{"id":1525,"date":"2012-08-01T21:04:03","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T21:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/study-abroad\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2024-01-29T12:09:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T17:09:53","slug":"snorkeling-in-hopkins-and-garifuna-drum-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/snorkeling-in-hopkins-and-garifuna-drum-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"Snorkeling in Hopkins and Garifuna Drum Circle by Dina Athanassie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we took a long drive over to Hopkins, a small Garifuna coastal town.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after we arrived, we went snorkeling which was a new experience for me. It took some time to get comfortable with it and all of the things to remember: hands\/arms at my side, don\u2019t touch the coral or they\u2019ll die, and getting used to having flippers on my feet.<\/p>\n

On the way out to the reef, as we were swimming over some sea grass, Professor Fernandez and Donovan (our boat captain) saw a Barracuda. Almost\u00a0simultaneously they said, \u201cLook, there\u2019s a big Barracuda\u00a0below us!\u201d But I felt like I had my hands full just keeping up with them and I answered, \u201cI don\u2019t want to look!\u201d\u00a0 Later when I felt more confident with snorkeling, I regretted not looking at him\/her.<\/p>\n

It was beautiful when we got to the coral reef. The fish were amazing \u2013 what beautiful colors and patterns! I am looking forward to finding a book where I can identify some of the fish we saw. I was making mental notes of colors and patterns of the fish.\u00a0 We also saw a large Spotted Eagle Ray. Very cool!<\/p>\n

We came back to the resort and a group of\u00a0girls went to dinner at an adorable place Stephanie recommended (she had lunch there).<\/p>\n

Next it was time to go to the Drum Circle. I had no idea what it would be like so I went with an open mind. As soon as we walked in and saw a stage, I knew we were in for a treat; that this wasn\u2019t some random people drumming on a beach like back home.<\/p>\n

The performance was great – ten times better than I expected! We learned during their break that they have won the Battle of the Bands competition several years in a row. They also got (almost) all of us up to dance.\u00a0We were pretty embarrassed for the most part but we did it anyway \u2013 and why not? They were putting on a great show for us, the least we could do was respond with enthusiasm and participate at their request.<\/p>\n

We only spent one day at Hopkins but it was definitely a memorable stop!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we took a long drive over to Hopkins, a small Garifuna coastal town. Almost immediately after we arrived, we went snorkeling which was a new experience for me. It took some time to get comfortable with it and all of the things to remember: hands\/arms at my side, don\u2019t touch the coral or they\u2019ll … Continue reading Snorkeling in Hopkins and Garifuna Drum Circle by Dina Athanassie<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[20,7],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belize","category-study-abroad","tag-tropical-ecology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9631,"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/9631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.spcollege.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}