Day 9: Today was our free day. My friends and I decided to travel to Placencia. It was a long three hour drive.
After getting to the town we traveled on a small boat to a nearby island. We went snorkeling and relaxed all day😎 I didn’t realize Belize has the 2nd largest coral reef in the world! The water and island was beautiful. Our tour guide showed us sea urchins, lobsters, sea cucumbers, sand-dollars and so much more while we were snorkeling. I even brought my book and read in a chair on the beach.
Day 10: Today we visited a horse ranch. The ranch was beautiful with tree houses that people can stay in as well as a waterfall. We spayed and castrated four of the dogs/cats at the ranch and then vaccinated each of the horses. We also practiced doing check-ups on the horses.
Afterwards we went horseback riding. We rode through the jungle up to a mountain where we were able to see the Guatemala border. The view was insane. It was so peaceful. I actually rode a mule which is a cross between a horse and a donkey. I absolutely loved riding my mule and trotting in the open fields. I learned that horses are herd animals. As a result, if the person in front of me started trotting, my horse would do it as well. After horseback riding, a few of us went swimming in the waterfall.
Day 11: Today we traveled to a goat and sheep farm. We injected the sheep/goats with vitamins and dewormer. It was super tiring because there were over 80 sheep. I really enjoyed having to catch the sheep. I learned that slowly approaching them in a side-step way made it easier to catch them. I was excited to learn how to flip a sheep too to give them injections. For me, this way so much harder, specially for the larger sheep because of how heavy they were.
After visiting the first sheep farm, we went back to get showers in order to visit to next farm. I was surprised by the strictness of how clean we had to be for the second farm. At the farm, we learned about the Sheep Project. The Project involves Belize pairing with Taiwan to help the sheep industry with breeding. There were three breeds of sheep at the farm: Black-belly, Dorper & Catalina. We learned how to clip their hooves.
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