UnBelizable!

The Story About Steve Going To Belize Less Than 4 Months After Diagnosis

Wow! What a trip. I'll start off by saying the weather was fabulous. About 75 to 80 degrees, constant ocean breezes, billowy white clouds, and powder white sand. It was all-inclusive so there was all the food, rum, and beer you could possibly consume (and that was lots!). The staff was as courteous and friendly as you could hope. They would do anything asked with a smile. And the food... Oh, my god! Every single bite was like an orgasm in your mouth. For breakfast, they would prepare any type of egg, sausage, pancake, french toast, fruit, or whatever you want specifically to order. Lunch would be any type of salad, bresaola, fish, etc. followed by dessert. And the dinners... forget-about-it; they were all 6-star quality.

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The Belizians make a heck of a good rum and beer and it flowed like water. Did I mention that there were no kids. It definitely was more of a couples place as our foursome (me, my brother, my dad, and my dad's buddy Dan) were the only non-couple there. We met up with two other "seasoned" couples (about 30 years old) a few days into the trip with whom we quickly bonded and became the party group. I am sure we were seen by the few other cutesy couples that were there as the obnoxious, drunk assholes but, damn, did we have fun.

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The first day we took a canoe trip up a jungle river. It was pretty cool but the best part is when my father and Dan tipped over and had the whole group laughing their ass off at them. The next day we took a hike through a jungle, jaguar preserve. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately), we didn't see any jaguars. Actually, I was disappointed in the lack of wildlife we could see. I thought that we'd see and hear a lot more birds and other critters but it was surprisingly slim. At the midpoint of the hike was a 40 foot waterfall. We all swam out to it and stood under the pounding water. It was the best massage you could want.

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The third day, we went scuba diving. This was the part where there was some concern that my ALS could present some problems. Although I was pretty confident, there was a possibility that breathing the compressed air and holding the regulator in my mouth could be problematic. Alas, all went off without a hitch. The sun and water were wonderful. The first dive was to 100 feet. It is just like floating through the air; you are weightless and just flying through this beautiful painting with all of these other flying fish. Anyway, we had lunch on this tiny island with palm trees and did a second dive of about 50 feet. That night, we partied hard and had a great time.

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I took my hangover medicine before bed so I was fine but the next morning everyone else was moving at half speed. As it turned out, it was very windy so we canceled the planned dive trip and went sailing instead. The sailing lessons I took last spring really paid off. I was zipping all over the sea in my Hobie Cat. Another great day.

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We had planned to go diving again on our last day but it was windy again and looked like it might even rain. So we booked a trip up to a river that flows through several caves and floated down it on an innertube. It was sooooo cool. We hiked through the jungle again with our tubes and donned some head lamps and jumped off of a cliff into the river (the less adventurous walked in). It was a surreal experience to float on your back through these pitch black caverns. I would have loved to scuba dive through them. Being that it was everyone's last night, we partied all night. We would have closed the bar except that that bar didn't close until we wanted to leave. As it was, we drank the bar dry. Holy shit we had a good time.

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