Belize - Caye Caulker - Day 8

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I once again wake up early and try my hand at some fishing. The wind is very calm and the water is smooth. I head for the backside of the island and walk out on one of the docks. There are big sand flats next to the docks which are surrounded by shallows covered with turtle grass. I can see a few shadows which I’m convinced are bonefish as well as a few barracudas. I have a nice perspective standing on the docks and imagine it is similar to standing and fishing from a skiff.

The calm winds allow me to cast with ease. The tide is going out at a nice pace and I am able to place my imitation shrimp “fly” along the side of the flat and mend the line while it drifts down naturally in front of the fish. It’s very similar to casting upstream from a trout in the Yellow Breeches. Fly fishing feels much more comfortable today in the calm winds and I really start to enjoy myself.

I recall Haywood telling me how the bones like to set up in the turtle grass and then dart out into the flats when they spot a shrimp. I make a few false casts and lay the fly right where I want it. It begins drifting slowly along the edge when suddenly a barracuda makes a move. The long silver fish speeds towards my fly ready to strike then suddenly veers away at the last possible second. My heart is racing. I never did manage to catch a fish this morning, but it was the most fun I ever had getting shut out.

Today is our final day on Caye Caulker and we still haven’t made it all the way to the end of the island. After watching the locals easily pile two and sometimes three people onto a bike, I’m convinced that this is our best bet. Karin and I will peddle and the girls will sit on the crossbar with both legs hanging to one side. Before we plunk down the cash, Karin wants a test drive. Paige and Karin are both a bit apprehensive, and in hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea to put them together. They don’t make it very far. Karin is shaky and Paige is scared. It’s starting to look like this won’t work. I take the bike from Karin and show Paige how slow I can make it go. I tell her to let me know when she wants to go faster and even let her tell me which bumps to hit and which ones to avoid. She finally relaxes and starts to enjoy it. Next we get Rylee and Karin going and we’re on our way.

Our goal is not only to ride to the end of the island, but also to buy some souvenirs along the way. Everyone enjoys the nice breeze as we ride, and we make a couple of laps around the island before stopping to shop. The girls have been eying the colorful little purse bags at one of the stands since we got here. Grandpa has brought them back similar bags from Guatemala in the past and they absolutely love them. Their plan is to buy some for their friends at home. The family who sells them is setting up their stand when we arrive.

Rylee and Paige begin sifting through the piles of bags looking for the perfect ones. Karin starts bartering with the Mother running the stand. The Father continues unpacking their goods and laying them out for display. This leaves me and their small boy. He’s probably about 3-4 years old. The boy makes a bee-line directly for the object of his desire; Karin’s unoccupied bike which I’m holding next to me. In an instant, he shimmies up my leg and plops on the empty seat with a gigantic smile. For the next 20 minutes he tries everything he can think of to pry my hands from the handlebars so he can take off for a ride. Each time I allow him to remove my hand from one location; I quickly grab the bike somewhere else. His feet don’t even reach the peddles and I can only assume he would fall flat on the ground the instant he gained control, yet he persists relentlessly. If he wasn’t so stinkin cute he would be driving me bananas. Finally the girls have made their selections and Karin asks if she can take a picture of the girls with the lady. Luckily for me the only thing the boy likes more than the bike is a photo opportunity. He hops down immediately and runs to him Mom’s side just in time to get his big smiling face in the picture.

For the rest of the day, every time we pass the stand or see the boy in the street, he looks at us with his big smiling face and says “hola, hello!”.
Next we go in search of hammocks. Relaxing in them with a good book has become a favorite pastime of ours on this vacation, and we decide having our own on the back porch would be just as cool. We’re certain that we saw a hammock stand somewhere during our stay, but neither of us can recall exactly where it was. We peddle up and down the streets trying to jar our memories; no luck. We eventually wind up at a gift shop. They are a bit more expensive than we anticipated, and we only find one that we really like. We buy it and get on our way.

