Exploring Belize Continues

August 04

We've moved blog sites!!!!!

The joys of technology have not come our way. For some bizarre reason, we can no longer post pictures on this blog, so we've moved to a different site. We just see this all as part of the adventure, so please come along and find out more about our lives in San Pedro at this link - Exploring Belize Continues. If you know anyone who has enjoyed our blog, please pass on the change. New house, new blog - it all works.

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July 31

Ladies and Gentleman - The amazing smallest banana in the world

We've moved house. It has been so busy but even moving home in Belize is fun if you have the right attitude. We're going to tell you how it went for us and then you can compare it to how it is where you live.

Well, we have no furniture to speak of, so this is a necessity before we move. We had two weeks to prepare. Colette had to take a shopping trip and this meant flying over to Belize City. She spent the morning with a lovely guy we know there and hit the furniture shops. There are only three in the city. One of them is Courts, which seems to use it to get rid of all the stuff they can't sell anywhere else in the world. The other one we won't name but lets just say that we will not buy furniture from a shop that smells like an old people's home. That just left the good old Mirab's furniture shop. Impressive place and very professional. As good a range and as well displayed as any good furniture shop. Expensive though because everything is imported. Furniture is weird here. We'll be doing more furniture shopping later so hang on. Anyway, Colette picked the Paradox Cocoa and we've put up a picture here that we've stolen from some online catalogue. Oh my god. It is so nice to be comfortable again.

Well almost. You see, the house is hot. Very hot. It got up to 41degrees celcius one afternoon inside the house. This is a problem. Not only does the house get hot, but the floors, the walls and furniture heat up too. This has made everything a little tricky for us, but we love the place and have a really nice landlady who is trying to help us sort it all out. It makes sure we spend a lot of time outside, which is lovely and we've got a yard here that we and the dogs enjoy.

Anyway, back to moving and furniture. So, we buy the sofa and asked for it to be delivered on a certain date the following week. Sofa was delivered perfectly on time and in great shape. We also had to get a bed. We figured that since we plan to buy a place and live here permanently, that we might as well invest in a really good bed. It just arrived in the middle of writing this blog and it hasn't been put together yet, but we've taken a quick picture of the headboard just so that we can smugly rub in what a beautiful tropical, custom made, mixed hardwood bed we've had made. We could also rub in how much we paid for it, but we'll just let you drool.

So, the bed was made beautifully to our specs, the sofa turns up on time and of course we need some men to move us. So Colette calls a number she has been given by a friend. She tells the guy on the end of the phone to bring two more guys to our address on Friday at 10am. He says fine. By Thursday we decided we didn't want to rush too much - which is the effect life in Belize has on you - and called the guy again. Can we change it to Saturday? No problem at all. They turned up on time and had us moved in within 1 1/2 hours. How is that for service. We also had the cable tv and internet all connected on the same day. Everyone came when they said they would and everything worked.

It's not been all work. We found a little dog on the street. She was so cute. After a couple of days of asking around we put up posters and ads and found her owner. Her name was Angel and she was adorable. Check out the poster and pics. We also managed a fun snorkel trip with our wonderful neighbours and their family. We went with one of our favourite snorkel guides, Tulu. During this trip Maya realised that we didn't have an unfortunate party picture to put up this month, so she has provided the shot.

We have lovely friends and they have been dropping by to see our new pad. One of them brought us a lovely mint plant (thank you Cindy), so it will Mohitos all round before long. We've been spending a lot of time in the garden and it is lovely. We have bananas just about ready to pick. We can't wait. We eat a lot of fruit here, banana, papaya, mango most days. But to grow your own is just great. We did buy some apple bananas recently and check out the smallest banana ever. Maya had to eat it after we shared it by taking snaps.

Well as it is so hot, it is time to put this blog to bed. More will be coming soon as August is going to be a jam packed month for us - both of our birthdays and lots of other exciting things. Stay tuned.

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July 11

Don't try this at home

Before we came to live in Belize, many people here warned us that dealing with officials and businesses could be very frustrating and slow. Perhaps those people have never dealt with businesses and officials in London where 'customer service' does not exist in reality. Honestly, customer service doesn't really exist in Belize either, but that is because everyone is treated like an individual here and while it doesn't always help things go smoothly, it makes everything that much more pleasant.

So in a single day we would like to tell you what we managed to achieve. We started off by calling the bank about a problem with our statements. Colette did not identify herself but as soon as she started speaking the lovely lady at the bank said 'Is this Miss Colette?'. For those of you who are not familiar with Belizean custom, using the term Miss or Mr before someone's name is a respectful way to address people here. They sorted out our problem immediately and had a letter ready for us first thing the next morning. Try that with Barclays!

So then we had to go and get insurance for our vehicle. Last weekend, Maya got stopped at a road check to discover much to her horror that our insurance had expired the week previously. She got a 50BZ fine and had to produce documents within 15 days. So we popped down to the insurance company, paid our annual vehicle insurance and then headed off to the town hall to pay the fine. In the town hall we chatted to some of the people we know who worked there, paid our fine and toodled off. Just to put this into perspective, 50BZ dollars equals 25US dollars or 13UK pounds.

