Thursday, June 27, 2013

Day 4 -- Bernd and Nick

Greetings parentals!
The day is still rather young, and our group is about to split in two to go cruising down the river on some tubes and make some traditional Mayan chocolate. Yesterday, I (Bernd, that is) had the wonderful opportunity to make some Mayan chocolate using a grindstone. The chocolate maker was a real charismatic bloke, and is actually quite the entrepenuer. With his cocoa beans, he's experimented a bunch: he's made some fancy frozen drinks from a juice that's inside the cocoa beans, and for all you tea drinkers out there, a cocoa powder tea! And it's only $1.50 USD for a pack of 6! We were also blessed with 5 minutes of air conditioning inside the room where all the chocolate packing magic happens, and we were only lured out with the prospect of fresh chocolate, made by our very own hands. My co-leader of the day is aching to tell you about his tubing experience, so here he goes:

 
Hey guys, Nick here! As Bernd said, some of us including me went tubing yesterday. First of all we took a very hot but fun van ride to the jaguar reserve. Then, we ventured to get some tubes from the base camp to use on our journey. Also, before any of us could forget, trusty Ms. Winegarden and Ms. Bastedo reminded us to apply sunscreen and bug spray. We then hiked down to the tubing entrance which took about 10 minutes through the thick brush of the temperate rainforest. As we reached the entrance of the river, we were all extremely excited to TUBE! But first, we had to recieve the safety talk from our World Leadership School coordinator Peter. And then we were off! We tubed down the river fast, slow, and safely. Everyone was going at their own pace, especially Ms. Bastedo who was being the kaboos cruising comfortably at approximately 1/2 miles per hour. We spent about 45 minutes venturing down the river and finally reached the end point. We were very sad it had ended but happy that we got to experience it. We climbed up the rope and hiked up back to the base camp. Then we hopped on the bus and headed back to Ernesto's.
 



After the activities yesterday, we made our way to homestays for the first night! We took a stroll through the village, dropping off students at the gate where the homestay families were excitedly (and also nervously, much like the students) awaiting. Personally, I had a great first night with my homestay family. I was lucky enough to have a returning Belize Trip member with me, and he already knew the family, so that helped break the ice a little. After getting settled in, we had a lovely dinner of chicken and rice, with a tomato and habanero pepper sauce. For those of you who don't know, habanero peppers are arguably much hotter than jalapenos, so of course I had a few spoonfuls of the sauce. And. It. Was. DELISH. Mind you, I burped fire for the rest of the night, but it wasn't an unpleasant experience. What followed was a night filled with quite heavy rain, which sounded like a warzone on a tin roof.

This morning, we all shared our homestay stories (and it seemed as though there was a general consesus that it was good) before getting ready for some hard manual labour at the worksite! Our progress is going quite swell, for all who are wondering.

So, that has been the day so far, and we're off. We're all still alive (mostly).

Bernd and Nick

2 comments:

Kelley Frances said...

Hello AWTY! It sounds like you all are working hard (no surprise) and having a great time (also not a surprise). I wish I could've joined you! --Kelley

Anonymous said...

We appreciate your posts! Just to keep you posted, we were at 102 degrees in Houston, no rain!

Bonnie hoggatt

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