Jen and I recently celebrated our (almost) 10-year anniversary with a memorable "long weekend" in Belize. After leaving our children in the (thankfully) willing and capable hands of my parents, we flew to Houston, then to Belize City, from which we took a single-engine prop plane to the town of Dangriga. From Dangriga it was only a 40-minute van ride (over varying types of terrain) to our destination -- a wonderful little resort just south of the town of Hopkins called Jaguar Reef.
The resort, like the trip in generally, gets high marks all around. Our cabana was, quite literally, a stone throw away from the Caribbean Sea, and the resort had an assortment of snorking, boating, and sailing gear available for use upon request (one of our favorite activities was taking the resort's sea canoes on excursions up and down the coastline). As if this weren't enough, we also embarked on a series of "adventures" from the lodge, which took us (over a three-day period) zip-lining through the rain forest, tubing through caves, hiking through the largest jaguar preserve in the world, and exploring Mayan ruins (I know, it sounds like a Carnival cruise line commercial, but it's true).
In sum, the setting was perfect (the type of place where you feel the stress slide off of you the moment you arrive), the food was great, the staff was excellent, the trips were neat . . . and the company was ideal. Our only regret -- and as much as we missed our sweet children -- was that we couldn't have stayed but a couple of days more. But there will be other times -- on the next one, the kids may just have to come along.
The resort, like the trip in generally, gets high marks all around. Our cabana was, quite literally, a stone throw away from the Caribbean Sea, and the resort had an assortment of snorking, boating, and sailing gear available for use upon request (one of our favorite activities was taking the resort's sea canoes on excursions up and down the coastline). As if this weren't enough, we also embarked on a series of "adventures" from the lodge, which took us (over a three-day period) zip-lining through the rain forest, tubing through caves, hiking through the largest jaguar preserve in the world, and exploring Mayan ruins (I know, it sounds like a Carnival cruise line commercial, but it's true).
In sum, the setting was perfect (the type of place where you feel the stress slide off of you the moment you arrive), the food was great, the staff was excellent, the trips were neat . . . and the company was ideal. Our only regret -- and as much as we missed our sweet children -- was that we couldn't have stayed but a couple of days more. But there will be other times -- on the next one, the kids may just have to come along.
