There is only one real tourist shop we know of on Caye Caulker, Belize. There are only about 2,500 residents of the island. There is one car (for the police), and there are four trucks (for the airstrip). Besides that, everyone has to drive golf carts. Just to give you a good idea of life in the Cayes of Belize.
It has been rainy (at times torrential) since we arrived, which will probably continue through our time in Belize, since it is the rainy season. Yet people go about their every day business with friendly attitudes and Creole islander laid-backness. Annie and I arrived here by boat yesterday morning at 9am after leaving our parents in Cancun and taking a bus at 10:15pm the night before. We rode eight hours through the night sitting next to a 40-year old Belizean hairdresser from L.A. named Aretha McCoy (named after THE Aretha, but not the real deal haha). She was returning to Belize for the first time in 13 years for the funeral of a cousin, who was shot in a night club (gang-related I think). We also sat next to a Belizean singer from San Pedro on Ambergris Caye by the last name of Heylock. When not describing Belizean life and culture to us in regular English, they spoke to each other in their sing-song Creole, which was fascinatingly unintelligible (by now we've heard it a bunch, and we still have no idea what they're saying!). They taught us that men would say,"Watchya gal!" to us in an effort to pick us up. I don't know that we've heard that exact phrase, but we've certainly heard efforts to pick us up by Belizean men.
When we arrived at 6am to Belize City (after an eventless, rainy, 4am border crossing), Annie and I gathered our bearings at the bus terminal while talking a little to a Belizean who worked with the transportation ministry and a Polish med-student from the UK named Mike who had been on our bus. Mike accompanied Annie and me in our taxi to the Marine Terminal where the three of us ate Journey (pronounced "Johnny" after years of Creole) Cakes, which are really good biscuits with a cheese or other filling, and chicken tacos from a street vendor. Mike, with the long-term desire to work for Doctors Without Borders and a balding head, soon left for a hotel. I paid the ticket lady, with bright pink shirt and matching eyeshadow- "Only $10!" as she held up the makeup palate for me to see haha. Her poorly arranged and glued-in tracks (hair weave) did not prevent her from kindly providing us with round-trip water-taxi tickets to Caye Caulker and San Pedro/Ambergris Caye, saving us some money in total. Annie and I started working on getting first nail polish remover (which turned out to be bad stuff and to not work at all) and then internet from the sarcastic young Indian cashier at the terminal by last name of Amir (he wouldn't tell us his first name or where he was from in India- odd fellow indeed). He demanded to know why in the world we didn't want to cross the Guatemalan border by bus- we said it was too dangerous. Then he refuted our arguments by saying the Cartels only go after each other at first, then saying he knew people everywhere so he could get anyone through, and finally by saying that the Cartels kill anyone who crosses them and random people do get caught in the crossfire. Ha, see?! Amused, we paid him $4 Belizean ($2 USD) to use the internet to let people know we were safely in Belize until our boat left at 8am. Meanwhile, the rain pouuuured down!
Carlos, the water cabbie if you will, made sure our backpacks were loaded and that we boarded our water taxi, along with a Chinese woman who was accompanying her half-Chinese son and a younger mestiza and her two cuuuute little boys, as well as a couple of hispanic guys, a latina, and a man and a woman of mostly African descent. What a mixed crowd to witness the ever-failing engine of the water taxi! Annie and I just tried to stay awake- I think she may have just been thinky while I was tryyying to keep an eye on our bags (but I was so sleepy after our long bus ride!). We first made a quick stop to a private island, which I mistook for Caye Caulker and got up all ready to get off, making a slight fool of myself in front of all these locals, before we arrived here.
