Update 1

Hey everyone, so if you haven't figured it out from the title we did arrive safely. After 24 hours in transit we are here. We arrived on friday morning at 330 am, after leaving at 4:00 am from buffalo. and there is a 1 hour time difference, so your time we would have arrived at 430 am.

It was interesting traveling, i was lucky, for the first plane ride from Buffalo to Atlanta i didnt have a window seat. but it was ok, pretty well the whole ride was spent in the clouds, except when we first went above the clouds and the sun was there, and it was dark in buffalo, and then really bright when we came above the clouds. it was beautiful coming out and seeing the sun before any one below the clouds could see it.

Then we had a layover in Atlanta that was supposed to be two hours but we flew in late, and it ended up being more like an hour. so that was a perfect amount of time to use the restrooms eat lunch/breakfast, and talk a little bit.

Then from Atlanta to Cancun we had another 2hr 11min flight, this one .. i scored a window seat, and flying over florida into the gulf of mexico, there were no clouds. from my seat i could see everything. i was able to see the end of the united states and the beginning of cancun. it was amazing weather out

Then we arrived in cancun, and the airport there is absolutley insane,.. we had to go through customs first, and then immigration. everyone there speaks spanish and hardly any english. This is right around the time when Mr Kamphuis decided to leave the team and to go outdoors past the no reentry sign, so that was an experience. All the people are talking to us trying to get us to drive in their taxi service. there are literally hundreds of people outdoors and like 30 people indoors holding signs and yelling in spanish to get you to take their rides.

We then had to get onto a bus from the airport and drive into the inner city, we were just on public transit for this bus ride, it is cheaper than hamilton, and basically a Greyhound bus, only this one was a mercedes. It was crazy. so from the bus station we had to get onto our school bus for the rest of the journey . which we had to walk all our luggage about three blocks down for. lets just say people were really cranky. The streets were really busy, so there was no where to park the bus, and so that is why we had to walk three blocks.

Thats when the journey really started. We then had a twelve hour bus ride to get to belize. In the jungle the whole time. It was fairly insane. Sante (said Sont-eh) was our guide/ bus driver/ camp director. hes awesome. on this bus ride most people were trying to get some sleep.. Not me. i had about a two hour chat with sante about EVERYTHING!. from the native protest to "football" (soccer for those who are lost) and then i tried to sleep.. its kinda uncomfortable sleeping on all the luggage though.

We had to stop the bus at around 1 am to go through the Belizean Customs. We had to take all of our luggage out of the bus. walk it through another building and then load it all again. You could guess that by this time it was getting a little old loading and reloading the bus. but we did it. the rest of the bus ride was relatively uneventful. i got about one hour of sleep on the transit and about 6 hours when we got here. Oh except we stopped by the ocean at one point to put our feet in the ocean. it was very warm and nice.

Now to start on our time here. The first day was a tonne of meetings. Orientation and such. It is about 30 degrees at all times. except in the evenings and early mornings. which is about 23 degrees.

Our second day we spent driving to and seeing all of the placements that people will be at, as well as dropping people off who are staying off base a families homes. My first placement is at a local orphanage so i am staying on the base for the first three weeks. which is fine by me.

Well today we bought a pool. yes. a pool. It only cost us $500 american, so $25 a piece. yeah its a blow up. we can also swim in the river once the base staff uses their machetes to cut a pathway through the jungle. yeah you heard it right..

tomorrow we have church in the morning for 3 or 4 hours, and then at 1 we will be going to a resort to swim for a day before we start our placements on monday morning. Half of the team will not be there seeing as they are already at their placements. and tonight we are having a bonfire with Hot Dogs and such for dinner. so thats all night more updates to come

oh, and the showers are cold, all the water here is cold.