We then popped into the post office where the postal workers greet us with a smile and don't even ask our names. Friends and family often find it strange that we have a general delivery address here. Almost everyone receives their mail by general delivery here. There are a small number of postal boxes so some lucky people, but mainly businesses, have a post box. The rest of us are just on general delivery. So the way you collect your post is to go into the post office and they keep everything in alphabetical order in boxes on the wall. When we walk in, the guys smile and immediately look in the right place for our post. They know us well and are always lovely and helpful. There is no postal or zip code here and there are no house numbers. There are barely street names and you won't find many people who actually know any of the streets by name anyway. Locations are usually identified by local landmarks. Local landmarks are usually well known peoples' houses. So someones address could sound like 'Down by the lagoon near the big green Gonzales house'.

We then had some documents to pick up from the police station. We'd called a week ago to ask when the documents would be there. So we turned up to pick them up. As we walked in, one of the police women pointed to a pile of documents and told her colleague that our paperwork was ready. Again, we didn't even say our names. Well that all went simply and without a hitch.

You won't believe this, but all of this had been done in under an hour. Now we had to go and buy a new bed. We visited a number of wood shops and talked to the owners, getting quotes on a bed we wanted to have custom built. They would give the quotes without a picture, just by our description. We checked on the cheapest wood available at the moment. The cheapest wood available right now is mahogany. We settled on one of the wood shops and ordered our bed. We then went to buy a mattress. Colette handled this.

Mattresses are sold in the hardware shops here. So into the hardware shop she went and all the mattresses were stacked on big metal shelves, logically (not) with the biggest ones at the very top right near the ceiling. Colette tells one of the helpers that she wants to try the mattresses before buying them. She gets met with a quizzical look, but female helper goes off in search of a male helper. He just shrugs and climbs the shelves, dragging mattresses down. Then they had to make room so the mattresses could be laid down on the floor. Then they stood by and watched with amusement as Colette laid on each one of them. Colette explained to them that there was a difference in cost between two of the mattresses of 500BZ. She wanted to see what 500BZ felt like and if it was worth the extra money. She decides it isnt worth it and takes the less expensive one.

We then dropped into a local bistro for lunch. Before we could order a friend dropped in. She sat down to join us for lunch and catch us up with what she has been up to. Then another friend dropped by and we had a little chat. The owner of the bistro popped in and out and made time to talk to us about her current projects. One thing about living on a small island, you cannot live a secretive life. For some, after the anonymity of somewhere like London, it can prove a bit of a culture shock. For us, it is exactly the life and community we were hoping to find.

Before the day ended, we had to do one last chore. Contact a JP (Justice of the Peace) who could sign some paperwork for us. We found our JP, had a lovely glass or three of wine with him and his wife and finished our day. Now can you imagine if you had tried to get all of this done in one day where you live now?

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July 01

Did we miss June?

So we had it all planned. We were going to blog more often. What happened? Blogging takes a lot of effort folks and it has been a very busy month. So here goes boys and girls. Hope you like it.

This month Colette took a trip to Belize City to help out with the Belize Humane Society's 'A very shrimpy affair' fundraiser. It was pretty amazing. The food was a low country boil up, which is a style of food from the south of the USA. Shrimp, sausage, potatoes and corn all boiled up and served with red rice. The red rice was a bit of an issue. Colette arrived in Belize City and as she walked to her friend's house she got a call. It was her friend Caroline, the one who was organising the event. She asked if Colette could get started with the rice. She said all the ingredients were there and that there was a recipe in the kitchen. Colette arrived to find two helpers working hard. Neither of them spoke English and Colette's Spanish is non existent. Between them they managed to work things out until Caroline came home. As Colette tried to add the chicken stock to the recipe and Caroline told her only to use half. Colette pointed out that the recipe said differently. Caroline said 'Oh Shit' (actually she said a lot more than that). She had cooked up a whole load of rice earlier and only used half the liquid needed for the recipe. They just took the optimistic stance and were particularly lucky as this was a 'ladies only' event and it was highly likely that the vast majority of the women there would be practicing the low carb dieting thing. Lo and behold they were correct and never had to fall back to using the crunchy rice. It was a hit. Colette met some interesting women and was terribly impressed that nearly 70 of the most influential women in Belize were prepared to get together to support the Humane Society. http://www.belizehumanesociety.com/

But this month was full of all sorts of events. The schools graduated their kids this month and the event was full of smiley happy kids and proud parents. Can't resist including cute pictures of the event. We also have some lovely friends who have moved away and we miss them like crazy.

This month we did go fishing but we decided to spare you too many fishing pictures. We've just sneaked in this one of Colette on the infamous tub.

In the midst of this busy month was the Summer Solstice. Maya took up the offer of a friend of ours to go up to the Cerros ruin, north of us on the mainland in Belize. Maya describes it as a ruin for beginners. It is very cute and Maya had a great time. She spent the night at Cerros Beach Inn http://cerrosbeachresort.com/ and says that the food and company were wonderful. She got to know the owners, Bill and Jen and wants us all to go back to visit - dogs included. Maya was hosted by a lovely friend of ours who drove her around in her funky big, white Mercedes. Cerros is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so they had quite an adventure. They managed to all get to the ruin at sunrise and they were the only people there. Maya is turning into Dora the Explorer.

