 2 minutes of the movie get the theme of the movie?? I saw Wall-e the other day and was struck by the strong message in the movie that was for me blatant in the first 2 minutes. What has baffled me is how no one (in the mass media) is talking about this and how the message seems to escape a lot of people. So, I write this post so that anyone planning to go see Wall-e will know to look for a message about our current path on Earth in the first 2 minutes. If you are not sure what it is by the end of the movie, please contact me and I'll explain then.

In-room coffee at Carmel River Inn

Now I have to admit one thing that I didn't like about Italy (and a few other countries in Europe) was no coffee maker in the room. It is a standard that I had become accustom to in the US and England (well...there it was water boilers for tea) and it is nice to enjoy your morning cup in the privacy of your own room. But let me say that no place has lived up to the coffee luxury of Carmel River Inn in California. A coffee machine with a built-in coffee bean grinder....in your room...I'm loving it!!

Peace

Ha...Enough said.

A new phase

Alright, while I had mostly been a tourist in the places I had been living, I have now returned back to the US and Austin where I lived previously and so am quite familiar with it. That being said, Austin has changed a lot in the past couple of years, so now the blog is going to focus on exploring these new things of Austin and also information worth sharing as I prepare for my year off, volunteer, and travel around the world.

Bar Quadronno in Milano

This little place serves up tasty unique little sandwiches but a bit expensive. It probably will take two to fill you up and they go for about €6 each. But it will be tasty! Here's a link to the google map.

Bring it on Mediterranean Sea!!

As I was walking to the beach in Tel Aviv, it hit me that this was my first visit to water since my lasik surgery where I could actually get in and enjoy. Let me tell you...it is so nice to be able to swim and play around in water without having to worry about water getting in your eyes because of contacts (not wearing the contacts was not an option because I can't see anything without them)! So, to anyone considering Lasik...I say do it! The freedom is liberating! Plus, you don't have to worry about sandstorms in Africa either! Water and sand...I have no fear now!

Tel Aviv Beach Sunset

Well, I thought I would welcome myself back with a nice peaceful picture from my trip to Tel Aviv. Apparently, kite surfing is very popular here and it is a most peaceful time to spend sitting on the beach watching the kites float through the air. It's way better than watching birds fly through the air I must say...the kites stay around longer and keep soaring. You have the excitement of near misses with water and specators on the beach when the kite glides breathtakingly close to either. Too top it off, you can sip on a beer or cocktail with the sunset in the background. Really, I couldn't have imagined a better way to spend my last night there.

Fishing in Dublin

Maybe such a store shouldn't surprise me, but I was quite surprised and amused when I saw this store in the smack dab of the middle of Dublin. I know Dubliners must getting the tackle supplies somewhere...but it still seems out of place...it's not like they are going to go fishing in the middle of Dublin...are they???

Cascina Monluè

There is a little farm called Cascina Monluè just off one of a major road near Milan that hosts various music festivals. While I didn't know the bands that were playing, I did definitely enjoy the music. This is just a shot of the place to get food so you can see the old farmhouse building. Everything is outside though.

Storms

The Milan area can get East Texas style rain storms...it's a nice reminder of home. I promise, I didn't alter this picture...this really is the rain cloud. I'm not sure what the people in that building did to make God mad, but I would suggest not doing it again.

La Piazza dei Sapori

La Piazza dei Sapori was a nice festival I stumbled across while I wandered around the city center of verona when I was visiting a customer for work. It was a nice surprise. It was a festival for food specialities of the various regions of Italy. As I was starving and not sure how I would eat the food nor how I would store what I didn't eat, I passed on getting anything and instead went on to eat at a restaurant. There was also live music at the festival so it was quite nice.

Italian Iron

These Italians aren't joking with their iron. This has got to be on of the most intense home iron I have ever seen. This puts the American home steam iron to shame. What do you think an Italian mom is trying to say to her Italian son when she gives him an iron? Don't worry, he had it before he met me so it wasn't a message to me :)

Vietnamonamour

We tried this Vietnamese restaurant Vietnamonamour in Milan the other night. It is my first crack at Asian food in Milan. While it wasn't bad, it also wasn't the greatest either, but I wasn't expecting it to be. One thing is for sure, while you can can get excellent Italian food in Italy, that is about the only excellent food you can get here. So, not-bad Vietnamese is a good thing. Look out for the Asian waitress...she's a bit of a hard-core woman...no joking with her! And be prepared for a bit of competition-bashing from her. Oh, and Vietnamonamour is actually a B&B with a public restaurant.