We return the bikes and it’s hard to believe we’ve already had them for two hours. They’re not only great fun, but also extremely convenient. It’s easy to see why they are the main mode of transportation on the island. If we ever return, I’d probably just go ahead and rent one for the whole week. Karin is intrigued by the sign at the bike stand for “fresh fruit juice” and it shocks me when she orders a watermelon juice for us to share. Sometimes she is funny about ordering from street vendors, especially when that something is a homemade drink concoction being served to us in a 24oz re-used plastic soda bottle. She says she asked and was told that “nothing was added, its 100% watermelon juice”. The lady pulls it from the fridge and hands it to us with two cups for the girls. It is cold, refreshing, and absolutely delicious! I gulp down huge mouthfuls and have to force myself to stop so everyone gets their share. I can’t believe how good it is.

We return to our house and collapse into our hammocks. I look over at Karin and begin to think we may have made a mistake. Lounging in a hammock is sort of like yawning. When you see someone doing it, you instantly want to do it too. I am imagining the scenario at home where one of us is kicked back in the hammock with a good book while the other sits uncomfortably in a chair secretly envious. Perhaps we’ll have to walk back down later and get another one, I thought to myself.

We have just one more important task to take care of today. Paige bought a postcard the day we arrived and it still needed mailed. Karin told me the postage was only $0.15. This didn’t seem to make much sense to me, but I stuffed it in my pocket with some money and headed for the post office anyway. I got about half way there when I noticed a portly, yet familiar looking man walking in my direction. His arms were stretched out at his sides and there was colorful fabric lining them from shoulder to wrist. They were hammocks! No wonder we couldn’t remember where his stand was, he didn’t have one. He simply walked up and down the street selling his goods. I stopped him to see what he had. He said the prices started at $35.00ea (much cheaper than the $50 we had just paid). I was almost ready to buy when he informed me that the $35 hammock was single knot rope and only for children 80lbs or less. If I wanted a hammock for someone my size, I would need a triple knot. These started at $50.00ea; ahhhh, the old “bait and switch” I thought to myself. I wasn’t sure how much I had in my pocket, but I knew it wasn’t enough. I told him I didn’t have $50.00 and asked if he would be walking the street all day.

He sensed that he was about to lose his sale and offered it to me for $45.00. I still didn’t have enough. He lowered his price to $40.00 and then finally asked what I could afford to pay. I dug the money from my pocket and did some quick math. I figured I better keep at least a dollar for the postage and I also “needed” $2.50 for a beer (it was a long walk). That left me with only $35.00. He begrudgingly accepted my price and handed me the hammock. I tucked it under my arm and continued on my way, proud of my purchase.

We took the girls up for a swim and enjoyed a few drinks as the sun began to set. Three local teenage boys were getting windsurfing lessons. I recognized the boys and had seen them walking the streets several evenings. They were full of machismo and acted like wannabe “gangstas” from the US with their hats turned sideways and underwear sticking out of their shorts. We were now seeing them in a totally different light. It was clearly the first time they had ever tried windsurfing and it was fun to see them letting their guard down. They would scream with terror as the board took off in a gust wind; laugh uncontrollably as the others crashed into the water, and whoop it up whenever one successfully got it going. We watched for a while trying to figure out what was going on. Who was this guy and why was he teaching these kids? Surely they hadn’t paid for the lesson. Maybe the guy is bored and looking to drum up some interest with the locals? One of the boys came within earshot and Karin yelled “You’re doing great!”. He looked over with great pride and yelled back “Thanks, it’s my first time sailing!”. It was obvious he enjoyed the attention.

