Belize At Last
Saturday morning (Feb. 8) we head back to MIA, this time to catch our flight to BZE. The airport is utterly chaotic, which is unfortunately MIA's "normal" condition. Long lines to check in. Long lines to have our bags inspected. Blessedly short lines to get through security. We had breakfast on the concourse, including verrrry strong café Cubano. Long lines for the ladies' room. We actually left close to schedule, having scored exit row seats.
The flight was pretty turbulent, but we made it to BZE around 12:40. Customs and immigration moved quickly, as there were many agents on duty. Having cleared that, we went straight to the domestic ticketing area for Tropic Air and got on an earlier flight than originally reserved. Tropic operates small 13-passenger prop planes. While boarding, I got pulled out of line because they wanted me to join the lighter people (yea! it's events like this, and occasionally getting carded, which make life a little sweeter sometimes) in the rear of the plane. The view from the rear is not the best, but I had good company in two other ladies, who quizzed me on the ins and outs of Belize, since I had "expert" status from having been there once before.
The low short flight took us off the mainland of this small Central American nation to the island of Ambergris Caye. Belize has offshore the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, and the second longest on the planet. The reef protects, and in some cases serves as the foundation for, a string of islands running from north to south. Ambergris Caye is the northernmost, as well as the largest and most-visited. The glorious waters surrounding the cayes (which are the background of these webpages) would be our home for a week. After getting a sky view of the waters, we landed on the small strip, collected our bags, and hoofed it to TMM's office, where Sharr greeted us with "Ah, Smilin' Wide, you've finally made it! What a journey you've had!"
Sharr led us down the sandy path to the dock to Smilin' Wide¸ our 35 foot Fountaine Pajot Tobago catamaran. I was instantly thrilled with the design of the cockpit (benches all around, with a table on the port side and helm station on the starboard, with plenty of room for lazing around), as well as the galley-up setup. Having spent many an hour working away in one of the hulls of a galley-down catamaran, working with a view of where we were, as well as the rest of the crew, would be a treat. Our bags soon followed us, so we stripped down to islandwear and went to the bar at neighboring Ramon's Village and its Purple Parrot bar and ordered up some eponymous Purple Parrots, as well as nachos and the most heavenly fish fingers I've ever eaten. (We learned that the Purple Parrot is on Jimmy Buffett's list of Top 10 waterside bars after our visit here in 1999).
At 3:00, the boys returned to the boat for the boat briefing, which I walked to the supermarket to provision. The grocery selections were OK, but meat and produce were iffy. (If I'd had more time, I would have gone to the smaller shops in San Pedro to get fruits and veggies, but I didn't want to spend my whole first day of vacation working). The provisions were on the pricey side, and I dropped over $250 on food for the three of us, not including beverage provisioning which I'd done through TMM; of course, not expecting much in the way of dining-out options once leaving San Pedro, this was a larger-than-usual provisioning effort. And it's the price of paradise. The store arranged to drive me and our supplies back to the boat, and by the time I returned an hour later, the boys were done with the briefing.
By now, it was too late for us to sail off, since traveling with good light is a must in these coral-studded seas. Instead, we hit the streets (which are still made of sand, though some are being "paved" with bricks) and the beach to explore San Pedro. Our tour ranged between the beach, the unofficial Main Street of San Pedro, and the streets, where we visited shops and galleries and mingled with the travelers and denizens alike on this weekend day. San Pedro is, by far, the "busiest" of Belize's cayes, but this is relative; even one cruise ship in port in any other Caribbean island town would make San Pedro look like the lazy, sleepy outpost that it is. We stopped for a few local beers (Belikin) at BC's Beach Bar and BBQ under its thatched roof.
Because our tender winter feet were not up to the challenge of walking barefoot, which is the norm in town, we returned to the boat to get shoes before heading out to dinner at Elvi's Kitchen. Here we promptly slipped our shoes off again to enjoy the sand floors and easy atmosphere, which accompanied local cuisine, like the chicken baked in a banana leaf which I had, and potent rum concoctions. The local "One Barrel" rum is excellent. After dinner, we returned to the boat, stargazed from the trampoline (not a particularly comfortable one, as it is rope webbing) before passing out at an obscenely early hour.
