Author Archives: Zoe

The real reason we came to Santa Fe

Snorkeling trip to Pinzon Island

An octopus hiding under a rock

Our snorkeling trip to Pinzon Island was an amazing experience, but also a very cold one. It was a good thing that our guides urged us to rent wet suits before embarking on our tour. To get to the first snorkeling spot, near Pinzon Island, we had to take an hour and a half long boat ride. When I first caught sight of the mountain-like island, it appeared to have layers of clouds around its summit, like you can sometimes see in pictures of Mount Fuji, even though the elevation wasn’t that high.

The first snorkeling site was in a shallow, sandy bay. When I first jumped into the water, it felt shockingly cold. We followed our guide into the cove. He showed us a spot where five or six sharks were resting among mangrove roots. Soon, we also saw a small sea turtle eating from the bottom of the bay. Our group spread out in the water, all looking at different fish and animals. My favorite part of the whole tour was when four sea lions came into the water to swim with us. They were so playful, and twisted and dove around us.

The water in the second site was deeper and colder. The ocean floor was a landscape of huge boulders which made interesting and mysterious caves, hills, and drop-offs. Huge schools of sardines darted through the water in perfect synchrony, the light from above catching a few and making them flash silver from a sea of swirling gray. Our guide told us that penguins sometimes visited the area, but we didn’t have the luck to see one, although we did see a sea lion diving for fish.

Before snorkeling for a third time, we rode in the boat around Daphne Island to look at the different birds that perched on the cliffs. The third area had lots of colorful fish. We also saw sharks and two huge rays resting on the ocean floor. On the way back to Santa Cruz Island, our guides cast their fishing poles and trailed them behind the boat, but they didn’t catch anything.

Here’s a close-up of a sea lion on Pinzon Island. Can you spot it in the featured photo at the top of this post?

One cave to rule them all

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We’ve been on kind of a lot of cave tours. But now that we’ve toured caves in Belize, there’s no going back to the tame U.S. versions. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in the ATM cave because several numbskulll tourists apparently dropped them on priceless artifacts. However, you can check out this link to get a sense of the place. Or try this video:

My family had a great time at the ATM cave. The cave has a much longer name in the Mayan language (Actun Tunichil Muknal), but everyone calls it ATM cave.

To get there, we had to walk about thirty-five minutes through the jungle and wade through three rivers. The park we walked through was beautiful. When we got to the cave mouth, we took a break for a few minutes to get ready for our hike in the cave. Our guide told us not to take pictures in the cave because people had damaged artifacts in the past by dropping their cameras or knocking pebbles onto to artifacts.

I liked the cave so much better than I liked the caves we toured on our cross-country trip. It was in the middle of the jungle and was so much more natural and much less changed by humans. The other caves had huge, built up entrances with gift shops, and paved walkways inside the cave. They had blasted away bigger passageways for people to walk through. In this tour, we climbed, swum, and squeezed our way through tiny passages. It was so fun!

At the cave mouth, the first thing we had to do was swim to a ledge about ten feet into the cave. The water was deep and freezing. We turned our headlamps on on the ledge. We walked for a while into the cave. We walked and swum through water and over rocks. Near the end of our hike through the cave, we climbed a rock face. At the top, we took off our shoes and walked in our socks so we wouldn’t damage artifacts and formations.

Our guide showed us lots of ceramic Mayan pots. A few were almost whole but none were complete because the Mayans would break them to release their spirits. Sometimes they smashed them and sometimes they only chipped them. We came to a large chamber. The floor was eroded away in swirls. As we walked across it, our guide showed us formations and told us about Mayan history.

At the end of the chamber we climbed a ladder. In the cavern at the top was a fully preserved skeleton of a Mayan sacrifice. Our guide told us that the Maya had gone through a time of drought. As they got more desperate they ventured deeper into the cave to pray and started sacrificing humans. Eventually they moved away. After that we made our way back out of the cave.

Crazy bear lady meet paronoid iguana people

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What? Behind the Iguana?

Some people who have been reading our blog for a long time will remember our friend the crazy bear lady from way back in Yellowstone. I wonder if she knows these people: We were on a beach in Manuel Antonio National Park when a single iguana strolled out onto the sand to lie in the sun. A nearby group of teenagers seemed very alarmed. Whenever anyone came onto the beach they would yell “LOOK OUT! ON YOUR LEFT!” and seemed confused when people weren’t scared of it.

“Do they speak English? They must not speak English.”

They warned everybody that, “they can jump! watch out!,” and when Lanie went within five feet of the basking iguana , they yelled, “Someone get that little girl away! It’s dangerous!”
Before you start worrying about our safety, let me say that we see iguanas almost every day and they’ve never so much as walked toward us. All they do is lie in the sun and amble away if we come too close.

Feeding time in Muelle. Lanie survived with all her toes still attached.

You might be in danger, however, if you happen to be covered in cabbage. Remember our trip to “Iguana Corner” in Muelle a few weeks back — feeding time was a sight to behold, even if the giant iguanas were pretty tame once their salad was gone.

At the end of their time at the beach, the teenagers at Manuel Antonio walked out one at a time past the iguana, calling out who should go next. ” Tom, you go. Okay. Mary, you next.” Let’s all hope they didn’t get mauled by a sloth on the way out of the park.

Under the sea

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Lanie enjoys another boat ride. This time everyone else liked it, too.

A few days ago we went snorkeling on a coral reef. We took a boat out to where we were going to snorkel. The boat ride was really fun because it was so choppy. We climbed up waves and then slid back down. When we got in the water, it was so warm! Snorkeling was an amazing experience.

The reef was pretty close to the surface and the water was really clear, so we could see the fish really well. Most of the fish on the reef were pretty small.