The lesson went on for about an hour when we noticed three people in a canoe paddling in towards the split. There were two surfboards in the boat and one being pulled behind. “I wonder where they came from?” I asked Karin. They paddled over to the man with the windsurfing board and he handed it off to them. The girl went first and was apparently quite good. She cruised around the beach area doing freestyle tricks which obviously impressed the man who owned the board. The boys continued watching while the man giving the lessons came and sat next to us. Karin commented on the people using the board. “Yeah, they’re pretty good” he said. “Where did they come from?” Karin asked. “Out there” he replied pointing out to the whitecaps several miles in the distance. Apparently the threesome had paddled this canoe an hour and a half all the way out to the reef. Once they reached it, they anchored the boat and surfed the whitecaps where the ocean meets the reef. I assume this is one of those things that you have to see to appreciate, but standing there, looking out at the distant reef on the horizon, it seems like one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard in my life.

Karin then asked about the boys and remarked how well they were doing. The man suddenly beamed with pride. “I am a windsurfing instructor and I help run the local high-school, these boys are my students” he says. It turns out that this man was working with Haywood’s wife at the new high school on Caye Caulker. He tells us that he sold all his land to help start the school. “The school is 100% voluntary and they have a no-fail policy” he says. “If you fail a test, you go back for more studies until you can pass. If you do well, you get to do fun things like windsurfing.” He explains that these kids are very grateful for what the school provides. “They say thank you sir, and you’re welcome ma’am. They’re all great kids. They just need a chance.” It’s always great to see someone so passionate about a good cause.

Like many people we’ve met on Caye Caulker, this man has a very interesting story if you just take the time to listen. He was a National Champion Windsurfer for many years and would go to Hawaii every year to represent Belize in the tournament. He said he was never really good enough to compete with the people there, but loved the experience. A few years ago some people on the committee talked him into retiring from competition and becoming an official. He now continues to go every year to help officiate. “It’s funny” he says with a smile, “the same guys that used to shove me out of the way in the surf, now fall all over each other to be my friend. Everyone wants to be on the good side of the official.” He went on to tell us that just like the people in the canoe he too rides out to the reef to windsurf in the “blue water”. He said you could see the hammerheads following along under your board. It takes him about 20 minutes to get there, but he would never go alone. “I’ve been rescued 11 times” he says. Mostly equipment failure except for the time he broke his ankle.

In addition to windsurfing, we’ve seen several people kite-boarding on Caye Caulker. I asked the man if he has ever tried it. He lowers his head shaking it slowly. “No” he says as begins telling us the story. Several years ago, he and his best friend both bought kite-boards with the intention of offering lessons on Caye Caulker. A week later his friend was killed in a freak accident while kite boarding. Apparently, many years earlier, his friend had taken in a street kid and given him a home. This boy became his assistant and it was his job to be in the water to help catch the friend’s kite when it was time to come in. One day his friend was boarding when a storm blew in very suddenly. His friend looked for his assistant to set his kite down, but he was nowhere to be found. Apparently, the kid had run in to grab a beer. Unsure what to do, his friend tried getting too close to shore when a sudden wind gust changed directions and drug him up onto the shore killing him. Every day for the next year, the boy would walk into the water at the exact spot and stand there for over an hour. He was waiting for the man to return. “We buried him in his wetsuit” he said sadly. It was a chilling story.

We walked home, cleaned up, and started making plans for our final dinner in Caye Caulker. Last night we got some bad tasting fish at “Herbal Tribe” and I wanted to make sure our food was good on our last night. According to my research, the most highly regarded (and most expensive) restaurant on the island was a place called “Habenaros”. It was a bit of a walk from our place, so we got an early start. It was still light when we arrived and we sat outside under the covered porch on the second floor overlooking the busy street below. The whole place is brightly colored with red, green, and yellow. The walls are covered with local art and there was some funky reggae music playing softly in the background. The exotic menus are printed on organic bamboo paper. The whole place has a very cool vibe about it and the food is fantastic. Sitting in such a beautiful setting with such a beautiful spread of food in front of us seems like the perfect ending to our vacation. Karin asks the waitress if she would mind taking a picture of us. “No problem” she says as she takes the camera. Holding it up she snaps the picture and suddenly gets a big smile. “That’s a great picture” she says. “You have a beautiful family”. I thanked her, relaxed back into my chair, and thought to myself, “I couldn’t agree more”. 😊

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