San Pedro and Caye Caulker

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When we arrive in Belize we went straight out to the islands with Bob and Miriam and spend the first 2 nights in San Pedro. The appearance is of a small European city, but the atmosphere is all Caribbean. Instead of cars everyone drives golf carts, so of course we had to rent one for a night and rip around the island.

Everything here was slow paced, grooving to the reggae music coming from every doorway.

Then there’s the chicken drop… And it really is just how it sounds, they put a chicken in a fenced off square with a numbered grid. Ahead of time people have bought numbers and if the chicken shits on your number you win $100 Belize ($30 Canadian)!!! The catch is that you have to wipe up the poo with a Kleenex and bring it up to the front to claim your prize! Quite hilarious, but also disgusting, and cruel.
Another must see in San Pedro is the nightly crocodile feeding. The kids living here get some frozen chicken and throw it to the crocs at dusk. A good reminder when you see those huge monsters is to only swim on the other side of the thin little island, as the crocs only go over there sometimes….
The best part of this place was the snorkeling. We went on a snorkeling trip that drove us out to an area where the fishermen clean their fish. As soon as the reef sharks hear the motors they all come and circle our boat. We jump in with them (obviously!) and check it out. They were not interested in eating us thankfully, only fish guts, and once they ate would let you hold them if you were calm enough. Dana swam down and grabbed their tails to go for a little ride! I got to hold one and when it got agrivated I just flipped it over and gave it a belly rub and she calmed right down. I also got to hold some sting rays and there were turtles there too eating the fish heads. Very cool experience, a good reminder that we’re not the top of the food chain in the ocean!
After 2 days we took a boat over to Caye Calker, the quieter and smaller island. Dana, Bob and I bought fishing lines and spent 12 hours hand line fishing. I’m a true fisherwomen and caught 5 out of the 8 fish, although they were all small so it took 8 to feed the 4 of us. Delicious!

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