San Pedro held its first every Lobster Fest this month. For those of you who dont know, lobster in Belize is what is known as Rock Lobster. No claws, but very tasty. Funnily enough, while Colette was in Belize City at the fundraiser, she got a phone call asking if she would be willing to participate as Lobster Queen. Laugh. You might. We did. Anyway, she said 'umm no'. So then they asked her if she would be a judge. So she said 'umm yes'. We were already heading off to Lobster Fest as a friend of ours, Sharon, was setting up a Lobster Sushi stall. Yumm. It was a great party. The Lobster King and Queen competition was a bit of a joke though and Colette discovered that if she had agreed to go up for Lobster Queen, she would have had to go up against one of the cutest little girls in town, Alyssa. Alyssa was the only contestant, so won by default. Lobster King was slightly more controversial. In the end, it was won by Sterling. He owns the Island Ferry water taxi service. He did make a big effort with a Didgeridoo introduction, having slathered himself with something red, wearing a paper crown and with a necklace of putrid smelling lobster shells he ranted on about his manifesto. We were all for Walter, but that is because Walter is our favourite Rasta pizza chef. Our friend Steve also went up and we thought he had a good chance because he is naturally very bright red in the face. Unfortunately we couldn't get a flattering picture of him. Another time Steve. JD, a local character, also entered but we reckon he wasn't sure whether he was up for Lobster King or Queen. He didn't seem to care.

While we were all partying in town, the woodshop behind our place burned to the ground. It was pretty spectacular. Fires here take hold really fast and furious. We do have a fire truck and it does its best, but it has to run hoses to the sea to pump water and it isn't very efficient. Neighbours formed a human chain with buckets. But nothing was salvageable and by morning it was just a smoldering pile of ash.

The stupendous Capt Jeff came for a visit. Too short as always. It was so action packed we don't even have any photos for you. Needless to say that the visit involved a lot of fishing, eating and the sharing of bad jokes. We also attended our fab friend Shaz's birthday (of unforutunate party picture fame). It was one of the least surprising, surprise parties we've ever attended but it was an absolute hoot.

To finish the month off properly, our lovely neighbours invited us over for some authentic Indian food. Jamilla is known across the country for her amazing cooking, so were were priveleged to be guests. It has been a long time since we have had Indian food. It was absolutely delicious.

Well that is about it for this month. So much more happened, but if you want to know what goes on, you really have to come here and share it with us.

June 02

Graduations

Yesterday Colette went to watch a friend's child graduate from his class at Island Academy. For those of you who don't know about this school, it is run by Dixie Bowen. She is the wife of Barry Bowen, who owns Bowen and Bowen - the makers of Belikin (the only beer you can get in Belize - they also hold all distribution rights for most of the soft drinks here). The school is located on one of the most prestigious pieces of beach on the island. The children go to school in cute little huts all along the beach and have views of palm trees, the Caribbean Sea and the longest barrier reef in the Northern hemisphere. Wow, what a place to be able to attend school.

We have always been impressed with the way the children seem to thrive at this school. It is a private school but not beyond the means of middle class Belizeans. It currently doesn't have a High School, which means that many kids of High School age who attend the school, leave the country when it is time to further their education. This makes graduations very emotional times because often the children will never see eachother again because once they move on to a school abroad, they rarely come back.

Colette was amazed at how many children at the school we already know and it really brought home the sense that we are part of a community. In London, there was never a sense of community. You might know your local shopkeeper, but just to say hello to. Even after years and years. Here, in San Pedro, we get to know the families and watch the kids develop. Now anyone who knows us, knows we are not the most child friendly at times. What with our potty mouths, our disdain for authority and self centred lack of patience with some children's needs - you might be surprised to know that we have baby sat for neighbours children and sent them off to school, we have gotten to know children of our friends and gotten the opportunity grow to love and adore them. It reminds us how we never had the chance to do this with the children of our friends in the UK because no one ever has time. We still have potty mouths, we still have a disdain for authority but we now have so much more patience with children and appreciation for their mothers. We have to say. Mothers rock!

So, Colette arrives at Island Academy in her normal outfit of cargo shorts and a vest. Everyone is getting seated and settled and across the crowd of dressed up, nervous parents comes a shout 'Hey Colette, glad to see you dressed for the ocassion' - followed by laughter. Colette responded 'Hey, I wore shoes'. And you know what - in San Pedro - that is considered dressing up.

We went out with some lovely friends and their kids for lunch at Elvi's Kitchen. For those of you who don't know it - it is nothing to do with Elvis. It is named after Elvi and is the the oldest restaurant in San Pedro. Sand floors, a tree in the middle of the room and good food. For dinner, it is a bit touristy for us, but for lunch is always a treat. Colette did what she does best and worked up the children into a frenzy resembling the sugar high seen after a particularly bountiful Easter chocolate orgy. Everyone laughed a lot, especially when the discussion focused on the concept that Colette should teach Health Ed (read Sex Ed) at the school. She would scare them so much that they probably would never have sex - ever.

Maya, the incredible eating machine, manged to eat three pieces of fried chicken and a key lime pie, before promptly collapsing from heat exhaustion when she got home.

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June 01

Trying to be good

OK, this is our first attempt at trying to be good and blogging more often about day to day life here. This morning our local Osprey perched on the pole outside our window. This a common occurence and we love watching this beautiful bird, which looks a bit like a bald eagle. Ospreys are birds of prey that hunt fish. He caught a big one this morning and it was still flapping around as he gripped it on top of the pole. Some other birds took a strong dislike to his presence and shouted birdy swear words at him. What was amazing was how he made himself look enormous and very scary in an attempt to intimidate the smaller birds. At the same time, the large silver fish he had caught was struggling in his talons. We feel like we live in in a nature programme. We've got pictures of the Osprey in some of our previous blogs.

