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Flashback: Belize

June 7, 2011 By Jillian

It’s pitch black and the bed is shaking and, wait, no the whole building is shaking. For a second I freeze in a panic and grab Danny. He’s awake as well and we hold each other, tightly wondering out loud what is going on. Finally it dawns on us that it must be an earthquake. We quickly scramble out of bed, but can hardly stand up on the floor, I feel like I’m on a ride at an amusement park. The building stops moving and we are able to make it downstairs and safely out of the house. There the family regroups. We’re all a bit shocked and chattering away like monkeys although on our half asleep faces we’re showing signs of worry. Flashlights flicker down the beach as other people get out of their homes. We stay outside wondering if there will be aftershocks. Eventually someone reminds us that we’ re on a beach, looking at the Atlantic Ocean, and hey, aren’t there tsunami’s? Where can we go we ask- the roads aren’t great and there’s nothing around for miles. Hours later we eventually go back to sleep, just in time for light to break on the horizon.

Belize. A 7.1 earthquake. It turns out a tsunami watch had been issued, and cancelled 90 minutes later. Not that we would have known.

Fortunately we weren’t alone when the big one hit. My aunt and uncle had looked for months for a vacation rental in Belize, one big enough to hold the family but small enough that it wasn’t a resort! It was perfect, a nice big area (with wifi!) to hang out in, and a small eco-resort down the street with an awesome pool and bar.

The afternoon after the earthquake we were back at the pool, our general location for the whole time we were in Belize, chatting away with honeymooners and other vacationers. We were dissapointed not to see jaguars in the jaguar sanctuary (isn’t that what it’s there for after all), but got over it by barbequing for the first time in months!

It was our first vacation from “the trip” and it was a beautiful break from traveling. Spending time with family recharged our travel battery and although we were shaken, we weren’t stirred…from continuing our travels… and so we went on (looking back on it there should have been martini’s!).

Belizean Adventure

June 3, 2009 By Jillian

Opening my email a few weeks ago I found a very welcome surprise, an invitation from my Uncle Gary to join him and the amazing Pam 2 in Belize. A very welcome invitation, we were unsure if we’d be able to make it to the house he had rented. Belize might be more touristy than the rest of Central America, but we are still in Central America so transportation information is usually not trustworthy until verified independently by several sources. Finally it seemed like Belize might be do able so we hatched a plan to get there.

Belize was a welcome break for us after moving in rapid succession from Antigua to Copan to Utila to Comayagua. We rushed to catch the weekly ferry from Puerto Cortes, Honduras to Placencia, Belize early Monday morning and in spite of our worries about missing the ferry, the immigration officers held the boat for two hours before letting us leave. If you ever want to take this ferry, be prepared to wait, and wait, and wait. Arriving in Big Creek Shipyard in Belize the captain told us it would be easy to catch a bus from Mango Creek (about a 5 minute taxi ride) to Hopkins. It was sort of like a transportation board game: taxi to ferry in Puerto Cortes, shuttle to immigration back to ferry, ferry to Belize immigration at big creek, taxi to mango creek, bus to hopkins junction, hitch-hike in the back of a pick up truck to Hopkins, and a 3 mile walk walk to the house my uncle rented…but they found us before we walked all that way. By the time we arrived we were exhausted and happy to soak up our first air conditioned space in several weeks.

We spent the next day hiking around Cockscomb Wildlife Reserve, the first jaguar preserve in Belize. Unfortunately we saw no Jaguars, only some bugs, birds and lizards. Besides spending time with family and soaking up the air conditioning, it was nice to be in a country where other people spoke English. We spent the rest of our time in Belize hanging out by the pool, walking along the beach and generally exploring the area. For me it was great to spend time with Uncle Gary and Pam without the rest of the family, we haven’t seen them since our wedding and we never got to spend a lot of time together outside of big family events. Sometimes I have these experiences where I actually feel like an adult. Sounds funny, but often I feel like I’m still just a kid moving along in life. I hardly ever think of myself as an adult, which is probably why I’m on this trip in the first place. Sharing a beer and the sunset with my Uncle was one of those “adult” moments.

A perfect week of relaxation, good food and good company until Thursday at 2:30am. You’ve seen our immediate post about the earthquake, but the earthquake truly was the defining moment of our trip to Belize. For those of you that haven’t experienced an earthquake, Danny made this video to share our experience with you. (No, we did not grab the video camera during the earthquake, this is a “made for the web reenactment. No one has been hurt in the making of this video. :))

Belize was a great re-charging mini vacation for us. Even though the earthquake was scary, we never thought twice about moving forward and continuing our journey. Sometimes things happen and as we keep telling ourselves, things happen every day everywhere in the world. Coming back because of an earthquake defeats the purpose of traveling in the first place, so we’re plugging along, moving forward and maybe inspecting structures a little bit closer from now on!

Shaken not Stirred

May 28, 2009 By Jillian

Survived last night’s 7.1 earthquake with no injuries or damages.

Although we didn’t feel our first two earthquakes in Guatemala, this one was unmistakable. Shaken awake somewhere around 3am, at first we were unsure what was going on. Groggy one of us finally said earthquake. For what felt like minutes we held each other waiting for the shaking to stop, unsure of what else to do. (They don’t teach earthquake preparedness in Elementary School in Pennsylvania or Florida!).

Even though it was dark we were jostled awake with such force and could actually see the house shaking. When the quake started to subside we shouted for the others in the house and started to get outside but with everything still moving, only moving less, and things being so dark, progresss was slow. We waited for aftershocks which never came as neighbors began walking up and down the beach checking on people. One exclaimed….”I ain’t never seen anything like that before and I’m from California!” Worried about a tsunami, we sat and waited for awhile until sleep got the best of us. Unable to find any news on our radio, and realizing the worst was probably over, we cautiously assessed the house for damage (lost a few pieces of wall art and the toaster managed to make its way to the floor) and eventually went back to bed.

Power was on again by the time we woke up this AM and we even have running water. The Associated Press indicates that it was a 7.1 earthquake off the northern coast of Honduras, a few kilometers north of Utila, the island we visited last week. More information can be found at the USGS. We’ll check out our village and post pictures/video of anything interesting.

Flashback: Belize

Belizean Adventure

Shaken not Stirred

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