When we arrived, we walked down the damp and rickety boardwalk to the sandy streets of Caye Caulker, heading for Daisy's Hotel, another picture of rickety :). We met Nino, a guy who informally arranged a room for us by calling out to a never-named woman who seems to own the place (actually, her name might be something like Lena, but she stays inside all day and never comes down from her apartment on stilts). Originally, our room looked pretty dingy, but a very friendly maid-ish lady finally arrived with her young super cute nephew, Emilio, to put sheets on as well as put up the screens and curtains. Amazing what some details can do for a room, especially in a third world country! Now our room feels quite homey, with a twin and a full, and a couple of newly-tiled bathrooms down the hall. We take our TP (hotel-provided luckily) and our own soap to the bathroom, and we throw away our TP rather than flushing it (that seems to be the norm in most of Central America). There is hot water in a decent stream in the shower, which was a nice surprise!
We slept for an hour at Daisy's and went in search of breakfast, winding up at Amor y Cafe, where the Creole ladies cook up a delicious breakfast int heir homey kitchen/cash register counter. Annie and I sat on the sandy road and watched the golf carts drive by and the staff run out for more papaya and pineapple while we at a BLT with a fried egg and Marie Sharpe's Habanaro Sauce (made in Belize) and a wheat waffle with fruit and syrup and butter yummm! After breakfast, we strolled down to the Split, a shallow area of water that appeared after a 1961 hurricane that splits the island into two. It's really the place to swim, since boats don't pass through and there's no seagrass in the water. On the way, we stopped by the tourist shop, made arrangements for a snorkeling tour, noticed the beginning of a whole roast pic (and made plans for dinner) and observed all the people and their wares along the road, all in the rain. So many Rastas and island characters! We headed back and got ready to snorkel, praying that our valuables would remain untouched during our expedition (which they did).
We walked down to Anwar Tours and met with Omar, who outfitted us with snorkel gear. Then arrived Tom, a newly-minted Canadian lawyer of 27 on a summer adventure before he starts real work. After him arrived a Spanish-speaking Belizean couple, Dani and Axel, who were super nice, and Axel seemed to know a lot about ocean stuff. Then arrived four Canadians who were maybe a few years older than us, and they were nice and lively. We had a great time (without lifejackets-yay!) exploring the second largest coral reef in the world. We saw a green moray eel (Omar coaxed it out of its cave for us), lion fish (they look craazy! and they're not native to this area :( ), parrot fish, urchins, sand dollars, AND we swam with sting rays and nurse sharks at Shark Ray Alley- I touched a shark! That's pretty crazy considering I wouldn't even touch my own fish, Squirt. However I was not about to touch a sting ray- they really freaked me out. I guess I touched one once at Monterey Bay Aquarium, but these were alllll over the place and I basically kept my feet off the ground (the water was about four feet deep) because I didn't want any of them to run into my feet. Ha I was basically latched onto my more brave younger sister! We stopped at three different places, and at the third one we got to go off and do whatever we wanted, which was really cool. We were really lucky that the rain let up while we were out there. We made friends with Tom, and we invited him to come eat roast pork and drink Belikins (Belizean beer) with us at La Cubana- we sure were hungry after our 3 hour tour!
At La Cubana, owned by a Cuban couple who could serve up some meaaan mojitos, we got the buffet, which was full of Caribbean specialties cooked up by Belizean Latino Chef Juan (I had to make friends with the guy serving the pig!). Juan had made Caribbean meat balls and chicken stew and shrimp stew and rolls and mashed potatoes and Caribbean potatoes and rice and black beans and chocolate cake and some other kinda cake that was like sweet cornbread aaaand last but not least Juan's Secret Sauce for the pork that was amazing! It involved garlic, which is always a pleaser for me. We at that out near the water under multi-colored lights and discussed the Canadian health care system vs. ours as well as the law system vs. ours. Then towards the end of the meal I noticed cheers from the bar next door- the NBA finals! We moved next door only to watch the Thunder lose the third game to the Heat. It was fun, though, even though this Creole lady who was drunk was waaaaay too loud a fan about the Heat. We went home early so we could rest up for our move the next morning to the town of San Pedro on the island of Ambergris Caye- the more famous and more developed of the Cayes. As soon as we got home, the torrential downpour started up again, so we fell asleep to the peaceful patter of the island rain. Stay tuned for a (most likely shorter) update about Ambergris (which, btw, means whale sperm-hahaha).
