Saturday bike rides and Sunday morning snorkels

After a long first week getting adjusted to San Pedro High school, Anna, Jean, Natalie, and I decided to spend our Saturday taking a bike ride from our home away from home to the farthest Northern point of Ambergrise Caye. We rented our perfect pink bikes from Peter and made our way through town stopping at Pan Dulce for a cinnamon bun. We continued through town, past the high school and over the toll bridge. Once over the toll bridge we went past alot of the American resorts and our favorite hangout: Legends. Finally we ended up at the end of the island where we stumbled upon a few other people from our large group who had our same idea. We ended up at Akbol which is a yoga resort. There they had a crystal blue pool for us to swim in and a dock for us to snorkel off of. They also had random trampaline that we also had a lot of fun on. We sunbathed and swam for quite a few hours before it was time to get lunch at the restaraunt they had their. We each tried something different. I had four chicken empanadas which were delicious! Eventually we decided it was time to retreat from our northern paradise and return to town. Once we got back we showered and rested for a little while and then headed back out on our bikes to find the "Earth Hour" parade that was meant to march through town at 8:30. After watching the high school band parade with many following behind them holding candles our fierce foursome got ice cream and then returned to dark hotel rooms to celebrate the earth! It was a peaceful end to a very relaxing Saturday.
The next morning Ashlyn, Tess, Anna, Jean, Natalie and I went to have breakfast at George's. I had the Belizean breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon, toast, and ice coffee. George's is probably my favorite restaraunt in town! After breakfast Ashlyn, Tess, and I met up with Katy, Aubrey, Stephanie, and Elizabeth to take a boat out to go snorkeling. We met Lou, our driver, at Ramone's dock. From there we went to a dive shop to rent equipment and then it was off to Mexico rock to jump in. The boat was a little rickety but it still go the job done. Ashlyn and I sat on the front of the boat where we had a pretty bumpy ride. We rode on the boat for a while and got to ride past town, the high school, and tons of beautiful houses and resorts. Once we got to Mexico rock I was a little nervous about jumping in but I didn't want to be the last one left on the boat so I followed along with all the other more experienced snorkelers. After I went under with my mask and saw all the colorful, gorgeous fish I couldn't stop smiling. I took so many pictures with my underwater camera. We saw a giant stingray and plenty of exciting looking fish! After a few hours of underwater sight seeing we got back on the boat and went to a different location to see some different fish that were closer to the reef. Finally we went diving for chonks to take back and make ceviche with. We got about 14 chonks to take back to Lou's house. When we got there we watched him get them out of their shells and skin them. He brought them in to his wife to make the ceviche for us and we ate it with chips. The texture of the chonk uncooked was very interesting and chewy but still yummy! All in all it was another wonderful weekend on the island.