It has been grey and raining on and off for a few days now. The ground is wet, the roads are full of potholes and puddles again. So goes the cycle. Now we can stop complaining about the dust and start complaining about the potholes.

The rain has brought the mosquitoes. They are vicious and savage and evil. We've learned since living here that exposure makes the itching less severe and scratching is the worst thing to do. Most of our bites disappear within hours now, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant to be swarmed and sucked dry. The poor dogs just look like walking grey clouds as the mosquitos follow them everywhere. Poor guys. This is why the dogs and cats here all have to have heartworm tablets monthly - because the mossies carry the deadly parasite.

The sea is grey and absolutely still. It looks like a lake today.

Colette is off to Island Academy today to watch a neighbour's son graduate. Maya will be looking for sardines.

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May 30

And so for year two

It has been a busy and fun month full of anticipation. So what is up for us now. Well, we have decided to sell a property in the UK so that we can buy some land here and build. We already have the design for our house on the back of an envelope and we can't wait to start designing our first home from scratch. Who knows, this story might change. You never know in Belize. We'll keep you updated.

We had another fabulous and fantastic event at our house. We called this one 'Pimp my Shrimp'. We made a huge bunch of shrimp and asked our friends to bring round food to pimp it up. It was a great afternoon and the pimp my shrimp cake made by our lovely friend Nikki was a triumph.

So then we had a cracking couple of weeks of fishing. First Bill and Becky hit San Pedro. Bill is a fishing demon and he took Maya out deep sea fishing for big fish. Maya caught her first Tuna and her first Wahoo. There is nothing better than eating tuna that you have caught that day. They also caught some monster Barracuda, the biggest being 5 1/2 feet long.

After that, Colette tagged along for some reef fishing with our friends the Tacos. It was such a lovely day out. Sadly, Becky felt sick as a very sick person but she is such a trooper that she joined in as soon as she could.

The following week the notorious Capt Jeff turned up and more fishing was on the cards. We had a really good time as always with Capt Jeff. Following our fishing expeditions we have a freezer which contains no less than 8 species of fish. We counted how many species we have caught in the year that we have lived here and we have reached 34 in our count. We love this place.

But we must not neglect to mention our fishing trip in our friend's little tub. Four of us went out in it. It has a 5horse power engine, just to put in perspective, our fishing guide Capt Peter has two 150 horse power engines on his boat. So we are in a tiny tub. We make it six feet from shore and break down. Fortunately all the water at the back of the island is pretty shallow. We could have walked back. But instead, fishing enthusiasts that we are, we just threw in some lines. Maya hooked a massive Mutton Snapper out of two feet of water. Once the boat was repaired and ready to go we just putted further out to the lagoon and ended up catching plenty of fish to feed us all.

Not long after that, our friends with the boat had a party. This inspired us to produce a series of very unfortunate pictures. We hope you enjoy them.

Maya, in the midst of all this activity, decided to go and explore a Maya site on the island. Ambergris Caye had a large population of Maya people living here until about 1000 years ago. There are a number of sites on the island but not much has been done with them or about them. So Maya and her buddy went to visit one of the biggest called Marco Gonzalez. You may not be aware yet, but this island has jungle and critters. They encountered quicksand, tarantulas and thick jungle. Maya saw lots of broken pottery and chert, but not much else. She will have to wait til dry season next year before she ventures there again.

Rainy season is upon us, this is indicated by the zenith. Maya got very excited about this and we took some photos showing the exact moment when you no longer produce a shadow. The sun being in zenith only happens in the tropics. It occurs twice annually. The sun gets very hot around that time. So we've had a couple of weeks of brutal sunshine and now the cloud has arrived for the rainy season. And so have the mosquitoes. Zillions of them.

We won't go into it but there have been riots in Belize. It is a somewhat complicated situation to explain, but people are pissed off about corruption in the government. Great to see them getting energised and fighting back. Lets see what sort of change will occur in this baby of a country.

There was a circus on the island in May. They brought an elephant, some lions, tigers, a camel, some llamas, miniature horses etc. It was the first time an elephant had been to the island. It was quite controversial with one side being upset about the way the animals were treated and the other side arguing that the children of the island shouldn't be deprived of seeing an elephant like the rest of us have been able to in the developed world. The elephant made us particularly sad. Colette tried to contact international animal welfare organisations to see if they wanted any video or photographs that she took for their investigations into animal cruelty in circuses. Interestingly, no one got back to her or was interested. Some just signed her up to get email requests for donations. Shame.

So, we've decided to try a new idea with the blog. We will blog more often, but without photos. Just with comments on daily life here and things that are going on. Let us know what you think.

A big shout out to Bill and Becky for being just lovely people.

A big shout out to Capt Jeff who is out gallivanting in Europe somewhere.

A big shout out to Karen at the Jungle Dome for doing so well in the bike race.

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April 25

Surviving a year in paradise.

It has nearly been a year! We've made it and we will soon be moving on to the next part of our adventures. So, stay tuned for tales of our brave voyage into getting our work permits, residency, starting a business, building a home etc etc. In the meantime, here is what we've been up to.