We saw many more fish than we expected to see.

There were bigger fish in the gaps and alleyways in the coral. In the deeper water on the outskirts of the reef, there were huge schools of larger fish. Some of the fish in the schools were huge! Most of the fish in the schools were gray, but there were some colorful fish mixed in.

We saw so many cool fish! There were black fish with neon yellow tails and blue spots on their tails. The spots were so iridescent that they seemed to glow. My favorite fish was a greenish teal color. It had lots of other colors on its tail and fins like blue, purple and red-orange. We also saw lion fish, sea cucumbers, anemones, a giant hermit crab and a few sharks.

Cool coral. Our guide pointed out an octopus tentacle hanging out of the crack at the bottom.

There were also several really interesting types of coral. Some looked like they had mazes in their patterns. Another had projections that looked like a stag’s horns.

We found out later that the place we were snorkeling was part of an “underwater trail” connected to the nearby Cahuita National Park. When we were in the water we could still see the shore, and could swim in any direction and find things to look at. Most of the fish were in the places where there was lots of coral.

This shark was resting on the bottom.

I can’t wait to snorkel again in Belize!

On top of Mombacho

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Mombacho is an active volcano. Zoe sticks her hand in a steam vent, just to check.

The other day we returned to the cloud forest. First we went on a hike around the main crater of Mombacho Volcano. We got a ride to the top. When we got there, it was cold and misty.

Perezoso! Did you know they can swim, too?.

About five minutes into the walk, we saw people pointing to something in a tree up ahead and and taking pictures. When we got to where they were, our guide pointed out a sloth in the tree.
It was much smaller than I expected sloths to be. Our guide said that was because it was only so eleven months old. He also said that sloths are great swimmers. That really suprised me!

It’s a porcupine, but it looks fuzzy.

Later on our guide pointed to what looked like a fluffy ball in a tree. I couldn’t figure out what it was. After looking at it for a while, he said that it was a porcupine. It looked soft, not spiny. The guide lead us along a small path to the back of the tree to see its white face. It was asleep.

After the hike we drove down the mountain a little ways for ziplining. I had been looking forward to ziplining for a long time. It was so fun! After getting all our equipment, we drove up to a large tree with a platform. There were eleven zipline segments with platforms and sometimes bridges connecting them. On some of the segments, our guides helped us do special things like getting in a superman position or going upside down. On the last segment, our ropes were longer so we got to swing back and forth. That was my favorite segment.

Lanie did tricks, too, but they’re mostly on video. Look for on on Youtube soon.

Somoto Canyon Adventure

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A two-week-old goose

The other day we got to tour a canyon. First, we got picked up from the bus station and taken to our guide’s house. They had a lot of animals. One of their cats was trained to jump over their arms. They also had dogs, two bunnies, a donkey, turkeys, and lots of ducks, chickens, and geese. I got to hold a two-week-old baby goose. He was so cute and fuzzy!

The canyon narrows

After seeing the animals, we went into the canyon. We hiked for a while before we swam. The water was pretty deep. The canyon narrowed after we swam a little ways. After swimming, we explored a couple of caves.

Nadia jumps; Franklin watches

Later, we came to a boulder that we could jump off of. Nadia, Mom, Dad, and I decided to jump. I went first. After everyone else jumped, it should have been Lanie’s turn. She decided not to jump because she was afraid that she would hit rocks below. She found another place to jump and scrambled up a rock to get there. Nadia and I jumped there, too. It was hard to climb up because my feet wouldn’t fit into some of the cracks Lanie had used.

There were many cool rock formations in the canyon.

Not much farther to swim

Near the end of our tour, the canyon narrowed into a slot canyon. The sides were very steep and riddled with caves. The river was deep and very cold and there was nowhere to walk so we had to swim. We were so cold! We came to a place where we could jump off a cliff. Only Dad did. I didn’t because I was too cold and didn’t want to get my hair wet.

At the end we rode in a boat and then walked back and ate lunch. We were very hungry and tired but we had had so much fun!

Depiction of the Canyon Somoto on the 50-cordova bill.

On the way back to the bus station, we stopped at a little zoo in the central park of the city of Somoto. We saw a few Nicaraguan animals, but the path to a lot of the exhibits was blocked. We didn’t know why. Then, on our way out, we saw a strange animal up in a tree. It had escaped from its cage. Zoo workers were climbing ladders and trying to catch it. It looked a little like a raccoon. It was a different shade of brown than a raccoon and its tail had orange-ish stripes. It was also much longer and thinner and had a longer nose. It wasn’t a dangerous animal.

Learning to surf

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In the last couple of days, the whole family took surfing lessons. Nadia and I had the first part of our lessons together so that we could have more time in the water. Our teacher’s name was Ross.

Ross to Nadia: Stand like a gorilla.

First, we had some dry land instruction. We learned how we were supposed to stand on the board, and practiced getting up to a standing possition from lying down on the board. Ross told us to spring up into the standing position and to stand like a gorilla on the board, with our knees bend and our chests thrown out.

After that, we got to start the water part of our lessons. My turn in the water was first. It was a lot harder to stand up on the board when it was in the water! My first few tries, I fell off before I was able to stand fully up. It wasn’t painful, and the water was nice and warm.

Catching a wave

A few tries later, I was able to stand up and stay balanced for a couple seconds. I was so happy! But I still had alot to learn. When I went back out to catch a ride, Ross would give me tips. He told me to try to stand up more quickly. At first, he started the board for me, but later in the lesson, I learned to paddle myself.

Zoe surfs

By the end of the lesson, I was able to get up much faster and stay up much longer. We rented the surfboard for the rest of the day and for the next day, so I had plenty of time to practice.