Now that it seems that the international incedent has been avoided, it appears safe to share about the Barrys going on “vacation” in Belize.
Like father, like son…James white knuckled his first flight as the triplets were airborne for the first time.
Our first stop was Blancaneux Lodge in the jungle of Belize. With an open air villa right on the river, we were awoken at 5:15 every morning to beautiful scene and birds chirping. The river would provide its own soothing sounds, though the lights attracted, to quote James, the biggest butterflies with fangs.
The rest of the resort was awoken at 5:22am from the noise of triplets playing tag, marco polo, and just their general existence. It was amazing how we saw a few honeymooners the first fifteen minutes at the Lodge but after that they scattered from our natural birth control.
Down the path to the river.
The road in
Nephew Lewis, Lord of the Flies.
View from our villa.
A man and his horse
Another man and his horse
A girl and her horse
5:15am at our villa
Dad and Thomas in the River
The troops
No horse left unridden
Tablemanners
The quiet before MARCO…POLO…MARCO…POLO
Dressing up for Dinner
In typically Barry fashion, each day was spent on an adventure, exploring the culture of Belize.
The first day we rode canoes into a Mayan cave to see where they worshipped, offered sacrifices, carved silhouettes and bats attack. We also saw the poverty of Belize’s rural parts, and an Amish community up in the mountains riding buggies through deeply rutted roads.
At the caves, a few of the highlights were when Pops was told that he could not offer a Padron 2000; when Lindsay got into a shrieking match with the bats directly over hear head; When Jack was given a spotlight and discovered the joy of blinding everyone; & when the guide went matrix style bending backwards to avoid a stelagtight that was inches from his nose.
The way out
Padron 2000s for the gods?
The next day we explored Caracol,
This provided the best F3 gym in the world after a machine gun escort near the Guatamalen border. These Mayan ruins made a great environment to run around, do burpees, pull-ups. In fact the kids out lasted the adults scaling every ruin.
The history of the Mayans, their worship of the jaguar, and constant battling made for a fascinating comparison. Seeing the history of a culture from 300-900AD untouched by western civilization highlighted some of the ingrained desire for worship (more to come on this later) of something.
The downfall of their civilization was led by two things: first-climate change due to destroying rainforests which altered their leaders ability to predict weather accurately, exposing the kings to be less than gods. And second, the working class stopped cleaning the bathrooms, allowing disease to permeate their city. Once the cities crumbled, then they were ripe for the pickings from the conquistadors.
Lessons from history should be heeded. So goes the cities so goes the rest of the culture.
Pullup contest…naturally.
A mayan cave
11s
What goes up, must come down.
King Barry and his minions
Deep in thought
pano play
Thomas pull ups
The ruins is also where we learned that our matching Barrys in Belize tshirts were bringing confusion to the military guards. First the Barrys in Belize are the owners of Coca Cola…yet clearly our crew was not that posh. And second our graphic was actually of a Mayan ruin in Guatamala.
So after leaving our marks in the jungle, we headed to the beach…more to come from the coast of Belize.
Wes Barry 