Belize - Day 6

We started out the day up early and hoping to dive. We were skeptical that it would happen, however, as the wind was blowing quite hard. Nevertheless, we gathered up our gear and rode in to town. Once at the dive shop, our suspicions were confirmed - too windy, with 10-12 foot waves. Not good for the small dive boats here on the island. We made plans to try again on Sunday and thanked the staff there for prioritizing our safety, despite the fact that they will be without any income for today.

Now with the day free in front of us we had to decide what to do with ourselves. We biked back home to drop off our dive gear and decided we'd do a load of laundry at the laundromat. We gathered up a bag of clothes and were back on our bikes in to town. We started our clothes washing and decided we'd pick up the few groceries we needed - fruit, salt, bread and more cream for my coffee. I've been feeding to to that damn cat, Freaky, in an effort to keep him from meowing at me through the screen door non-stop. Now I've created Frankenstein and the monster must be fed or it will turn on us! We stopped at the necessary shops and stands for our items, and ran them back to the house before going back to pick up the laundry. The house we're staying at has a lovely clothes line, so we opted to hang them to dry instead of using a dryer.

With our errands run and chores finished (laundry and sweeping the kitchen floor - whew!) it was time to head back to the beach! Luckily, we had a much better experience than yesterday. Before spreading out our towels, we ducked in to the Lazy Lizard where Andrew spent $10 on a bucket full of 6 beer. Even better than the price was the fact that they didn't open them all so we were able to bring the 4 he didn't drink there home! I ordered a slushy lime drink ($5 for those who are interested) and we hit the beach.

Bargain beach beer bucket!

As we sat cooking ourselves, I couldn't help but look wistfully at the various women who were confident enough to put on string bikinis, despite the fact that most of their bodies were far from perfect. I notice this often when we travel to beach destinations and think how wonderful it must be to have such a positive body image. Or, perhaps, not have a mirror. Either way, it's an enviable position to be in. Maybe one day...

After grossly increasing our odds at melanoma, we headed out in search of lunch. It was 1:30 pm by that time and food options during the siesta period are limited. We managed to find an open restaurant that we have been to before and enjoyed and lunched on ceviche, chicken tacos, and sweet tea. On the way home we snapped this picture of a little cemetery overlooking the beach - beautiful!

Bury me here, please!

We were back home by 2:30 pm and spent a few hours on the front deck w/ the cat. She definitely likes Andrew better than me, despite the fact that I'm the one feeding her, and likes to curl up by him to snooze in the shade. Traitor! We like the front deck in the afternoon. It's shady and there is a breeze and we can watch the traffic go by. What little of it there is, anyway. We are probably about a mile from the main action on the island, which suits us just fine. It's nice and quiet here and town is an easy walk or a very quick bike ride. This afternoon we see a hummingbird in the flowers, and a guy who is raking dead foliage and other trash from the sides of the road. He has headphones on and is singing at the top of lungs.

For dinner tonight we went to the new Italian cucina that opened in January. Word on the street (yep, we're that "in" here) is that it is the best place to eat on the island. We had looked for it a couple of nights ago but couldn't find it. We ran across it again yesterday and made sure to appropriately landmark it - between middle and back street, turn at the bank. I forgot the camera at home but trust when I say that it was a lovely little place and you could tell it was newly built. There were both inside and outside table options - meaning that one half of the restaurant had a roof and the other half didn't. There was no wall in between. The kitchen was open and had some of the fanciest Wolf equipment I've ever seen. At the bar there was an espresso machine that likely cost more than the gross domestic product of the whole island. It all seemed especially glamorous in comparison to what most of the restaurants or residents are cooking on here. For example, the grill at our rental house is made out of a bisected beer keg (clever & excellent reuse). Most of the restaurants are using something similar, such as old propane tanks with charcoal, or else a stove that someone threw in to a North American landfill in 1978. I couldn't help but notice that the chef cooking on this fancy equipment didn't have any shoes on. That made me envious. It would be really fun to come to work without shoes, don't you think?

