Today’s post is short and sweet, and I’ll start by pointing out that it’s not even a photo that I took. Chris captured this portrait of sweet Jack, the spider monkey we met in Belize on a tour of Lamanai. He lives along the New River, and appreciates a banana hand-out every now and then. (Jack, not Chris, in case that wasn’t clear.)
The understatement of the year would be to say that I’m not a morning person. I’ve attempted on various occasions to adjust my daily routine to incorporate earlier hours, but I have never been one to spring out of bed in the morning all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. During our time in Belize I never quite adjusted to the two-hour time difference, so I woke up every morning earlier than I do on a typical weekday at home. It worked out well because that jet lag made it fairly easy to get up at 4:45am Monday morning to visit Lamanai.
Our journey started at 5:15am when we took the boat from the villa to San Pedro in order to catch a water taxi to Belize City, and then a van to Orange Walk. In that time, I was able to grab the sunrise photo below. It’s something I’m rarely awake to see, especially on vacation. The early worm gets the photo in this case!
In addition to improving my underwater photography skills, videography currently sits at the top of my creative goals list. Put a still camera in my hands, and I feel comfortable in most photography situations. In contrast, I pretty much have no idea what I’m doing as soon as I flip the video mode switch on my cameras. Sure, a few basics from photography spill over into videography like composition, exposure, and focus. I at least know to try and hold the camera as still as possible (a tricky feat underwater!) and when I can’t hold still, it’s best to use a stabilizer like a tripod. Frame rates, codecs, and audio bit depth, however, are all a mystery to me at this point. Video editing is also a whole other ball of wax. Whether I have the skills and knowledge or not, I do enjoy putting together videos of our travels as of late even if I feel like a total newbie.
An example of my noob-ness at videography: I didn’t realize I needed to film at the same frame rate when using multiple cameras for one project. How is one supposed to know that anyway? I noticed a couple of my clips looked a bit different than the rest, and after some time on Google I learned that nugget of info about different frame rates. So mistake-by-mistake, hopefully I will learn enough to get as comfortable with video as I am with still photography since that’s mainly how I taught myself to use an SLR – practice, reading, researching, and learning from my mistakes.
Here’s a little film I put together with clips from our Belize adventures.
Belize 2015 from Susan Marks on Vimeo.
One of my takeaways from Belize is something I suspected I’d be able to confirm on this trip: I prefer to roam around on my own schedule, and I crave control over my local transportation (e.g., having a rental car if things aren’t within walking distance). I still definitely love staying in a more remote location or at least away from the main crowds, but I enjoy randomly going into town whenever we feel like it, trying lots of new restaurants, and getting lost and exploring on our own. Since we stayed on Ambergris Caye at a villa situated several miles north of San Pedro beyond the paved roads, our main option for getting around was by boat. It was actually such a fun change and we appreciated a break from navigating, but we didn’t spend as much time looking around the town as we usually do since we couldn’t hop in a car and go. Ernesto graciously provided us with plenty of opportunities to go anywhere we’d like though. We just chose to spend most of our time in and on the water, thus we didn’t get to know San Pedro on an intimate level. The trade-off was that in staying at the villa we chose, we had our own personal guide and ended up with some awesomely private tours of touristy locations that made us feel completely spoiled, so I’m not complaining one tiny bit.
Plus we did poke around bits of San Pedro so I don’t feel like we missed it entirely. We did our initial grocery shopping trip when we arrived, and one morning we savored a delicious takeaway breakfast from Ruby’s Cafe on the way to Lamanai. We also returned to town for our scuba class, for more groceries, and an ATM run. So in those few brief moments, I snapped a handful of photos to show you a small sliver of the character and colors in San Pedro. (All of these were taken with the Canon PowerShot D30 waterproof camera. It’s not a bad little point-and-shoot.)
A few of our meals were spent at restaurants walkable from the house rather than in the heart of town. We frequented the bar at the resort next door, X’Tan Ha, a couple times for drinks. Who can resist a grass-thatched hut right on the water with hilarious warnings on the menu?
And one final thought – as much as we had fun on Ambergris Caye, I regret not trying harder to get to the little island south of us called Caye Caulker. We docked there briefly on the way to Belize City when we toured Lamanai, but we only had a glimpse of what I hear is a very charming, laid-back isle. It was an option to visit Caye Caulker via Ernesto’s trip list, but we simply ran out of time. We’ll just have to put it on our must-do list for next time. I’d like to find out what this pee sign is about (or maybe not).
Well, it wasn’t a long walk at all, but this is the path up the beach from our villa on Ambergris Caye. We ended our walk right there at the bar (more than once) at the X’Tan Ha resort where I had an amazing banana colada. Yu-um. (Side note: if you look out past the turtle grass section of the water, can you even believe that turquoise color?! Sigh.)
