Chad's Birthday

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So it was Chad’s birthday on Saturday, but things didn’t go quite according to plan… We had decided to treat ourselves for the occasion to a snorkel trip at the Hol Chan Marine reserve - known to be the best in the area for turtles, stingray, nurse sharks and lots of coral. We headed down to the office at the nicely respectable time of 10.15am having lathered ourselves in sunscreen, and being grateful it at least seemed it would stay very cloudy day, but better safe than burnt and sorry after 6hrs on a boat in the reef.
So we got to the office and it appears that no one else was happy about this cloudy day to go snorkeling (damn tourists wanting every day on this island to be clear sunny skies - sometimes cloud is a nice relief), and had pulled out of the trip, waiting to see if the next day would be better. Chad took this as a sign that we were not meant to go on the trip and spend money unnecessarily, even though it was his birthday. Maybe after seven and a bit years my tightness with money is beginning to rub off on him… We decided then to head to BC (Belize City) instead for the day. The man by the boats told us the next boat was 11am, so we biked back to the house, changed out of togs, repacked a bag, and road back to the wharf. But would things really be that easy on such an important day??? No, the boat left BC at 11am, not Caye Caulker. We couldn’t leave CC until 12pm, with an hour on the boat to BC, and the last boat leaving BC at 4.30pm, we decided that we’ll head early the next morning so we could actually spend as much time there as we liked (or disliked as the city really does not have a good reputation).
Back on the bikes we got and road to the expensive bakery near the Split - surely a bakery wouldn’t let us down, and finely something went our way. Not the best selection left at 11am, but enough for a chocolate roll and a cinnamon roll. This is how expensive things are in CC for tourists if they don’t venture further afield - the bakery on Front Street, ie tourist alley, is about $BZ 3-4 for each item, has a tiny premises and very little selection. Head to Middle Street where there is more local life going on, and you can get the same (and sometimes so much better) bakery items with far more selection for $BZ 0.75c each. Head to Back Street, a cinnamon roll is only 50c each. It pays to walk a block.
So with birthday breakfast in our stomachs, we road back to the house as Chad wanted to learn some more Spanish. We covered sentence structure, when it changes completely from English, when it stays the same, how to know when to use which one, and the often hard to understand two forms of the verb ‘to be’. Fortunately this stuff is practically identical to Portuguese so I can explain to reasonably well having been through the confusing stages myself already. We spent the afternoon conjugating verbs - very exciting stuff - but Chad made some great progress and we were able to have mini, if not entirely correct, conversations in Spanish. Chad decided he wanted to head to the library to find some children’s books in Spanish as that would help us with our structure and verb tenses. We road around the island a bit convinced that we had seen a library somewhere, but alas, disappointment number three arrived. At least things happen in three, so no more we’re allowed. The library was closed, no books for us, but know we know where it is.
At about 6 we headed out for dinner - and we know you can eat on this island, so this was not going to go wrong. We had decided to head to the Sand Box restaurant. Set back off the beach, but it has clear, uninterrupted views of the water. Plus they have a guy every night out on the street hawking (prob the best way I can describe it) his restaurant, and every time we see him he complains that we still haven’t visited his restaurant that has the ‘best meals at the best prices’. I told him it was Chad’s birthday, so it better be good. Praise rose from this man’s voice - Chad has the same birthday as Bob Marley, now we knew we were going to get a good meal. I have to admit, the guy was right, the food was really good, and our bill quite respectable. Chad had the chill con carne for a entrée and the seafood chowder main - no surprises there. I had spinach and cream cheese stuffed chicken cooked in a mushroom, onion and white wine sauce. Very tasty. We were completely stuffed, barely able to ride our bikes around to feel better. We rode down to the Split just to be able to move, and then back towards the house while looking out for the cake lady. A birthday is not complete without cake. The cake lady is amazing, and damn she knows I have a sweet tooth. Every day she bakes two cakes, and maybe some brownies, key lime pie and something else (I’ve normally stopped listening by then as I’m absorbed by the tasty looking cake I’m getting), and just wanders up and down the street selling cake - I swear she follows me… We got two slices of chocolate caramel cake. Chad carried them back to the house (I wasn’t allowed to carry them) for us to enjoy later when we weren’t so stuffed. Anyway, later on, the cake was delicious and the caramel all gooey from the warmth. We didn’t have a candle, so we lit a match, stuck it in the cake, I badly sang happy birthday, and Chad blew out the match. Definitely a birthday to remember.
We got up the next morning to head on an early boat to BC. We met Blanco down by the boat (he’s the owner of the guest house we stayed in before moving to the house), and besides warning us on to be careful in BC, it’s nothing like CC etc etc, he also reminded us that it was Sunday - nothing would be open. Chad’s birthday trip out attempt #2 destroyed. We love the fact that things do shut down on Sunday’s - everyone is out visiting friends, cooking up big bbq’s, relaxing and enjoying themselves cos that’s all there is to do - but not so helpful when you don’t keep track of what day of the week it is. We’ve decided we’ll go to BC on Tuesday (today, Mon, we have another Spanish class), fingers crossed it’ll work.
We’ve seen some of the bad weather on the news affecting the States. Apparently we’re getting a bit of it - it has been cloudy for three days straight. Really muggy, but no rain, days are a bit cooler, and nights definitely are - I’ve had to pull my hoodie out again, two nights in a row. Today we are calling a backpackers in Baja Mexico to see if they are still for sale. We’ve emailed a couple of times, but guess there’s ‘Mexico time’ too, or maybe our emails went into the spam folders. Not sure, we just want to know if it is still for sale to see if worth pursing further. A backpackers in Belize would be great - but if we can find exactly what we want elsewhere, we would be very foolish to pass it up for not being in this country. So hopefully we will still get visitors if we move to Mexico - or maybe more visitors as it’ll be sooo much easier to get to, but if we go there, I recommended people still try to get to Belize - this place is incredibly beautiful and I could imagine spending a lifetime here, on the island or mainland. But, as we don’t have enough $US to apply for the retirement programme in Belize, guess we have to try and make money somewhere…will keep you informed on the Baja possibility.

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