Oh, and the food... it was quite good. We both had pasta dishes and I can see why people here really like this place. It's very different from what you can get everywhere else, which is more island-style foods such as jerk, curry, and rice with beans. The service was also very good. Unfortunately, as those who know me will attest, I don't particularly like to go out for pasta. It bugs me just a little bit to spend $15 on a plate of food I can make equally well at home for $5. Oh well.

As has become an unfortunate nightly habit, we stopped for ice cream on the way home. In an effort towards harm-reduction, we have located a shop that is at the opposite end of the island from our house, rather than the one that is about 1/2 way closer. I'm sure the extra calories we burn pedaling the extra distance home are at least equal to the calories in a single-scoop coconut ice cream cone, right? :)

That's it for today, folks. Tomorrow morning we head out early to Belize City for the day. We're doing the "Triple Crown" tour of the zoo, cave tubing and zip lining. Photos to follow!

The Price of Travel

I'm pretty much a mess on this trip - physically speaking. Andrew reminds me that I'm pretty much a mess on every trip - physically speaking. I guess I've blocked that out as I prefer to think of myself as a very hardy traveler (don't we all?). For starters, I have a sunburn on my back from our snorkel trip on Tuesday that is still fairly painful. Bra straps are a challenge and sleeping on my back is completely out. As well, I've been victimized by sand fleas and have scratched my ankles raw. One of my friends from home suggested that I buy some cat flea collars and wear them as anklets. I may be fast approaching that point.

I have also developed some sort of odd scaly rash on both arms. Andrew pointed out that it's probably some sort of reaction to the sun, and he says I've had it before on other trips. Again, I don't recall.

Finally, my feet are approximately the size of canned hams. This is the one glorious side effect of traveling I DO remember! A big thanks goes out to my dad for so generously passing on the genetic trait of travel-related water retention.

Andrew's list of ailments are all injury related. He does not seem to be bothered by the sand fleas and, while a little red on his back, he was smart enough to put a rash guard on for some of our snorkel trip. His injuries include some nasty scratches on his arm from Freaky (see previous blog) and a big hole behind his right knee. We don't know exactly what that is from, however I noticed the blood streaming down his leg on our big walk yesterday (again, see previous blog). The most likely culprit would be the mangrove branches we were crawling through during our search for the missing key (once again, see previous blog).

These are the prices you have to pay to travel, it seems. Worth it in the end? Definitely!

Belize - Day 5

We had a leisurely start to the day, today. Despite my best intentions, I was up at 6 am so made some coffee and got to work on my grant proposal. Andrew got up with me but stayed upstairs reading. I had to call him down about 7:30 am to come and amuse the neighbor's cat (Freaky) who had been outside the screen door meowing at me non-stop. Andrew went out to pet her but she scratched him when he tried to rub her belly (keep in mind, we're dog people) so he lost interest and went back to bed for a couple of hours. I finally took the lap top out on to the front deck and the cat curled up in the shade to nap. I was able to finish working in peace!

About 10 am, I woke Andrew up so we could have some breakfast. More tortillas with eggs, cheese, beans and tomatoes. Also, some bananas we bought at the stand yesterday and the remnants of the pineapple. We then headed in to town to run a few errands - buy postcards and get more pop and a few bottles of beer. While we were out, we stopped in at the Lazy Lizard, a popular bar on The Split.

The Lazy Lizard - what a view!

I had a lime daiquiri and Andrew had a Bailey's colada while we watched the kite boarders do their thing.

They are really amazing! I would love to try this but the guys who do it say that it takes at least a year to be able to go 50 yards before falling. I'd likely break something.

Road construction work in progress. They bring up buckets of sand from the bottom of the lagoon and then use it to fill the holes in the roads (which are also very hard packed sand). Hey, at least this construction doesn't tie up traffic!

Finally, much to Andrew's dismay, we asked some random stranger to take our picture.

