It's been a loooong day and I am frankly pretty knackered. Got up at 5.30 to work on the internet, then took the kayak for a little round before meeting everybody else for a hefty breakfast cooked by our wonderful host Kathy!
 |
| Allie trying her kayaking skills |
Checking out of the cute Bamboleo Inn it was time to change our rented vehicle to a bigger pick up truck and get the balloon out of the aeroplane and through Belizian customs. A major challenge. But with the help of some friendly handling agents we managed to get all our bags and stuff through the scanners and customs channels.
 |
| Enjoying a delicious full Belizian breakfast with other guests |
Finally hitting the roads of Belize we drive 130km to Belmopan where we stop at the little airstrip and are kindly invited to take photos and have a free coffee! We then drive to the rustic town of St. Elena and Ignazio where we check into the 3-star popular Midas Hotel.
 |
| flight planning nearly all day since 7am in the morning... |
By 3.30 pm we meet Ranch farmer Abdala who very kindly shows us around his spacious land and offers various launch sites for our planned flight the next morning! The land certainly looks perfect with lots of grassland and less swamp! We also discover this old crashed Beech Queen Air that came to its end here during a 'wet'dropping exercise - meaning some drug smuggling sortie!! A local Welshman who lives at the strip told us at least 5 such stories of similar happenings!
 |
the crashed drug smugglers Queen Air
PS: all the film clips I hoped to upload to this blog are sadly too large in file and the blog doesn't allow me the upload. Sorry! |
All we need now, it less wind! Let's hope for the morning! We return to the hotel to meet up again with Flippie who has worked hard on sorting the next difficult routing to Costa Rica. It will be a big challenge for the pilot and our old Beech as we have to cross 10,000ft high terrain and many military airspace zones. Flippie spent all afternoon on the phone with friends and helpers to sort out the best and safest routing. Thank you Flippie for your hard work!
 |
| there is some great street art in town |
I need a short walk and stroll to downtown quirky St Elena which is full of fascinating street art!
 |
| fabulous street art |
It's time to find a cold beer and eat as none of us had lunch. We end up in a nice garden restaurant and enjoy a new type of beer called 'Carib' together with fried fish, tortillas and fajitas. A final glass of wine sends us tired to bed. The alarm will go off at 5am and we'll hopefully go ballooning....
No comments:
Post a Comment