11.17.2009

Jessie and I arrived at the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport (BZE) @ 4pm yesterday, got our luggage, cleared customs and then encountered our first travel challenge. We knew we needed to get to the bus station but where was the cue of cabs outside the airport? As we stood on the sidewalk, assessing the situation a fellow American walked out of the airport, friendly chatting with a local in Spanish. During our Houston lay-over, she had stuck out of the crowd with her salon-dreadlocks & North Face gear and I had made a sarcastic comment about her to Jessie. Now I needed her help! (Travel karma is a real thing, folks! Don’t be a jerk!) I ran after her into the parking lot and thankfully her friend agreed to take us to the bus station.

We took the 5:15pm bus to Dangriga on an old American school bus for 2 hours. The heat made our thighs stick to the pleather, just like in middle school. Upon arrival in Dangriga we found Val’s and signed up for bunk beds for 2 nights ($44us).

Val is friendly and let us know that we were getting the last of the bunk bed because they were all reserved for the Settlement Day Festivities! We set up our beds and head out to explore Dangriga!

There is a big river that runs right through town and out to sea. There are fisherman everywhere. And the red snapper looks delicious!

11.18.2009

Wednesday night the drumming started at dusk. Since the 19th was a national holiday and no one had to work, they got started partying early. Everyone says hello and smiles and we end up sitting on the curb watching people dance in the street before we wander on.

Dangriga had a great vibe – since even the locals were on holiday- not just us!  
It gets dark at 5:30pm here too! It seems unfair to have so little light in the tropics, but it is keeping me from burning into a crisp. (Jessie has year-round Chaco tan-lines and a Vitamin D deficiency, so she’s loving the sun.)

The locals kept insisting that we wouldn’t be needing our beds that night because the party goes on until sunrise. Jessie, Abby, Janelle (our new friends from Bend, Or) and I took a taxi out to Malibu beach and waited for the band to get started…at 11:30pm- no wonder the party goes until dawn. We played cards on the beach (We called it ‘Abby Always Wins!’ but it was basically UNO with a 52-card deck.) Janelle was really into arm wrestling every we met. She was good!

After a few attempts at dancing to ‘Diamond’s drumming, we headed back into town, a bit disappointed that the night was so low-key. The streets were still busy with drunken festivities as Jessie and I headed back to Val’s. We’d had enough Punta Rock (rap/reggae mix music and or lifestyle) for the night and the drumming outside our hostel would signal the beginning of Settlement day at sunrise.

HAPPY 19!!!

We woke up at 8am and realized that the first great thing about Settlement day was that they don’t start the boat-landing ceremony right outside our hostel! Nice. We got some yummy scrambled eggs and Journey/Johnny Cakes for breakfast.

Then we stumbled across our new friend CJ who works at a stock photo/ web design company. He was the only float in line for the 10:00 parade… it was 10:30. We wandered down to the closed and possibly abandoned Garifuna museum then back to the parade. On the way we discovered a bike race. Those guys looked serious.

At around 11:30 the 10 o’clock parade was under way. We made our way to the beginning of the parade so we did not miss anything.

Jessie’s favorite part was the Chinese float. They had firecrackers, gongs and these fancy dancing dragons. (Random Factoid: Nearly all of the shops in Belize are owned by the Chinese because they don’t pay import taxes and can get goods cheaply. Somebody worked out a nice trade deal…)

The parade concluded with a Punta Rock float sponsored by Western Union. It was just a flatbed semi-truck with a band and an insane number of speakers. All the spectator rolled off the curbs and into the street to follow this last float through the city, dancing all the way. We did our best to keep up but eventually the heat and the constant dancing wore us out and we had to go for smoothies and naps.

11.25.2009When you last left us, we were in Dangriga enjoying the Settlement Day festivities and making plans for our next move. Val recommended that we spend time on Glover’s Atoll but they only run the boat once a week so we would have to forgo any other destinations in Belize. A week on a private island? We’re IN! That is how we ended up on a Caribbean island with 6 other people…gotta love serendipity.