We had some major problems with our quad bike which needed to be sorted out. Primarily the brakes didn't work properly. Now there are many people here who have vehicles without brakes, lights and which barely move faster than a slow walk. But we are fussy about things like brakes. So, we took it to the mechanic. Well, after much hassle, we got the quad back nearly three months after going into the mechanics and the brakes still didn't work very well. Not only that, Maya and her buddy were heading south for some fishing and the wheel snapped off. Fortunately for us, her buddy is a very handy guy. He got a rock, a piece of board and a string. He actually managed to get the wheel back on, held with a piece of string (see photo - it is unbelievable) and they drove the four miles back on the quad. This is truly mechanics Belizean style. We know that there are more than a few people here who would have kept running it on that single piece of string until it fell apart again. Anyway, they took it on as a project and have been working on getting everything sorted out with the quad and have done a great job. Colette managed to take three people out on it last night - all at the same time with one of them sitting in the basket at the front. In fact, they were off to visit a supposed exorcism which had been threatened/promised at a local bar. Sadly, feelings are running high between two factions of the community over public criticism of a local charity. It seems to us that much more energy is being spent on fighting and arguing than is being spent on helping the charity, but hey, who are we to comment. We are just tourists. But it certainly makes life continue to be interesting.

To make it easy, we'll try to explain along with the pictures in the photo album. There are lots of parties and events here. We don't take our camera along to many, but you'll see Maya and some friends a bit worse for wear having birthday drinks at the beach bar next door. A bad time was had by all the next day when we woke up with true rum hangovers. Easter is one of the busiest times of year in Belize and we were astounded by the number of people here. It did make for a party island and you can see one, not too happy, celebrator in the next picture. Next one after that shows that some of us never grow up!

We've been out to a couple of new restaurants. The first was Sweet Basil's. It used to be a very popular spot with locals and tourists and then went under. It has been reopened with the same menu. It is in a nice location, but it is up north so we probably won't visit it often. It has the unusual position of having views of the lagoon on the left and the Caribbean Sea on the right. We had a great antipasto, but we thought it was a bit pricy, even if it is in a nice place.

In the midst of our eating explorations, Capt Jeff arrived to join in. Being a fellow foodie makes him a welcome friend when he can find time to visit. He hosted a great all day party on a huge catamaran and all the lovely boat pictures on the sea with happy smiling faces are from that day out. Capt Jeff always talks about living the dream and this was truly one of those days. Makes you pinch yourself to make sure you are really alive and experiencing such an amazing experience. During one of our snorkels, we spotted a huge grouper. Some of the guys kept an eye on it while another one went back to the boat to get a spear. They speared it and brought it back to the boat. Maya was soo jealous, so we took pictures of her with it so she could pretend she caught it. Bless. We went out on the Seaduced boat, called Seaduction, and we felt so glamorous and spoiled. A big thanks to our favourite Capt Jeff for that wonderful day out. What memories!

So our next new experience foodie outing was to Sunset Grill. It is an interesting, upmarket new place on the lagoon side. Has great sunset views and they feed the Tarpon (very big fish) every evening. You can sort of make out all their eyes in the picture but they are quite spectacular. A very popular sporting fish. Belize is known as one of the few places in the world where serious sports fishermen can get a grand slam Tarpon, Bonefish and Permit. Very exciting to sports fishermen, very boring to everyone else. The food was good but not great, but the company was lovely and the environment and food presentation made it a lovely atmosphere. Unfortunately, we were eating our meal just as they started warming up for the big Spring Break party being held in the field opposite. So we had the meal to a background of banging rap music. We quite enjoyed ourselves actually.

So one day a neighbour comes over in the morning to tell us to keep the dogs in because there is a croc on our beach. Colette went out and so there was, about 10 - 20 feet off the shore in about 2 feet of water. He wasn't very big but he also wasn't very visible. He hung around all day and even managed an article in the paper about him. Crocs continue to be an issue here and as long as development continues, the battle for territory will invariably be won by us. Sad really. They are amazing creatures. We are so lucky where we are as we have incredible views of the sea and loads of wildlife that we can view from our window. If you look at the pictures, you will see a friendly gecko in our bathroom and a young anteater who appeared behind our house the other evening. Hard to get a good picture of him at night, but you can see he was pretty cute.

Capt Jeff took us out fishing with one of our favourite fishing guides, Peter Graniel, on his huge new boat. We left from the docks at the back, which we haven't done before and saw an interesting new perspective of the island from the lagoon side. Check out some of the houses and mangrove. Fantastic.

Big news locally is that we are getting paved roads. This has been very controversial as there are many who feel that some progress isn't always good progress. The island has been known for its dirt roads and quaint feel but things got bad when we had a lot of rain and all the roads were full of potholes and flooded. You can read about this on some of our earlier blogs. Then came dry season and people are having terrible chest problems from the dust. Most of the children walk to school along these roads so it really isn't healthy at all. So now we are getting the main roads cobbled. It is looking quite good although causing chaos in town. Try to imagine a golf cart gridlock.

While we've got you here, we do want to remind you that while we are living it up and having a lovely time, this is a developing country. We have some lovely friends who have done a blog about one of most deprived areas locally. We recommend you take a look. http://tacogirlblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/san-mateo-needs-help.html .

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March 26

No pictures..boo hiss!

