Celebrating Belize – September 21st Flight over the Blue Hole AND the San Pedro Parade

Hi again- this is Meg with what will be my last guest scoop while Rebecca is out of town. So far I’d focused on the first half of our honeymoon in the Mountain Pine Ridge, since we had done some things not yet featured on San Pedro Scoop. For the second half of our honeymoon, we headed toward the sea and spent 5 nights just north of San Pedro, at Cocotal Inn.

I won’t go into Cocotal too much, other than to say that our cabana was super cute, as was the resort dog, Mara.

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We were lucky enough, even though it was “rainy season,” to wake up to sunrises like these each day!

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Much of our time was spent snorkeling and diving, so we don’t have great photos of that. What I did want to share was our biggest honeymoon splurge- a flight over the Blue Hole with Maya Island Air!

Early in the planning process, we had considered diving the Blue Hole- but realized that we would be exceedingly new divers, and that wouldn’t be worth the safety risk or stress involved. We briefly considered tagging along on a trip as snorkelers, but decided that it would be an unnecessarily costly and long day. Actually the flight was cheaper than snorkeling would have been- and by doing it on the morning of Saturday, September 21st, we’d have the rest of the day free to celebrate Belize’s independence.

We woke up early (as we had been doing all trip- and which was the reason we missed the block party on Friday night) and rode bikes down the beach to town, where we had a hearty Belizean breakfast. I could get used to this view every morning.

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As 9:30 neared (our flight was booked for 10am) we headed toward the airstrip. We checked in, and Maya Island Air gave us no trouble adding a third person (since it was a three-seat plane). Our resort’s manager, Ernesto, was able to join us- which made me super happy, since he’d been such a help in getting the flight booked!

We met our pilot shortly after 10. The guys squeezed into the back, while I claimed the co-pilot’s seat for the prime photographic location.

Taking off, we got some nice views of San Pedro,

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before flying over Caye Caulker

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and Caye Chapel.

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We then continued south toward the Turneffe Islands.

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 Next up was Lighthouse Reef, where we soon came upon the Blue Hole (video shot by Chris):

(From San Pedro Scoop – check out this video – I don’t know how to embed it in a pretty way…but it is AWESOME.  Doesn’t even look real!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqe4zxXJPuM

 We circled around the Hole in both directions, so everyone could get a great view and lots of photos. Here are a couple of my favorites:

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 On the way back, we flew over this tiny island

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and this wrecked ship, which was apparently blown into the reef during a hurricane.

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Coming back, we made one more pass over San Pedro- but our hour was soon up.

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It wasn’t even noon, but we’d had a fabulous start to our day. We said goodbye to Ernesto, and headed into town to stake out a spot to wait for the parade.

We soon settled upon Fidos, and saw a familiar waterfall on the front of the building!

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 A couple Belikins and rum punches later (the parade started at 1pm “Belize time,” which meant we had a couple hours), we headed back out to the curb. Rebecca shared tons of great parade photos, so I will just post a few of my favorites that I took!

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All told, this was one of our favorite days- and certainly one where we could celebrate Belize- both it’s natural beauty, and its amazing people! We’re so glad to have taken a September honeymoon so we were able to be part of it!

I’ll close with an artsy shot of my pantyrippa and the Belizean flag- somewhat fitting for my post-parade state of being.

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Thanks for hanging with me for these few guest scoops- it’s been great to relive our honeymoon, and maybe share some helpful thoughts on a site I found invaluable as we were planning our trip!

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