Celebrating St.Nicholas, snorkeling with sharks, and walking slow.

For a whole week already, we have now been traveling together with 3 other people we had met in Chiapas: Ebel and Marissa from Groeningen, Holland, and Michael from Hambourg, Germany. We decided to celebrate Saint Nicholas by giving a present to each other, draw-a-name-out-of-the-hat-fashion, and had a nice evening together. In Holland they celebrate it on the 5th, in Belgium and Luxembourg on the 6th, and in Belize we waited until the 7th due to Charlie's stomach problems.

Belize is the only English-speaking country in Central America, populated by the descendants of slaves and pirates, but also by Mestizos, Mayas, Garífuna and immigrants from China, India, El Salvador... a colourful mix.

We are on a small island named Caye Caulker (islands not big enough to deserve the name "Island" are called "cays" here), a short hop away from the same coral reef on which we had been diving in Honduras, second in the world in terms of length, after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. There are some golf carts and bicycles here, but no roads - just some white sandy paths. Charlie hasn't been wearing any sandals or shoes now for 3 days, and we are kindly reminded by the street signs (and also by the friendly locals) to please "Walk Slow".

Yesterday we had an amazing day of snorkeling - we went out by a reggae-playing
sail boat to various sites where we saw sea turles, sharks, spotted eagle rays, and fish of literally every single colour in the rainbow.


Thanks to Kerstin and Andreas for recommending us this small paradise.