This time we have no pictures of what we are doing, although there are some to illustrate the blog. We could tell you a sob story about our camera being broken or what not, but the real reason is that we are just simply crap sometimes. The number of times recently I've said, 'Damn, I wish I had my camera'. Yet every time we just forget to take it out with us. I felt guilty so I thought I better update everyone. I promise we'll have some pictures next time.

So, whats new? Colette has joined the public library board and has been involved in helping them raise money. This is a great project and as Colette loves reading, strangely, it works. Now any of you who know Colette would find her involvement with a library out of the ordinary. Colette usually works with animal related stuff, but living in San Pedro changes a lot of perspectives.

Our friend got in touch with us the other day and said 'Fancy popping over to Caye Caulker for lunch?'. So, she came and picked us up on her little boat and off we went. We went to the Rainbow Grill. Good food and right over the water. While we were there, our friend took us to her favourite shop, Chocolate. The really interesting lady who owns the shop, with her husband Chocolate told us about the work that they do to protect the Manatee in Belize. We were so impressed. The shop is great too. Lots of Balinese stuff. Lovely. If you want to find out more about the Manatee in Belize check out this site http://www.swallowcayemanatees.org/ . Keep your eye on this as it could become a big issue here. There is a plan to build a huge development on nearby Drowned Caye. This is proposed to have three five star hotels, a casino, a marina plus loads of condos - all for cruise ship tourists. It appears that this development will cause damage to the mangrove, which provide an important ecosystem for the Manatee. They want to build a 4 mile causeway and I think this is the sticking point.

Belize is at a difficult crossroads in terms of development right now. As an eco destination and a country that takes great pride in its reef and jungle, it is in conflict with the need to generate more money. It appears that some developers see Belize as an easy place to get away with stuff that wouldn't be allowed to happen elsewhere. But it also seems that there are a lot of developers who come here with big ideas and everything falls apart. The whole of Belize is suffering from 'progress' shock. If developments are definitely an asset to Belize and they respect the natural beauty and environment of Belize then they can't be a bad thing. Unfortunately, there is big money behind some of these projects and profit is the only motive. It will be interesting to see what the Belizean people allow their government to do on their behalf. There have been a few really controversial project such as the Challilo Dam. There was international opposition to the building of the dam, which you can read about here http://www.stopfortis.org/ and we have included a picture of what the dam looks like. There is another big one down in the south of Belize called the Ara Macao, which is a huge project and the community are campaigning against it. For info on this check out http://www.destinationsbelize.com/ara_macao_resort.htm . Last, but of course, not least, San Pedro is contending with its own issue over a new development, which may affect the national park, Bacalar Chico, at the north of the island. This is called the Ambergris Caye Belize Resort Development. You can find out about this at http://www.sanpedrosun.net/old/07-091.html .

More recently, Maya went fishing with her buddy John the other day. Now, we have had a real saga with our quad, just to bring you up to date. We bought it in September. By Novemeber we had it in with the mechanic, who didn't do much on it and kept it for three months. We've got it back and are not happy. We were planning on taking it a new mechanic but on that day Maya and John went down south on it. After about four miles, the wheel snapped off. Yes, snapped off. Fortunately, John is a very handy guy. With a rock, a piece of a wood and a length of nylon string, he managed to put the quad back together well enough for them to drive home. This being Belize, you learn to take stuff in your stride, so they just got the bicycles out and cycled back down south. They brought home two really nice Baraccudas. Yesterday Colette cooked one of them up and it was delicious. She made fish and potato cakes on a spinach and pine nut salad. How does that sound??

But of course, we were still hungry, so we meandered down to Crazy Canucks beach bar for a hog roast last night and boy - was that good. A whole hog, roasted right on the beach, with great salads and bread.

Keep in touch boys and girls!

February 20

Crikey - nekkid in Mexico

Where on earth have we been? Well, we've both suffered varying bouts of flu and haven't been doing much or going anywhere - well..except for Tulum in Mexico. We decided that we were going to spend some time in Tulum as Maya had been there 10 years ago and had wonderful memories. Colette had never been to Mexico and so it was decided to spend some time relaxing in Tulum, followed by some shopping in Chetumal on our way back. We booked a 'rustic' cabana on the beach and a friend from another part of Belize came to visit to look after the dogs. We seemed set and ready to go.

We hopped on a little plane to Corozal, which is a harbour town in North Belize. The flight takes about 20 minutes and is very scenic. We arrived in Corozal to be met at the airport by our driver from Belize VIP Transfer Services http://www.belizetransfers.com/ . They were recommended by some friends and we have to pass on the recommendation. They are wonderful people and they offer a top rate service at very good prices. So off we went to the Santa Elena border to leave Belize and enter Mexico. When we got to Immigration, they noticed that we were three days late in renewing our tourists visas for Belize. Well this complicated things tremendously.

Apparently they are usually flexible and things can be sorted out when this happens. But the day we were there, luck would have it, the big boss was visiting and everything was to be done by the book. Quite frankly, we have to admit that they went easy on us. Technically, we were breaking the law and they could have arrested us. But instead, they sent us to Immigration in Corozal town to get our Visa stamp up to date in our passport.

This sent things into some disarray because we had shared our taxi with a neighbour who we had bumped into on the flight over as he was going over the border to catch a bus in the same direction that we were. He and our driver are standing on the other side of immigration, having passed through without a hitch. Fortunately, our driver and VIP Transfers are wonderful. After a few phone calls, they arranged another car to pick us up on the Belize side, and our neighbour went off in the taxi into Mexico.

