Green Green Everywhere, but Not a Leprechaun in Site

Jan 4, 2013
When we got off the plane, I knew this trip was going to be fantastic -- we got a presidential welcome...well kind of, since we got to get out of said airplane via a ladder, which makes everyone feel important. It then immediately started to downpour, which seems to also have set a theme for the duration of the trip.

After smiling nicely and opening some bags for customs, we finally got on our bus and made our way from Belize City to San Ignacio. It was a whole other world, so much green it felt like a green ocean. We saw three or four stray dogs in the first five mins of the bus ride.

While driving it still felt like we were in the US, but in a different state -- I'm not sure if it was just the non-existent jet lag or what -- and it wasn't until we hit some very urban, mountainous, green areas that it actually hit that we were somewhere else.

When we finally got to Proworld, it was, guess what, still down  pouring; the building was very elegant and modern -- the kind you would expect to see here. It was pretty funny to see that the first thing we all did when we got there was get on our phones and try to find wifi. After some successful and failed attempts at connecting, we went to the roof of the hotel and had orientation. It was still pouring, but the view was still amazing -- all green with spots of gray clouds, so fluffy you'd think you were looking at a painting. I've found that whenever I go to another country, everything seems so picture perfect, it makes me want to vomit rainbows.

After we got our schedules and were told not to flush toilet paper down the toilet,  we got our T-shirts (all college students love T-shirts, especially FREE t-shirts), we tried again to get wifi (but failed) and waited to get picked up by our host families.

The home that Cecilia and I were placed in was modest and not over-the-top. We enjoyed a dinner of curry chicken with black rice and a kind of potato salad and pretty much crashed at 8pm ( BZ time -- there is a one hour time delay between BZ and US).

This is what my humble abode looked like.

As I lay in the bottom of the bunk bed I stayed up a bit until it started sinking n that we were in another country and I was going to be in this bed for the next two weeks. Little did I know then that this would be one of the best two weeks of my entire life. (I apologize for all the cliche-ness)