Day 2, Tuesday, February 24, 2009: Safe Landing in Belize!

Well, it's about 12:10 pm (Belize time, an hour behind New York) and we have made a safe landing in Belize. All went well at customs and we boarded a charter bus with our guide, Rudy and our driver (or "driva" in the local Creole), Alvin. Rudy and Alvin took us into Belize City where we picked up some travel guides and learned much about the local culture, such as there are about 2.5 working traffic lights in the country (1 of them only works some of the time and there used to be 5 before Hurricane Dean in 2007), the traveler's palm (right) is native to Belize and we saw the old man in the mountain or Sleeping Giant, a common name for a formation of hills you can see from the highway (below).
We made our way to Cheers where we stopped for lunch in a very relaxing atmosphere. It is so neat to eat some local (and more familiar) food among some of the tropical local plants, like hibiscus, bird of paradise, snake cactus, and bread fruit tree. The sounds of the birds (like the local tropical mockingbird) and the view is wonderful and the students (and adults) are having a good time socializing as well.

Alright, time to stop blogging and have some food...