Mountain Pine Ridge

The gang

No trip is complete without a jump picture!

Calv and i

glorious

This morning I woke up and went to the market with some of the girls. Again I found myself surrounded by funny smells and weird aromas. But amongst the smells and odd people, I found some beautiful yellow Belizean shoes! And I love shoes so I got them! The other purchase I made that morning was movies! 2 dollars each! Of course some of them are not the best quality but I love them! After the market the whole group saddled up in the back of a truck and made the 2 hour journey to Mountain Pine Ridge. It’s a mountainous region that is filled with waterfalls and caves. Well the truck we were driving in decided to stop working for a bit, and while the driver worked on it we decided to make the best of the time and explored the area. We swam in a river, climbed rocks, and jumped from trees in to water. Not bad but the mosquitoes loved to bite us! They were pesky little things. Once the truck was fixed we continued on to the Rio Frio Cave! We saw a baboon and other huge flying insects. After climbing through the jungle, we came upon the most amazing cave I have ever seen! Ahh it was beautiful and huge. I felt like a small village would live in it. It had a small beach with a river running through it. Trails, tunnels, and little water pools. Stalactites and stalagmites. Im telling you the pictures don’t do it justice. After exploring and crawling through every nook and cranny we could find it was time to go. Naturally you would think the day was over… wrong. Remember the little truck that was having troubles? Ya well, we were driving along when the truck suddenly ran into the bank and into the ditch. The Steering shaft broke. Perfect. Out in the middle of nowhere. A bunch of greengos and a little belizean family. Odd. Brother Arnold started to work on the truck and several cars actually stopped to help us. It was so neat! About 5 guys at one point were laying under the car working on it together. And I bet you would all like to know how they decided to fix a broken steering shaft.  ROPE. Yup that’s it. Rope. Our safety depended upon a simple piece of plastic. Let me tell you that after this trip I will never doubt the ability of rope ever again! We made it all the way back home! Of course it took about double the time and due to the bumpy roads and I now have a bruise on my back. But all in all today was not bad in the end.

lookin in

shayna and myself

peeking out

Sunday was started off by going to church. Except today I chose to go to the spanish branch. I thought it would be a good idea to work on my spanish. It was the most amazing experience, although I didn’t necessarily catch what they would say, I could feel the spirit strongly. Its cool to know that no matter where in the world you go, the gospel is the same. During the Sunday school lesson I followed quite well actually and even participated. The people here are so gracious and welcoming. They women greet us with hugs and kisses on the cheeks! Its nice to have that affection so far from home.