It was particularly hot today and the water at The Split looked amazing! We decided to run home, put our suits on and come back for a swim. This would be where things turned south. Upon returning to The Split, we locked up our bikes and headed to the beach. We got on our snorkel gear and headed in to that beautiful turquoise water - heaven! There wasn't much to look at under the water so I got out after about 10 minutes and went up to sit in the sand. Andrew continued to float away in the water for about another 15 minutes.

Upon returning to the beach, Andrew announced that he was going to get us drinks - yay! Unfortunately, he was back in about 15 seconds saying "We have a problem." While he was out snorkeling, the waterproof case he had some money in and the key to the bike lock came out of the pocket of his swimming suit. We put our gear back on and headed out to look along the mangroves to see if it had lodged there, but we couldn't find it. We asked at the bar if anyone had turned it in, but no luck. With the current it could totally be in Mexico by now. There wasn't a huge amount of money in it, but the missing key to the bike lock was definitely going to be a problem. We gathered up our gear and walked the mile or so back to the management company office for our rental property, as we had also rented the bikes from them. We explained what had happened to the woman who was there, and asked her if she knew where we might find some bolt cutters. After sighing heavily and putting her head in her hands (I can only assume this is because this is probably the worst disaster she has ever heard of running a vacation rental business), she informed us that the only set of bolt cuttters on the island (really?) belonged to "George", the resident mechanic. She tried to call George but didn't get an answer. She then called George's wife, who said George was outside working on a cart, so we could just come by. She tells us George lives on Middle Street "by the bank", and we head off again on foot.

We find George easily, he hands over his bolt cutters without much explanation and we continue on. By the time we arrive back at The Split we've walked a good 3-ish miles in the baking sun. Luckily, the bolt cutters slice through the padlock easily, and we're back on wheels! We ride back to the other side of the island to our rental house (about 2 miles), grab some cash, and head back to George's. When we return the cutters he asks for $2 Belizean dollars for their use. We give him $5 US with many thank you's, knowing we would have happily paid $20. Before I leave, I should have chat with the sole owner of bolt cutters on this island about a business strategy centered around the willingness of tourists to pay hefty sums of cash to alleviate what they perceive to be a crisis situation. Hell, if he would have given us a ride to The Split in his golf cart and cut the lock for us, he could have easily charged us $40 US! On second thought, forget George. I'm getting my own bolt cutters and we're moving to Caye Caulker!

Our last stop on what is quickly approaching a "3-hour tour" is the hardware store to buy a new padlock for the bike chain. The only one they sell is a little more suited for the door of a medieval castle than a bike, but it will have to do. Upon completing our mission, we gladly head for home, yet again.

By the time we arrive it's 3:30 pm, we're hot and covered in salt from our swim. We're also starving! I have a quick shower and Andrew fires up the grill to get the charcoal heating. We cook the burgers we were going to have last night (the meat didn't defrost in time) and eat them with some potatoes and a cold beer. Voila! Things are looking up again!

About 6:30, we rode our bikes in to town to confirm our scuba trip for tomorrow morning is still on. The dive assistant tells us that, as of now, it is. He does tell us that we should know that it was very choppy this morning, so they may cancel at the last minute if the waves are 10-12 feet again tomorrow. We're ok with this, as we'd rather be safe and dive another day. We grab an ice cream cone (hooray, they've restocked the coconut!) and pedal back home. Let's hope for a less exciting day tomorrow!

Belize - Day 4

This morning we got up early (again - sensing a theme here?) to go over to San Pedro (on Ambergris Caye). We had a quick breakfast of toast made from lovely whole wheat bread from the bakery, hard-boiled eggs and leftover pineapple, and walked to the ferry stop downtown. After a 30-minute ride we arrived in San Pedro.

San Pedro is much more of a "city" with all that goes with it - big resorts, tourists, and traffic. Yesterday was Mardi Gras, and the ending of Carnival. San Pedro celebration is reputed to be similar to New Orleans and, judging from the paint covering every surface not protected by plastic, the reputation is well-earned. The streets were also completely splattered in pink, blue and white paint (which seems to be some sort of milk-paint as we saw lots of locals washing the fronts of their stores and sidewalks). Many benches and the clock tower in the square were covered completely in tarps or plastic to keep them clean. Glad we missed that!

