Belize

We're underway. We woke up at around 3:30 am on Monday morning to fly from SFO to Dallas, then to Belize city. From there, we hopped on a Tropic Air flight to the island of San Pedro, about a 15 min flight. The airline just has your name on a piece of paper, doesn't ask for ID, or even cares what flight you were originally on. We got in early and just hopped on the earlier flight. The plane is basically a mini-van with wings, as you can see. That's my view over the pilot's shoulder as we approach the island.

... and a random creepy guy behind me in the mini-van sized plane.

Once we arrived on the island, we made it to Zack's uncle's place at the Belize Yacht Club (The BYC). Very nice place. Cody Liebman, a good friend from NYC, made a power move and bought some cheap tickets and was already here waiting for us. We have our own condo with air conditioning and telvision that's showing SportsCenter, Seinfeld, and even Warrior games (last night we got to see them hit a shot to take the lead with 1.6 seconds left, only to end up losing). Uncle Forrest has taken us sailing, we pretty much just go up the beach to the next bar. Uncle Forrest knows everyone here.

We went fishing with one of the local guides, Chito. We managed to catch a few fish (which we later ate) but the highlight might have been the sunset.

One of our other projects has been to get certified for SCUBA diving. This includes some reading, some dives in about 6 feet of water, testing of some basic skills, and some more dives. Here you can see me putting on some gear, the most important piece of equipment: The Mankini.

I have to admit that the start of the trip is kind of cheating as we aren't exactly "backpacking" or "roughing it" much. It still seems to me like I'm just on a vacation. There will be plenty of time for hostels and roughing it later. We'll build up to that.