We waited at the border for our car. It was hot. We were a bit worried and not sure what was going to happen. We didn't know if we could sort this out in one day or not and were thinking that we might end up having to stay the night in Corozal. We tried to be philosophical, but it was hard as we were so excited about the trip.

Well the relief was immense when Joan from VIP transfers (family run business - Joan and Henry are the owners) turned up with a van and reassured us that everything would be fine. She took us to Immigration and the friendly Immigration officer in Corozal town smiled at our predicament and gave us the necessary stamps. Things are not that simple because you have to go to the Treasury Department as part of this process. In San Pedro, we are used to the Treasury being directly next door to Immigration, so we just pop from one to the other. In Corozal, Treasury was a drive across town. We enjoyed seeing Corozal though as it is a place we have never visited in Belize and Joan kept us entertained by telling us about her family and the town.

We got to Treasury, paid for our stamps and then drove back to Immigration with our receipt of payment. We were all stamped up and legal and ready to go back to the border. This time it was no problem. We then drove up to the Customs border and had to get out of the car. They make you carry your luggage across the border by hand, which is a bit tricky if you are not expecting to do that. The driver has to go across in the car and meet you on the other side. We had to fill out some forms and then we found ourselves on the other side.

We got in the car and headed to Chetumal to catch a bus to Tulum, which was our final destination. While we waited for the bus, we realised that we hadn't eaten anything, so Colette offered to go get some food from a vendor. Maya speaks enough Spanish to get by, but Colette speaks none, so she had to order everything in sign language. The lady pointed at some red sauce and Colette nodded. This resulted in tacos that were way too hot for Maya to eat and so she ended up having rather sad looking hot dog instead. So much for her first Mexican meal.

We got on the bus and off we went relieved that our adventure was under way. We had been warned that the buses in Mexico were cold, but this one was comfortable. We passed a couple of small towns on the way up the Yucatan penninsula but after about 4 hours, we reached Tulum town. It was getting a bit late in the day so we hopped in a taxi straight to the place we had booked - Cabanas Copal.

Now, when we first researched this place, we had received a personal recommendation. We had also checked trip advisor, but clearly things have changed since then. In fact, when we got back, we realised that trip advisor reviews that had been posted since we had booked were not too promising. But we knew none of that when we arrived, we were just excited and a bit tired.

We were met by a lovely guy at the desk, who ironically turned out to be Belizean. He led us to our room. He was pretty friendly but didn't tell us anything except that there was good news - we had been upgraded to the Casita. Now to put this in perspective, the Casita costs $285 per night, so we were pretty delighted to hear that we had two nights in the Casita before we would be moved to the partial seaview cabana that we had booked.

We walked through the site in the evening and it was quite atmospheric with lit paths and tiny little thatched huts dotted around the site. There were some jewellery sellers under palapas and the Maya incense, Copal was being burned. As we walked past cabanas up along the cliffs, we realised just how fabulous the Casita was. It was at the highest point on the cliffs and literally hung on the edge of the cliff with an outdoor hottub right in front of it. It had glass windows all around the front without curtains and it looked straight out to sea. Fantastic!

We knew that we had booked 'rustic', but we were taken a bit back by the level of rustic and thought that if we had paid the sort of money that this cost, we would have been disappointed. It was tatty and not very clean. Things were broken and it didnt' even have real pillows, just living room, square cushions. Never mind. We weren't paying for it and the location was just spectacular.

It was a bit muggy that night, so we decided to throw caution to the wind and open up all the doors and leave the mosquito net open. Part of rustic, is no electricity, which means no fans. It was very breezy and being right over the sea, we weren't really worried about mosquitos. We put out our candles and crawled between the sheets, which were full of sand and dirty. We ignored that and filed under 'rustic'.

We settled in to sleep, listening to the waves crashing below us so loudly it felt like they were shaking the cliffs. Then, out of the dark, Colette shouts 'there's a huge bug on my tit!'. This resulted in frantic scrambling for torches and trying to battle away the mosquito net to get away from whatever it was that was on Colette's boob. It turned out to be a huge beetle, much to everyone's relief as Colette had initially thought it might be a scorpion. Once it had been dispatched to the floor by Maya, we decided it might be wise to close the doors and the mosquito net and we retreated to bed.

The next morning, we woke to such a wonderful view that we were awe struck. We had hottubs on the cliff and even though the plug was broken for the hot tub, we decided that we were 'rustic' enough to work with it. So, we picked leaves and stuffed the hole. This worked perfectly well. Now, we haven't mentioned that this was a clothing optional beach resort. Colette and Maya are not really clothing optional sort of people, but we both must admit how liberating it is to stand on a cliff above the sea, completely nekkid and step in to a hot tub, watching the waves hit the rocks. Fortunately the Casita was really private and thankfully so as there were no curtains and even the bathroom was open to outside viewers.

The beach and weather were so fabulous, not to mention that the cocktails being served on swinging beds on the beach being extremely decadent, that aside from visiting Tulum town, we didn't do much but drink alot, swim and walk on the beach for two days. The food at the restaurant there was mediocre and if you are from the USA and order the American breakfast, be conscious that their idea of an American breakfast and your idea of an American breakfast may not be quite the same. The menu states the American Breakfast is - two eggs fried or scrambled, with pancakes and hash browns. This consisted of eggs as requested, with two pancakes about an inch and a half across with mashed potatos fried up but served cold. Interesting interpretation.