We walked about 90-minutes south along the beach. The water-front is similar to what we have on Caye Caulker - gorgeous sand but not great "swimming" beaches in that there is a lot of sea weed near the shore that is filled with sand fleas. Their bites don't hurt but the itching could cause you to lose your mind quickly!


There were also beautiful resorts all along the way which, while lovely, were not nearly as appealing to us as our little piece of paradise at Alta Vista. It was still fairly early in the morning and many tourists were out walking their something-poo dogs on the beach. We also saw a snake (blech) and several iguanas.


After the long walk to the south end of the caye, we grabbed a cab back to town. Note, flip flops are not well suited for a 4 or 5 mile walk. The cab cost $5 US so it was a bargain! Once back to town we wandered around a bit more before deciding that we had seen enough. We picked up a couple of smoothies at the pier and were on the 10 am water taxi back to Caye Caulker.

View of "The Split" from the water taxi

Once back "home", we decided to have an early lunch at the restaurant we ate at the first time we came to Caye Caulker on a cruise. The food was very good - we shared a "jack" (some sort of pastry) stuffed with eggs, beans and cheese and a shrimp burrito. Again, way too much food.

From just before noon until about 3:30 pm we hung out at the house. I should have been working but read for a bit instead. We also both had naps! At 3:30 we did our afternoon routine of going to see Chocolate to see if he had enough people to go out to the sanctuary. "Nope. Not yet. Try again tomorrow." Ok.

From Chocolate's place, we stopped to get a few groceries - the "meat store" for ground beef, the "grocery store" for eggs and Benadryl gel (stupid sand fleas), and two different produce stands for tomatoes and bananas. The house has a little grill so we're going to make burgers at home tonight and have breakfast at home in the morning. We'll probably wander in to town tonight for an ice cream cone. It's rough here.

We don't have anything planned for tomorrow, as of yet. Andrew wants to talk to the snorkel guys about whether or not he can do a night snorkel in the evening. I will probably work for a few hours. I'd also like to go swimming at The Split. We were going to do that today but my back is very sunburnt from snorkeling yesterday. Those new aerosol bottles of sun screen trick you in to thinking that you can do your own back, but I obviously missed several spots! We may dive on Friday, if they are going out. Saturday we are going to Belize City for the day to see the zoo, go cave tubing, and also do a zip line. Other than that, you're likely to find us right where we are now - lounging on the front deck with Freaky (neighbor's cat)...


...or on in the hammock on the roof deck watching the sun set!

Belize - Day 3

Another early morning. While the birds were quieter this morning, the mosquito fogging truck happened by about 5:30 am. Oh well, there was a French press waiting downstairs and I took the opportunity to have some amazing coffee and work a little bit on a grant application for work.

About 7 am, we hopped on our bikes and made the quick trip to get fresh tortillas. When we arrived at the stand, the woman told us they needed 10 more minutes to finish heating the griddle so we pedaled off on a morning tour of town. Everyone here is so friendly and there are already many familiar faces to wave to. We even saw Chocolate out walking his dog! In a little less than 10 minutes we were back at the tortilla stand and the beautiful little golden discs were cooking away. The woman loaded about a dozen and a half into a paper wrapper, took our $2.50 Belizean dollars ($1.25 US) and we were on our way.


Back at home, we wrapped the warm tortilla around refried beans and eggs scrambled with onion, cheese and hot sauce. Accompanied by good coffee and a ripe pineapple we bought from a stand yesterday and it was certainly a breakfast fit for royalty!

