Belize - Lamanai Ruins

Our next port of call was in the beautiful country of Belize. Here, Laura decided to go on her own adventure excursion that we couldn't do because of the girls but we were super happy with the excursion we chose.We decided to visit the ruins of Lamanai. It was also fun because we got to get there by bus and then by boat. We all rode a speedboat and saw a lot of nature on our way to the ruins.Once at Lamanai, we were served a local cuisine for lunch and we sat and ate under a thatched tent. The food was very good.Once we were done with lunch, we got to go on a great tour of the grounds at Lamanai. We saw some amazing temples and structures that are super old and I loved walking on these old and sacred grounds.We saw the howler monkeys and the sounds they make are incredible. They sound like lions and the sound is very foreboding as you walk up to the tree where they play.Lamanai is a very large place with lots of huge ruins and we got to do a bit of hiking through jungle type forests and climb the structures. Since I had Ava strapped to me, it was a bit harder to climb so I didn't go as high as Lorne did. It was still amazing and beautiful and neat to think of what these people had done with so little.On the way back, we saw some more wildlife from the boat. We saw a crocodile, an iguana and more monkeys. It was so neat to see these creatures in their natural habitat.As we were waiting for the tender to take us back to the boat, we spotted Laura, back from her adventure and we rode back together.That night was New Years night and even though we were all a bit tired and grouchy, we stayed up to watch the new year roll in. Happy 2010!