While in Tulum Town we visited shops but most of them sold the same old tourist stuff. We looked at an art gallery and had some guacamole in a local restaurant. While we were sitting there eating, we became entranced by a taxi driver who was doing something with palm leaves. Maya was sure he was chewing them, but he was taking too much time and care. As you'll see in the pictures, he made the most fantastic hat.

On the third day we decided to visit Tulum ruins. This is what Maya had especially wanted to see. Tulum ruins is one of her favourite places in the world and she had wanted her ashes scattered on the beach there when and if she dies. We decided to go as early as possible and were first onto the site. A few other people arrived early, but it was peaceful and like a well manicured park. Maya was a bit gobsmacked because it had become so cultivated, with ropes around everything and huge lawns. She was a bit disappointed by this, but this was nothing compared to when the cruise ship tourists arrived in huge numbers. Before we knew it, the whole area was absolutely packed with people. Maya is now looking for a new place to have her ashes scattered.

We hit the beach, which was not the same beach that Maya had used the last time she visited. That one was blocked off and a previously inaccessible beach had a new set of steps down to it so that it could be used. It was an amazing place to swim and the water was so clear. There seemed to be absolutely no sea life though and we found that a bit disconcerting. While we were on the beach Colette had a 'Crikey' moment with a huge iguana. One thing we did notice is that the iguanas in Tulum are much bigger and fatter than the ones we commonly see in Belize.

We opted for walking back to our Cabanas and made our way up the road. It was about 5 miles in total but it was a great walk. We saw a gibnut and chakalaka in the woods by the roadside and stopped at a place called Mezzanine for one of the best meals we have had in ages.

The resort had moved us into our partial seaview cabana and we were amused by the fact that it had been built at an angle. This meant that whenever you came from the toilet, you felt that you were rolling down a hill. It also had parts that were completely open to the outside, screens instead of windows in some places and it was tiny like a smurf house. It wasn't very clean and was dark. We felt a bit like cavemen/women/whatever. The second night we were there, Maya was rustling some bags in the room while Colette was in the toilet. Colette shouts down at Maya 'We've got rats in here'. Maya says 'it's just me rustling bags'. Maya finds this amusing and rustles some more. Colette shouts 'We really do have rats in here'. Maya responds with 'No, silly, it is just me rustling'. Colette then says 'Well I am sitting here looking at rats'. That night we had rats running, scampering and dropping in the cabana all night. It appeared that they were dismantling the thatch to make a nest somewhere. Thankfully we have been hardened by our travels and we both still managed to sleep soundly despite the sounds of scrabble, scrabble, drop, plop, scamper, scamper around us all night. When we mentioned the rats to the receptionist, she didn't even look surprised. I'm used to having wildlife around, but this pushed our limits. We checked out the really cheap cabanas on the Copal site just to see what they were like and they were pretty good. They have sand floors and no plumbing so you have to use communal toilets and showers, but for $35/night, they were the only good value we could see there. It isn't paying any extra money at this place because the housekeeping and standards of all the accommodation is pretty poor, particularly for the prices.

Anyway, it was our last night and so we were preparing to go to Chetumal to see what a Mexican shopping mall would be like. A lot of people in Belize go to Chetumal to the mall and to an American subsidiary of Wal mart called Sam's Club to stock up on goods that are much less expensive than they are in Belize. Also there is a wider choice of goods. We had decided to go to Chetumal on Saturday night so that we could shop in the morning and get back to Belize by Sunday afternoon.

We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Principe http://www.hotelprincipechetumal.com/ . They were very friendly, helpful and our room was $58. Everything was brand new, sparkling clean. We had TV, telephone and air conditioning. Not that we use air conditioning anymore, but we did enjoy watching the local carnival live on TV that night. The food was good at the restaurant. We recommend this hotel.

The next day we went into town, visited the Museum of Maya Culture. They had spent a good deal of money on this and it is an excellent little museum. It had a mixture of interesting artists by modern people along with lots of stuff about Maya ruins and archaeology. Well worth a visit. Then we went off to the mall. We bought bits and pieces and headed back to the hotel to meet our lovely friends from VIP transfers. They had come across from Belize to take us shopping. You see, Sam's Club really is a club and you have to become a member to shop there. Fortunately, the family who own VIP transfers are members and they got us in on their membership cards. We did some more shopping and got stuff we needed (especially this stuff that absorbs humidity to stop our clothes from getting moldy all the time). We crossed back across the border with few hitches, got to the airport and flew back home.

We were so glad to be back in Belize. This trip really proved to us how much we love Belize and Belizean people and reminded us of the reasons we chose to live here. There is no doubt that the 'Maya Riviera' is moving south and it is inevitable that Belize, and more specifically Ambergris Caye, will become more and more popular. We sincerely hope that the things that we love about Belize will not be lost in the prosperity, change and progress that this is going to bring. Tulum is beautiful, Mexico is amazing, but Belize is magically special and it is our home.

Special thanks go out to Rosey and John who looked after our dogs and home. Also big thank you's to our friends who saw us off with a lovely lunch and our good friends and neighbours who popped in from Carnival to share a BBQ with us when we got home.

A big shout out to our wonderful friend Marina, who is currently in Serbia having a reunion gig with her old band. It is her birthday today - this one is for you girl!