After tidying up the kitchen and finding the compost bin in the neighbor's yard (don't worry, we asked permission) it was time to get ready for our day. On the agenda was a 1/2 day snorkel tour with French Angel Tours. We stopped at 3 locations on the reef, the first being Shark Ray Alley. The attraction in this area is that it is full of sting rays and nurse sharks. We have been to this location before, but there were no sharks there at the time. Today there were about a half dozen nurse sharks ranging in size from about 2 to 6 feet. A little unnerving at first, but soon it's clear that they are very used to the swimmers and just circle around the area. Both the sharks and the rays come very close to you, and even bump in to your legs once in a while. One of the sharks picked up a conch shell from the floor of the ocean and tried to crack it open between it's teeth. You could hear the conch cracking under the water and it made me hope that they were truly friendly.

A shark and a ray together

Andrew and a shark

More sharks (and more Andrew)

Upon special request from Carter, we also took a couple of pictures of us touching the rays. We could not get close enough to the sharks to do the same. Sorry, they were just too fast and it seemed like a bad idea to chase them!

Me touching a ray

Andrew touching a ray

After The Alley, we headed over to two other locations - Coral Garden and The Swash. It wasn't the best snorkeling we have ever done, but the coral is always fun to see. In addition to coral, we also saw some big grouper, parrot fish, and a Morey eel.

Best pic of the eel. He was a quick guy!

After getting back on land, we walked back to the house, showered and headed out to find some lunch - we were starving! Some of the other folks on the snorkel trip with us suggested Rose's for fresh seafood, so we gave it a try. We ordered conch fritters, ceviche, and conch nachos (did I mention we were starving?). Everything was amazing, but there was way more food than four people could have eaten. Total for the three plates with a couple of cocktails and tip was $40 US.

Conch fritters

Ceviche (my favorite!)

Conch nachos (Andrew's favorite)

As we were instructed to do, we stopped by to see Chocolate again this afternoon. Sorry Shelby, forgot to take a photo. Still no word on when he's going out. "Check back tomorrow." Ok, we will! Stopped at the store to load the bike basket with sodas, one of which promptly exploded all over Andrew after he hit the first bump in the road - diet orange too, of course! Why is it that Sprite never explodes?

Now we're back at the house, and are likely in for the evening unless we have to wander out for a snack. We're both tired and I really need to do some more work on my grant proposal. We've turned the air conditioning on today, for the first time. So far we've done fine with fans and the ocean breeze but it seems extra hot today so we're going to let the a/c cool it down before bed.

More house photos...

The roof deck

View of the lagoon from the roof deck

The back deck (lagoon side of the house)

Since we're not going out with Chocolate tomorrow, we're going to take the water taxi to San Pedro, which is the city on Ambergris Caye about 30-minutes away. It's one of the main tourist cities in Belize so we expect to be able to wander around for the day, and maybe even do a little shopping. Photos to come!

Belize - Day 2

Our first full day in Belize! We were awake at 5:30 am, thanks to the local aviary going on in the tree outside our window. Oh well, was a good chance to head up to the roof deck and take a few photos of the sunrise.


To give you the "lay of the land", the caye is about 1 mile wide (east to west) by about 4 miles long (north to south). There are 5 north/south streets on the caye, with numerous side streets connecting them. The north/south streets are conveniently named

• "Beach": pretty self-explanatory, except you need to know that it is on the ocean side, rather than the lagoon side of the island.
  
• "Front": the main street. One street west from "Beach".
  
• "Middle": again, self-explanatory
• "Back": would be self-explanatory except for the fact that there is also...
• "Back Back": street furthest west on the lagoon side

We are on "Back" street. From the roof deck we can see both the ocean and the lagoon, and it is about a 10-minute walk (at a slow pace) to either.

After the sun was up we unpacked everything and got settled in. I was slightly dismayed at the shortage of hangers and I could have used a basket or a drawer for underwear & socks. Otherwise, lots of closet space and ample shelves for everything. By 8 am we were showered and headed up the street to Marin's for breakfast.

One thing we are learning quickly here on Caye Caulker is that they take their motto "Go Slow" very seriously. We ordered our breakfast (various combinations of eggs, toast and beans) about 8:10 am. It came out about 8:55 am. Until 8:30 am, we were the only two people in the restaurant. Dinner last night was a similar story. Oh well, what else have we to do?