Glover’s Atoll is a tiny island about 2.5 hours ride from the mainland and was purchased in 1967 by a French and American couple named Lomont. Now their kids and grandkids run Glover’s. It is not a resort. We brought all our own food for the week and will be staying in a two-story beachside cabana. We can sign up for snorkeling, scuba, fishing, kayaking, meals….the works.

This is Jessie loving the boat ride- I was ok on the way out, but the choppy seas on the way back made me feel like I was having a panic attack every time the boat lifted off the waves. Jessie said it was because I’m not a ‘water sign’.  She thought it was fantastic but her zodiac sign is a crab.

The island is tiny (you can walk the perimeter in less than half an hour) and the cabanas are very rustic. Gorgeous, but rustic.

Our cabin was a less expensive beach cabana with a kitchen underneath. It has a propane stove and a bunch of hermit crabs that get into any unsealed food. This was definitely CAMPING not a luxury resort (only the mess hall has electricity). There are terrible TripAdvisor reviews but they are written by people who did not realize they would be roughing it. You should absolutely go.

There are composting toilets, outdoor showers and a conch shell faucet on the painted outdoor sink.

We have been snorkeling 3 times a day, everyday and have been hanging out with Carol and Eric Bacon (our surrogate parents from Alaska). Warren, the 17-year-old grandson took Carol, Eric and Jessie deep sea fishing and they caught red snapper for dinner. It took both Carol and I to reel up 700ft of line with a few fish on it.

While fishing they saw a water spout (very far away) which is a tornado on the water…very neat.

The Bacons are well-traveled and brought curry powder with them! They cooked up an insanely delicious coconut curry with red snapper and rice.  Jessie attempted to climb a tree and snag us a fresh coconut for the curry but she didn’t get too far! (“Mowgli made this look so easy!”)

We found some young coconuts on the ground and made coconut milk for the curry. It was intensely flavorful – I had never eaten fish so fresh! (Until the next day when Warren caught a tuna and they rolled fresh sushi in the kitchen!) Below is the view of the catamaran from the mess hall.We had such a great week!  The last two days were rainy so we had to find other ways to entertain ourselves with walks and books and hermit crab races. Life was not intense. We loved it.

11.26.2009

The frigate birds put on an impressive show as they hunt for their Thanksgiving Day meal.

Our little band of travelers gather together for Thanksgiving festivities. Here we are, enamored with whatever Eric Bacon is telling as we drink our Kool-aid.

We are joined by the inhabitants of the neighboring island, the Marine Park Rangers. And they bring  with them, Spiney Lobsters! They are clawless and full of tasty meat to dip in butter… I wouldn’t mind replacing T-day turkey with these more often!

Not to be outdone, Beatrice whips up some yummy coconut meringue pies for dessert! That’s Becky behind her- she runs the resort that her parents own.

Another night we had a ‘potluck’ and a ‘bonfire’ which had to be constantly tended to because all we had to burn was dried palm leaves and coconut husks. Jessie is enjoying her coconut full of rum, wishing we had a nice chunk of oak for our fire.

After all the food and rum, we’d head back to our 2-story, beach-front cabana and wish we had electricity and a fan. (J- do you still have that a Rainbow Bright sheet?)

Most nights we’d take quick showers right before bed in the futile hope that evaporation would make us cool enough to fall asleep. It was hot. And rainy. And there were 1 million hermit crabs.

If you left the bread out in the kitchen, the tiny hermit crabs would nip their way through the plastic and nibble on your toast! They were tiny and left tracks in the sand every night.

They wer also entertaining. One night we found the biggest ones and had a race to see whose crab would be the first to make it out of a circle we drew in the sand. Did I mention we didn’t have any electricity?

This silly hermit made his new home in a marker cap!

If we had managed to keep the crabs out of our bread, in the morning I could make french toast!

Check out the Conch-shell wind-guard we set up for  our propane stove. We also made eggs!

The french toast turned out great! We brought NZ butter in a can but we didn’t have syrup… but we had the next best thing- Marie Sharp’s Mango jam! YUMMO!

After breakfast the non-cook was on dish duty! The baked-on eggs had to be scrubbed out of the pan with sand. Luckily, Eric was there to keep things humorous.

Let’s GO BAAACK for some more rustic-island camping! Who is in?!?