Advertisement
Published: September 16th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Our Room
Not bad for budget prices. August 19, 2005.
We arrive at the ariport in Belize City and order 2 rum drinks to celebrate. They were SO strong! We took a puddle jumper to Ambergris Caye. The hotel was a nice, ocean front suite with a full kitchen. We immediately signed up for diving the next day - 2 local reef dives and 1 night dive. We settle in, take a dip in the ocean and head out for dinner. We ate at a nice restauant on the water. It started to rain so we sat inside but the view was still incredible. Outstanding ceviche and a really tasty blue rum fishbowl drink. We go to bed early in preparation of many dives tomorrow. We wake up in the middle of the night to a tropical storm and have to shut all the windows. This is the 1st of many rain storms.
August 20, 2005
Woke up at 7AM to the sound of birds outside our window. The sun rises around 5AM here so we don´t need any alarm clocks. We walk down the road to a tiny ¨cafe¨and have pretty decent and cheap breakfast burritos. They have diet coke here but they call it Coke
Our Room 2
The second half picture of the room. Light. Grabbed some snacks at a mini-mart and head to the pier where our dive boat picks us up. This is Dan´s first blue water dive. He was very impressed with all we saw and unlike the TX & IL lake dives, we didn´t need a 7mm wetsuit. The visibility is great and there were plenty of nurse sharks to play with. We have lunch at Monkey Bites cafe. The beer of choice here is Belikin. We have a couple to wash down our huevos and chat with some locals who are originally from TX. We rent bikes from the office to check out ¨downtown¨. The front desk lady is no help with directions around town. When we ask her about the layout of the island all she can reply is ¨I no read that map¨. Of course the map in question is in spanish so we can´t read it either. It rained pretty consistently all day so the already bad dirt roads are now mud. We bike to a wine shop and get a red & a white and some really fabulous selection of cheeses. Stop by the grocery store where a couple of dogs follow me around the
Nurse Shark
A nurse shark trying to relax on the bottom until we went down and disrupted it´s rest. ailes (no health codes here, I guess) and I manage to spend $70 on sandwich fixins. We visit the Sausage Factory to get some sandwich meat and also pick up a smoked chicken. Hind site, the chicken was a bad idea. The night dive was cool. We saw a green eel hunt and catch/eat a fish. We are scheduled for a 5:30AM pickup for Turneffe Island mañana so we go to bed early as we are exhausted from 3 dives and the very annoying chatty guy that was on our boat. Over sandwiches for dinner the torrential downpour begins.
August 21, 2005
It´s still raining. We wake up at 4:45AM to thunder and lightening. After many, many phone calls we find out our dives are canceled for the day due to the storms. We go back to bed for a few hours. 😊 We rent a golf cart today instead of the bikes because the roads are wiped out. We stop by Ramons for the famous Purple Parrot. Those of you from the 1999 Belize trip remember these well. Yes, they are still as good. Drove into town and realize 1/2 way thru the day that the reason all
View from the room
A view from our balcony these people are honking at us is because we are going the wrong way on the 1 way streets. I wouldn´t have guessed a town this small would have traffic rules. My bad. The weather clears up and it´s a beautiful afternoon so we go on a 1 tank dive with Ramons. We finish the night off with our white wine and array of cheeses. Bedtime is 8:00 cuz we are doing the infamous Blue Hole tomorrow.
August 22, 2005
Wake up at 4:45 to a gorgeous day. Fruit and muffins are served on the 3 hour boat ride to the Blue Hole. Thank God we had our motion sickness wrist bands on or we wouldn´t have made it. Diving was good. The dive masters chum the waters to get the sharks on the surface after we dive so the snorkelers can see them. Bad idea cuz they know this is the routine and started their feeding a little early. I saw a diver get ¨bumped¨by a reef shark. It scared me to see how fast they swim. I thought for sure the guy had been bit but turns out no one claimed to be hurt. Had lunch on
View from the room 2
The rest of the view from our balcony Gilligan´s island, stewed chicken and rice & beans - a local dish. Did a walking tour of the island to see the Red Footed Boobie Birds, large iguanas and hermit crabs. The boobie birds are called this not because they have boobs, but because they are stupid enough to stand still while their predators walk up to them and catch them. Got home around 6PM. We left our dive gear with Amigos Dive Shop as we are diving with them tomorrow at 4:45 and they offer to clean the gear for us. This stresses me out for the rest of the day as I´m convinced they are going to sell my brand new equipment as soon as we walk away. Had our smoked chicken for dinner tonight. We go to bed early but are both up all night with stomach aches. Guess the chicken wasn´t quite done enough.
August 23, 2005
2 immodiums each for breakfast and we are off to Turneffe Islands. It´s about an hour closer than the Blue Hole but the boat ride is not very enjoyable due to the bad chicken. The crowd on our boat was cool. We met alot of interesting people. An
Coral Castle
You can see how big it really is by the diver behind it. older gentleman was celebrating his 100th dive today so Mike, the dive master, busted out the rum punch. We stop by Calabash Island which is a University for Marine studies. We rinse our gear off at Ramons which is easier than doing it in our shower and relax by the pool with a couple of Belikins. No dinner for us tonight as we still aren´t feeling 100% plus we are too exhausted from diving all day. We call yet another early night & hit the sack.
August 24, 2005
We actually sleep in today until 7AM! Nothing on our agenda so we rent bikes and cross the bridge. The ¨bridge¨is no more than a piece of wood that is pulled across a small river by a rope on each side. Even still, we have to pay to use this sophisticated transportation system. This side of the river is all resorts. We stay on the beach side cuz 6 feet into the grass we are swarmed with mosquitos. We stop at Capricorn Resort for a beer and chat with the owners, Ross & Meg who are from Lubbock, TX. Turns out they came here for their honeymoon years ago, feel
Green Morey Eel
The eel on the hunt before it snags the unfortunate fish. in love with the place and bought it. We continue down the beach to Captain Morgans where 1 of the Temptation Islands was filmed. The pool and the pina coladas are a great escape from the very hot Belizean sun. This is the only day (so far) that we both get sunburned ... even though we reapply sunblock several times. We try to finish all our food in the fridge as it´s our last night on the island.
August 25, 2005
We decide to take the water taxi back to the mainland instead of the puddle jumper to save over $100. It´s not a bad ride but according to the lady at the hotel, for what ever reason, we had to get picked up by a cab at 6:15AM to catch a 7:30AM boat ride at a dock 5 minutes from our hotel. Es O Si que es.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0422s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sanjoy
non-member comment
So jeolous of you bungholes
Looks like so far the adventure has not had any pitfalls. This is awesome. Keep on writing. And more pics please.