My breakfast - beans, "jacks" (which are the puffy things) and cheese. Very good! Even better, our entire meal with two coffees was about $8 US with tip.

View of the kids on their way to school while we ate breakfast. The tortilla stand is to the left, just out of the camera view.

After breakfast we headed up to the rental office to talk about some of the tours we are interested in doing. The property manager, Kim, a fellow Canuck, lives here on the island year-round and gave us some great recommendations of who to use for diving and snorkeling. He will also arrange a full-day in Belize City where we will go to the Belize Zoo, cave tubing and zip lining. After getting our list of preferred tour vendors, we picked up our rental vehicles and were on our way!

Zipping around the island on these bikes is really quite fun and convenient! We can get the entire way around the caye in less than 30 minutes and it's easy to navigate. Plus, it's good exercise and green, and it's how the locals do it!

Beach street

The yard of our house (looking down from our front deck)

Alta Vista. The upper two floors are our rental suite. The ground floor is where the owners stay. That's their golf cart. If you look at the very top, you can see the railing for the roof deck.

Our next mission was to get some basic groceries so that we can at least eat breakfast in our house most days. The fun of shopping on Caye Caulker is that you have to go to different stores for different things: the bakery for bread, the butcher for meat, the greengrocer stand for produce, and the grocery store for staples. There is also a woman who runs a stand where she makes fresh tortillas every morning. We watched her from our breakfast restaurant but she was closed by the time we went back later in the morning. We'll have to hit her up tomorrow!

By the time we finished our shopping and brought our purchases home in the baskets of our bikes, it was time for lunch. We hopped back on the bikes and headed up toward "The Split" - named when Hurricane Hattie came through in the 60's and created a small waterway across the island where there wasn't one before. This area is where most of the tourist hotels are, along with an abundance of restaurants and shops.

The Split. Seriously, is this not the most beautiful thing you've seen?

For lunch, we opted for jerked chicken that a couple was cooking & selling on the beach. It was delicious!

We also tried to find the mysterious "Chocolate", an 83-year old gentleman who is famous in Belize for his manatee conservation work. I've been emailing back and forth with his wife for the past month trying to arrange a tour to the sanctuary he helped to establish. It seems, however, that 83-year old Belezian men are not exactly on a set schedule. Annie, Chocolate's wife, suggested that his tour schedule would depend on "the weather and his mood", but not necessarily in that order. We were instructed in the emails to stop in to his gift shop and let him know we wanted a tour. Annie thought that, due to the length of our stay, the odds were in our favor that we would get a tour at some point. We finally found Chocolate's gift shop (nothing has an address here, just the name of the street it is on which, based on what I told you above, could mean anywhere in a 4 mile strip, or even on one of the side streets in the general vicinity) but it was closed. No hours were posted so we'll try again later.

As it seems that everything closes up for "siesta" in the early afternoon, we headed back to the house to hang out. We were going to read and relax but both ended up sleeping for about an hour, which was nice based on our early morning. After our nap, we headed back out to check in with the tour companies we want to use. We were able to book a snorkel trip for tomorrow morning, and also talked to the dive shop about working a dive around the mysterious schedule of Chocolate. In keeping with the "no problem" attitude we've encountered here, the dive master was understanding of this issue and said we could book with as little as 12-hours notice - wow!

Before dinner, we headed back up to Chocolate's shop to try again. Ah - the shop is open! It's empty, but it's open? We wander around inside for a bit and don't see anyone, then we wander around outside for a bit and spot him (we've seen pictures of him on the web) - yay! We introduce ourselves and he chats us up about his goal of passing the true meaning of ocean conservation on to the "young people" of the world. We tell him that we're dying to do a tour with him and he is agreeable to take us. He just doesn't know yet when that will be. He suggests that we check back every day until he knows. Ok, fine. He's famous and old so we'll cut him some slack. We promise to return tomorrow and ask "what time is best to come". "Oh, I'm always here" he tells us. Based on our experience, we know that this is not true but, again, we'll humor him.

