Belize - Hopkins Cockscomp

Before I talk about Cockscomp National Park, I have to tell you about our 'cooking mishap'. The night before, we bought rice, salt, and vegetables for a stir-fry. Since I'm not a fan of vegetables, I only ate rice with a little salt and thought, 'Hmm, this tastes really disgusting (bitter)'. The others thought I was being picky, but then they realized it was because of the salt. Epsom salt, hmm okay, what kind of fancy salt is that? Quickly googled it and wow, it's like a miracle product. Great for foot baths, bath additives, or hey, as a laxative or for relieving constipation. Oh, and why does the label say 'Belle Cuisine', my dear friends? Thanks a lot :D Fortunately, our stomachs didn't complain.

Now, let's talk about Cockscomp National Park. We took the bus at 7 am and, as usual, arrived early. Oh, German punctuality, so cruel ;D We bought our tickets and thought, 'Let's go!' until the cashier said, 'It will take you about 2 hours to walk to the park entrance.' Uh, excuse me? Ah, okay, but Hermann had already told us beforehand to just walk and that workers would pass by from time to time and offer rides. So we started walking, thinking that someone would come by soon. Nope, didn't happen. Don't know if it was a holiday or if everyone had the day off...It was just so hot, and it took forever until we finally heard the sound of engines and a friendly American couple pulled up next to us. The lady looked at us and said, 'Do you need a ride? You look a little desperate.' Oh, absolutely :D We squeezed into the backseat, four of us, and enjoyed the air conditioning. During the ride, it became more and more clear how stupid we actually were :D We would have never made it on our own. Never ever :)

Finally, we arrived and rested. We decided to take the difficult path right away because we were still motivated and wanted to see a waterfall after all. If you're not good at walking or if you have knee problems like me...don't do it, or think twice :D The path was really steep and extremely slippery. Every time we saw a bench, we thought, 'Thank goodness, a short break,' and with every descent, we thought, 'I have to climb all of this again later?' At some point, I wanted to turn back, but the waterfall at the end was really pretty. Well, pretty, because I was expecting a bit more ;) The refreshing water was definitely nice, and I'm proud that I made it.

Afterwards, we took an easy path because we wanted to see some animals too. And what did we see? Nothing... But our shoes looked terrible, and my legs looked like a crumbled cake. Mosquito repellent didn't work, we'll have to practice that again, and my leggings didn't help either. The mosquitoes can just bite through them. Bleh!

Despite everything, it was a successful day, and before I finish, I want to apologize to all the ants whose roads I disrupted and whose family members I squashed. I'm sorry, there were just too many of you everywhere ;D