It has been rainy (at times torrential) since we arrived, which will probably continue through our time in Belize, since it is the rainy season. Yet people go about their every day business with friendly attitudes and Creole islander laid-backness. Annie and I arrived here by boat yesterday morning at 9am after leaving our parents in Cancun and taking a bus at 10:15pm the night before. We rode eight hours through the night sitting next to a 40-year old Belizean hairdresser from L.A. named Aretha McCoy (named after THE Aretha, but not the real deal haha). She was returning to Belize for the first time in 13 years for the funeral of a cousin, who was shot in a night club (gang-related I think). We also sat next to a Belizean singer from San Pedro on Ambergris Caye by the last name of Heylock. When not describing Belizean life and culture to us in regular English, they spoke to each other in their sing-song Creole, which was fascinatingly unintelligible (by now we've heard it a bunch, and we still have no idea what they're saying!). They taught us that men would say,"Watchya gal!" to us in an effort to pick us up. I don't know that we've heard that exact phrase, but we've certainly heard efforts to pick us up by Belizean men.
When we arrived at 6am to Belize City (after an eventless, rainy, 4am border crossing), Annie and I gathered our bearings at the bus terminal while talking a little to a Belizean who worked with the transportation ministry and a Polish med-student from the UK named Mike who had been on our bus. Mike accompanied Annie and me in our taxi to the Marine Terminal where the three of us ate Journey (pronounced "Johnny" after years of Creole) Cakes, which are really good biscuits with a cheese or other filling, and chicken tacos from a street vendor. Mike, with the long-term desire to work for Doctors Without Borders and a balding head, soon left for a hotel. I paid the ticket lady, with bright pink shirt and matching eyeshadow- "Only $10!" as she held up the makeup palate for me to see haha. Her poorly arranged and glued-in tracks (hair weave) did not prevent her from kindly providing us with round-trip water-taxi tickets to Caye Caulker and San Pedro/Ambergris Caye, saving us some money in total. Annie and I started working on getting first nail polish remover (which turned out to be bad stuff and to not work at all) and then internet from the sarcastic young Indian cashier at the terminal by last name of Amir (he wouldn't tell us his first name or where he was from in India- odd fellow indeed). He demanded to know why in the world we didn't want to cross the Guatemalan border by bus- we said it was too dangerous. Then he refuted our arguments by saying the Cartels only go after each other at first, then saying he knew people everywhere so he could get anyone through, and finally by saying that the Cartels kill anyone who crosses them and random people do get caught in the crossfire. Ha, see?! Amused, we paid him $4 Belizean ($2 USD) to use the internet to let people know we were safely in Belize until our boat left at 8am. Meanwhile, the rain pouuuured down!
Carlos, the water cabbie if you will, made sure our backpacks were loaded and that we boarded our water taxi, along with a Chinese woman who was accompanying her half-Chinese son and a younger mestiza and her two cuuuute little boys, as well as a couple of hispanic guys, a latina, and a man and a woman of mostly African descent. What a mixed crowd to witness the ever-failing engine of the water taxi! Annie and I just tried to stay awake- I think she may have just been thinky while I was tryyying to keep an eye on our bags (but I was so sleepy after our long bus ride!). We first made a quick stop to a private island, which I mistook for Caye Caulker and got up all ready to get off, making a slight fool of myself in front of all these locals, before we arrived here.
When we arrived, we walked down the damp and rickety boardwalk to the sandy streets of Caye Caulker, heading for Daisy's Hotel, another picture of rickety :). We met Nino, a guy who informally arranged a room for us by calling out to a never-named woman who seems to own the place (actually, her name might be something like Lena, but she stays inside all day and never comes down from her apartment on stilts). Originally, our room looked pretty dingy, but a very friendly maid-ish lady finally arrived with her young super cute nephew, Emilio, to put sheets on as well as put up the screens and curtains. Amazing what some details can do for a room, especially in a third world country! Now our room feels quite homey, with a twin and a full, and a couple of newly-tiled bathrooms down the hall. We take our TP (hotel-provided luckily) and our own soap to the bathroom, and we throw away our TP rather than flushing it (that seems to be the norm in most of Central America). There is hot water in a decent stream in the shower, which was a nice surprise!
