5 nights later...

Well, the guide book was absolutely correct; it said that you would come to Barton Creek Outpost for a day and stay a week. We ended up staying for 5 nights and it would have been longer if we didn´t need to get to Panama by April... Neither of us can say enough about this place, it was just magical! We both feel that everybody who makes it down to Belize MUST stay at Barton Creek Outpost. The first couple of days were relaxing; we just hung out with the great staff, swam in the river, walked through the orange grove (and picked oranges to make unlimited, fresh squeezed orange juice), took the canoe up the creek, went on our jungle walks, etc.












The last full day we decided to do the Rio on Pools and waterfall tour. It was a full day tour with lunch included for 40 USD per person, totally worth it!! We rode in the back of the truck for an hour up a very bumpy, rocky, dirt road for about an hour and a half until we reached Rio on Pools. It was a series of natural pools and waterfalls that we rock climbed up and back down in about an hour and a half. The picture does no justice as to how big this formation of boulders and pools was! We ate lunch there and then headed to the big waterfall, 5 Sisters.

It was quite a hike to get there, but once we got down to the waterfall it was amazing! We had to swim to a small, 15 ft rock jump and then swim some more to the bigger ones. Rachel only did the small jump because the big jumps required you to rock climb wet walls of rocks, there was no way! Darren on the other hand saw our guide do it, therefore it was possible, therefore he would try it... He made it up to the 50 ft jump which was quite the accomplishment because of how slick and physically demanding the climb was. After a few seconds of psyching himself up, he made the plunge, making sure to clear the rocks below. It was exhilerating!! We stayed a  while and admired the beautiful waterfalls and then made it back to the Outpost.

That night was crazy because the 9 from the previous night were staying at the Outpost again (all British medical students who had just finished there semester abroad in Belmopan, Belize), a Canadian couple, 4 young travelers, the writer of the Belize section of the Lonely Planet and his assistant, a British couple, Darren and I, all the volunteers, the owners, their 3 children and theri grandparents. It definitely was a full house, but it was a lot of fun meeting everybody and exchanging travel stories.

Sadly, we left the next morning along with 15 other people, all in the back of the owners pickup truck. Yes, everybody had their backpacks so it was a VERY tight squeeze. We tied the record of how many people had ever rode in the truck at once, 17!