Here is a video from our zip lining trip at Jaguar Paw. While we weren’t totally bowled over with the resort itself, Kent and Harrison were great guys and they gave us a really nice private zip line tour. They were patient with us; especially with my technical issues. I think they might have even been a little bit amused by our enthusiasm and silliness. Enjoy the video:

Piggy Backing on Courtney’s Post: Zip Lining in Belize: Part 1 of 2: We headed to the zip-line area after the black out and we  were guided by a nice worker there to the area. Along the way, there was a large pavilion which at first I believed to be the zip-lining site, but this seems to be more of the “break” area for the zip-line workers there. We met Harrison and Kent. They were both really nice gentleman and extremely patient with us as Courtney attempted a couple of different ways to mount the camera on the helmet from the front. While Courtney worked on mounting the camera, Kent helped me gear up. Soon after, Harrison worked on Courtney and later allowed Courtney to use his personal helmet to try and mount the camera. After a few attempts and realizing he did not bring the zip ties, he mounted the camera with a few piece of duct tape and we continued on with our journey.

Harrison and Kent led us up a trail with a buncha stairs to our first launch site. They told us a few tricks to zip-line and then we were off! We soared from ramp to ramp above the Belize jungle. We soared, we laughed, we giggled, we squealed. It was an absolute blast and an incredible experience. I had been waiting years to do this. Since I was a little girl. It was everything I ever dreamed of. Although, I wish it lasted longer! It took us about 20-30 minutes to complete the course. But it was worth it!

Here are the photos. Look for video in the near future!

Belize is a poor country. There is little industry, technology, and/or big business in general. From the perspective of the local nationals, Americans are infinitely more wealthy. Whereas they might have enough money to go grab a Coke or Coke Light one day, we seem to have bags of money that allow us to fly across the globe and stay in foreign lands for weeks at a time.

This circumstance leads to interesting interactions in Belize. Recall the car rental place from a few posts back. Liz and I were immediately “assisted” by a scruffy looking man with a thick accent who practically grabbed our bags out of our hands and tried to recruit us into one of the other rental car shops. He wouldn’t leave us alone; he kept leaving and coming back to the shop with status reports and commenting on how bad Belize Auto Rental was.

I pretty much knew that I was going to have to tip this guy. I didn’t want to and I didn’t think he deserved one considering he forced his services upon us. But he’s broke and this is clearly the way he made his money. And, lets not forget that I am the rich American with tons of excess cash.

Tipping became a source of frustration for Liz and I. We received very good service from Beulah and Robbie and Jen and Chris at the hotels. And we felt they should get tipped, beyond the service charge added to our hotel bill. And the guys at Ecologic Divers were great! But as Liz had mentioned before, it wasn’t something we’d fully budgeted for, and we made some generous tips that were larger than our pocket change could sustain.

This challenge and frustration hit its peak when we were at the Belcove restaurant on our last night in Belize. Jules is the son of the owner of Belcove. He was visiting at he time of our stay. He welcomed us and was very friendly and declared that he would help us with our bags. He clarified “this is my family’s hotel. It won’t cost you anything.” But I was so distressed and programmed at that point, that I didn’t know what to do. So I tried to tip him.

He refused and repeated his connection to the hotel. I never felt more like an ugly American than at that point. Granted, I might not have looked like it, but I felt that way. We were so razzled by the tipping that we no longer knew what to do.

Our lesson learned and the corresponding travel tip is:

We planned for a stop off at Jaguar Paw Jungle Lodge on our way to Table Rock to do a little zip lining. The lodge is located just east of Belmopan making it a nice stopping point to break up the trip a little prior to a second stop in Belmopan for lunch. As we cruised on down the Western Highway, Liz and I noticed an old, faded billboard advertising Jaguar Paw. No arrows, or instructions “turn here” were printed on the sign, but 1000 feet later, we’d instinctively stopped and prepared for a U-turn. We pulled into some farmers driveway and turned around. As we approached the sign, we saw no further indicators that this was actually the turn off for Jaguar Paw. But some guys sitting under the sign approached. We rolled down the window and ask them but were greeted with a faded tour guide’s license and a solicitation. “Yes, this is road to Jaguar Paw, but we are licensed tour guides. We take you for zip lining, cave tubing.”

“No thanks,” we said. “We’ve got reservations at Jaguar Paw.”
We continued down this road south for about 2000 feet before we hit potholes. Hundreds of them. Massive potholes. Boston has big potholes. Big like, your tire will fall in them and you feel a good bump. Belize has small potholes. Small, like your tire will fall in them and you feel a good bump. They have big potholes, too. Big potholes like your car will fall in them and you will become a bump.
We drove through what looked like an exploded mine field for some time, crippling the hooptie and contemplating our next move should one of the axles fall off. Some of the holes were manageable. We could straddle them or pass them on the left or the right. Others were less easily avoided. Some were, in fact, so massive, there was actually less road than pothole.
After a long while, we passed a similar adventure post full of tour busses and a few signs indicating zip lining and cave tubing. Liz wondered if that was it, but we pressed on. A long while later, we started to wonder if this was actually the right road. Maybe it was just a billboard. Again, no arrows. No “turn here.” Nothing.

Finally saw a sign. A small, almost inconsequential sign sat on the side of the road indicating this was still the way. We breathed a sigh of relief and pressed on.

Jaguar park is located inside a protected nature reserve. We entered the park and told the ranger our intent. He pointed us on and waved us a goodbye. We entered the park and were immediately hit up by yet another tour guide who tried to sell us on cave tubing. “No thanks,” we said and drove on.

We came to the steepest hill I’ve ever tried to ascend in a car. The trail was about 15 feet wide with two two-foot wide strips of broken concrete running up the middle. A pleasant, one lane “road” led us up a hopelessly steep hill where any other vehicles would surely smoke us before we ever even saw them. The strips of concrete, while reliable, were narrow and skirted by deep, rocky troughs that we were sure to avoid. As we ascended the hill, I had only one thing to say:

“Oooooh…..myyyyy…..God.”

The car made it, barely, and we descended the other side.
We parked and walked into what is easily the hokiest (no offense Virginia Tech) “jungle lodge” I could imagine and signed in. The cost was $45US per person. For $52 we could have lunch, too. It was about lunch time and we hadn’t eaten much so we decided to grab lunch, too. We sat down at a nice table in a nice dining room, decorated in tourist cheese and began to set up the equipment.

Lunch came out. It was delicious; chicken, rice and coleslaw. A pretty common dish, as it turns out in Belize. I loved, it, Liz ate it.

Then the power went out.

For about five minutes, we were limited to ambient light from outside as the staff ran frantic trying to restore power. Eventually, it came back on, we left our gear at the front desk and headed out to the zip line tour.

Here is our itinerary. We likely won’t be able to post on any of these exciting activities while we’re gone, but you can follow along with what we are doing each day anyway. Hopefully we can post here and there, but for now, this is what we have.