We slept for an hour at Daisy's and went in search of breakfast, winding up at Amor y Cafe, where the Creole ladies cook up a delicious breakfast int heir homey kitchen/cash register counter. Annie and I sat on the sandy road and watched the golf carts drive by and the staff run out for more papaya and pineapple while we at a BLT with a fried egg and Marie Sharpe's Habanaro Sauce (made in Belize) and a wheat waffle with fruit and syrup and butter yummm! After breakfast, we strolled down to the Split, a shallow area of water that appeared after a 1961 hurricane that splits the island into two. It's really the place to swim, since boats don't pass through and there's no seagrass in the water. On the way, we stopped by the tourist shop, made arrangements for a snorkeling tour, noticed the beginning of a whole roast pic (and made plans for dinner) and observed all the people and their wares along the road, all in the rain. So many Rastas and island characters! We headed back and got ready to snorkel, praying that our valuables would remain untouched during our expedition (which they did).
We walked down to Anwar Tours and met with Omar, who outfitted us with snorkel gear. Then arrived Tom, a newly-minted Canadian lawyer of 27 on a summer adventure before he starts real work. After him arrived a Spanish-speaking Belizean couple, Dani and Axel, who were super nice, and Axel seemed to know a lot about ocean stuff. Then arrived four Canadians who were maybe a few years older than us, and they were nice and lively. We had a great time (without lifejackets-yay!) exploring the second largest coral reef in the world. We saw a green moray eel (Omar coaxed it out of its cave for us), lion fish (they look craazy! and they're not native to this area :( ), parrot fish, urchins, sand dollars, AND we swam with sting rays and nurse sharks at Shark Ray Alley- I touched a shark! That's pretty crazy considering I wouldn't even touch my own fish, Squirt. However I was not about to touch a sting ray- they really freaked me out. I guess I touched one once at Monterey Bay Aquarium, but these were alllll over the place and I basically kept my feet off the ground (the water was about four feet deep) because I didn't want any of them to run into my feet. Ha I was basically latched onto my more brave younger sister! We stopped at three different places, and at the third one we got to go off and do whatever we wanted, which was really cool. We were really lucky that the rain let up while we were out there. We made friends with Tom, and we invited him to come eat roast pork and drink Belikins (Belizean beer) with us at La Cubana- we sure were hungry after our 3 hour tour!
At La Cubana, owned by a Cuban couple who could serve up some meaaan mojitos, we got the buffet, which was full of Caribbean specialties cooked up by Belizean Latino Chef Juan (I had to make friends with the guy serving the pig!). Juan had made Caribbean meat balls and chicken stew and shrimp stew and rolls and mashed potatoes and Caribbean potatoes and rice and black beans and chocolate cake and some other kinda cake that was like sweet cornbread aaaand last but not least Juan's Secret Sauce for the pork that was amazing! It involved garlic, which is always a pleaser for me. We at that out near the water under multi-colored lights and discussed the Canadian health care system vs. ours as well as the law system vs. ours. Then towards the end of the meal I noticed cheers from the bar next door- the NBA finals! We moved next door only to watch the Thunder lose the third game to the Heat. It was fun, though, even though this Creole lady who was drunk was waaaaay too loud a fan about the Heat. We went home early so we could rest up for our move the next morning to the town of San Pedro on the island of Ambergris Caye- the more famous and more developed of the Cayes. As soon as we got home, the torrential downpour started up again, so we fell asleep to the peaceful patter of the island rain. Stay tuned for a (most likely shorter) update about Ambergris (which, btw, means whale sperm-hahaha).
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