Day Two and Three pickchas here.
Day Four and Five images for you here.
Day Four – BELIZE AND ZIP LINES
We’re told as we’re waiting for tenders to sidle up to our ship, that the cave tubing portion of our excursion was cancelled and that we’d be given a small cash refund and a little longer time at the zip lines in the jungles of Belize. Fair dinkum we all say!
Into the boats and into the busses and we’re down that same road as last year out of town and along the narrow 2000kph stretch of highway across the flat land to the sudden lumps, jutting out of the horizon. We’re at the jungle and our guide tells us that Belize is starting to harvest egrets for meat. “Tastes exactly like chicken!” he says. I’m dubious.
The zip lines go too fast and it started to rain at the first line, making the ropes slippery. There were 7 lines in all with only one repel at the end, so in all, not bad. Though last year, in my humble opinion, the view was better and less rushed. They were pushing a lot of people through that day. I nearly broke my ankle at one tree deck. The guide told me not to brake at all and I guess with my extra weight, I came in too hot and used my right foot to stop myself on the platform. Ow.
Lunch was delish. Egret? Chicken? Who knows?
Back at the boat we relaxed and got together for pre-dinner girl drinks. I gots me a nice funny lookin’ martini glass (which I recognized from Pier One Imports a month before). Pre-dinner entertainment consisted of a musical review of jazzy, swingy, Broadway showtunes. Cheese Factor 6.5 but they did a good job on the costumes and sets.
Dinner. So fat. It was delish as usual. We came back to our room to a bat towel arrangement. Never saw that one last year!
Day Five – COSTA MAYA AND THE RUINS
We’re up and walking between the ships to get to shore. Like a ready made steel canyon. Cool!
Into the bus for a two hour ride into the interior to visit Kohunlich & Dzibanche, two ruins about 40 min apart, one partially excavated and the other, pruned and trimmed with cut grass approaches which made it look like a park. The first thing we encounter are howler monkeys up in the trees. Lordy these things send chills up your spine. They hoot and echo so loud!
The temples themselves were nothing short of amazing. I was stunned and enthralled and loved finding stuff out about these ruins. All the time I was wondering what it must have looked like when they were occupied.
Back to the boat for a fattening dinner and a lazy walk around. Evil Panda gave me some time on the craps table to explain how the damn game is run. So confusing but I was getting close to understanding it. Nearly went and got some chips too but it was closing in on 1am and we had another full day ahead.
We wake and get an early start at Jerry’s Deli, a massive derrigible-hanger of a deco-deli, popular with the South Beach crowd. After that, we all hit the ground running in different directions. Some went shopping to replace their missing camera, some helped find a good deal on said missing camera shopping and others just wandered off. Sharkboy and I went and got chocolate covered blueberries and an underwater disposable camera. We were good to go!
Off to dinner! Yum! They did everything except wipe our chins. I’ve been told the food on these ships is considered some of the best in the industry, even if they’re churning out 3000 plates in one night. I could hear my waist expand just looking at the menu.
Not much to do other than tour some of the ship and sit out on deck.
To the Clay hotel, which was glam on the outside and just below basic on the inside. No matter, we’re not there for the luxury, just the night. The Juliet balcony over the market was a nice touch though.
We lazily walked back to the hotel along Ocean Drive to see some Deco and beautiful people. Sharkboy insisted on stopping by 
I’ll give you all the readers digest version as that it’s not so interesting if you’re not family.
Then we all go to Olympic Pizza for all the family that had arrived so far. They meet Andy, the Officiate, and we nosh on some predicable, but welcome food. After we go back to the condo party room and set up some. The room seems larger when you empty it of chairs and couches and put in a sole “hoopa” (what we were calling the “altar”).
Candy Barr showed up to my wedding. Unfortunately the speaker system was way too quiet to perform for a room of 50++ but she did manage to put some jealous faces on sisters, sisters in law, mothers and friends with her outfit and figure. As long as I live, I will never forget my brother John’s girlfriend, Heather, go white eyed and pallid when Candy breezed by the first time. Candy managed to hit it off with my Mom for a while, but I didn’t find out what they talked about.
Thanks to all the Happy Monkeys who showed. Rain and my brother in law, Rhino started to yell at each other in German to which JoyAnn commented “Are they fighting? Or just greeting each other?” They suppressed the urge to yell out “Sounds like a Song!” or “Should have said!” during the ceremony. Thank god.
Michele and Rhino for cutting their vacation short and spending a few air miles to be part of the day. Same goes for Dan and Mark too. Both brother and sister (and sig. others) reworked their schedules to attend the wedding. Thank you for making the effort and thank you for brining Bernice, the nice Irish ex-wife! I forgot how much I loved her! She lit up the room!
Sylve, Pogo, Max and Shawn: Hell of a speedy weekend. I wish we could have spent more time. Pogo, thanks for walking my mom home at the end of the night. Sylvie: you did a great job representing Sharkboy’s parents. Max, you looked like $1,000,000 and Shawn, I want to see that video soon! I hope you all meshed with the Healeys, they like you very much.
Mom: I know how much you wanted to take over with the preparations. I know it wasn’t the most conventional wedding, but we had a specific vision as to what was going to happen on our day: fast and low key. Thank you for the lunch and thank you for coming. And thank you for hauling that picture of me at 11 years of age, smiling like a moron for the camera, wearing a two tone, velour turtleneck sweater, all around the part for everyone to see. Including co-workers. I love you!
Dad: What can we say? We’ve said “Thank You” about 100 times a day, more so as the wedding approached. You did so much and respected when we wanted so little. Without your help, we’d have done the “After work at the City Hall” elope plan (which I’m glad we didn’t!) You held things together, you hauled things out of storage, you grounded us when we started to wobble off track. I suspect you did a lot more behind the scenes than we actually know about because the day went off so effortlessly. I can’t say thank you enough. You made the day.
And finally, Sharkboy. Meesh. I knew everything was going to be great when you came back from the last dollar store run for supplies. Out of the bag came a light-up Spongebob Squarepants pen that we were to use to sign the register. And we DID. When I saw that pen, I knew that we were going to have a great night. A great start to our lives together. I love you so much.