For dinner we were hoping to try an Italian place that is rated best restaurant on the caye by Trip Advisor (one of our favorite sites). We rode by it on our bikes earlier today but when we returned on foot this evening we couldn't find it. Again, addresses or even some basic landmark directions would be helpful. Instead, we ended up at Pizza Caulker - which ended up to be a happy accident. For about $25 US we shared a 12-inch pizza (they use Belizean hot sauce in the pizza sauce!) and 4 drinks (two local beer for Andrew and 2 rum punch for me). Yum-o!

Rum punch!

Andrew and the local beer - Belikin

Now, we're back at the house for the evening. I'm blogging and Andrew is playing on the other computer (yes, we brought two - after 10 years of marriage we've learned that sharing a laptop is not possible). Tomorrow we'll make a tortilla run first thing in the morning and then make our own breakfast burritos at home before heading off for a 1/2 day snorkel trip. Stay tuned!

Caye Caulker, Belize - Day 1

Travel Day! We were up at 3 am on Sunday, took Harley for a walk, finished our last minute packing and were picked up by a car at the house at 4:45 am. In the past, we would drive to Andrew's work, which is about 5 miles from the airport, leave the car there and take a cab the rest of the way. However, we've have a couple of "issues" with cars upon our return (dead batteries, flat tires, and the like) so we now pay the little extra to ride to the airport in towncar style.

The airport was surprisingly busy for 5 am on a Sunday - "Cruise Ship Sunday" one of the employees called it. Unfortunately, everyone in front of us at security had either been living under a rock, or does not own a TV or subscribe to any routine news - hopeless! One family in front of us pulled no less than 6 bottles of water out of their carry-on and proceeded to try to drink them all before going through. Others had their travel-sized liquids in gallon-sized ziplock bags (oh so close, yet still wrong), and most had more "carry-on" items than a pack mule could safely manage. We made it to our gate just as the third group was boarding (despite arriving at the airport more than 90-minutes before our flight) and were on our way. We changed planes in Miami, and arrived in Belize City about 2:30 pm.

The management company of the property we are renting provides a "door-to-door" service, so we were picked up at the airport and dropped off at the water-taxi station in Belize City. The water-taxi is really more like a big city bus that floats, and takes passengers to the various cayes and islands surrounding Belize City. Once on Caye Caulker (about a 45-minute ride from Belize City), we were met again by a gentleman with a golf cart. He loaded our luggage and took us to the management company so we could check in. We were then deposited outside of our rental house, Alta Vista, where we were met by the owners Annette & John. A & J greeted us warmly and walked us up to the second floor to begin our tour. On the way, they explained to us that they are from Oregon and they spend the winter here. When they are here they have an apartment on the ground floor that they stay in. The upper two floors they rent out to tourists.

The house is beautiful and the first thing we noticed is all the Belizean wood. After quickly telling us to take off our shoes and brush the sand from the wheels of our luggage, John proudly told us that he had personally installed all the wood floors, built the cabinets in the kitchen, and even made the couch! We also learned about using filtered rainwater for our showers, and about security for overnight and when we were out of the house. This proved to be good information as we learned the next day that a couple at another house managed by the same company were burglarized during the night and had their iPad and a few other items taken.

The upper floor is a loft-style: two "bedrooms" and a bathroom. This is the second bedroom. You can see the railing to the staircase down to the main floor.

This is the upstairs bathroom. There is an identical one off the kitchen on the main floor.

This is the main bedroom area upstairs. The "wall" with the closet on it separates it from the second bedroom in the loft area.

Kitchen - note the gorgeous Belizean wood cabinets and floors!

The living room and dining room, with the stairs to the loft area.

The front deck. There are three decks total - front, back and roof. More photos of the others to come!

By the time we finished our tour with Annette, we were starving so we headed out to a little Cuban restaurant on Front Street. I had a whole red snapper and Andrew had a conch fillet. Both came with rice & beans and cabbage salad - yum! After dinner, we wandered back to the house and headed to bed - looking forward to a full day here tomorrow!