I don’t want to leave Belize. I really don’t. But Deepu, remember that in the late 1300s Geoffrey Chaucer said all good things must come to an end. So, this tropical field biology expedition must come to an end. It has to. Geoffrey Chaucer said so.

After our last 6:30AM breakfast, we left Las Cuevas at 8AM on a rugged country road that I’m not a fan of but will dearly miss. I passed out and woke up to the van stopping at Orange Gallery, a souvenir shop where I splurged on two Belize bookmarks.

Bye-bye LCRS. You will be dearly missed.

We went to the restaurant Cheers for lunch and were treated like royalty- each person’s meal budget was forty Belizean dollars ($20 USD). I stuffed my intestines, stomach, and esophagus to my heart’s content in tribute to the beautiful foodstuffs this country offers. Then, we trudged onwards to the Belize airport. Even the van did not want to take us there.

Security check took 2 minutes. Not colloquially- literally. And here I am, forcing my body to move back to a country where security checks are so long that female anacondas get jealous.

I’m writing this on the plane to Houston. It just hit that I’ll be at home in T-18 hours as the flight attendant handed me Wheat Thins and honey roasted peanuts (Southwest really stepped up its snack game). Taxon-wise, just found a tick on my neck. I made sure to decapitate it with my thumb and index finger nails- just like a true TFB would. This trip will be something I remember for years to come. Belize was fun and unbelievable. It was funbelizeable.