Belize - The North End Tour

See, even Belize has construction going on!! This is ONE of the main roads and they are in the midst of paving it - quite a difference from our "pavement" of course as it's all done in blocks of cement, not poured all at once!! This is the route we took to get to the bakery that morning!

Today was set aside for touring the north end of the island! We packed our bags and were out the door by 9:00am in order to grab some coffee from a bakery downtown - only the coffee wasn't great!!

We headed over their new bridge that separates the southern 1/2 of the island from the northern half of the island - before the bridge they had one of those hand pulled ferries to get you across - the bridge is MUCH nicer!!

The northern 1/2 of the island is really getting developed -that's where the LARGE resorts are, a few private homes and a lot of "new" stuff getting built is all located!! The road is usually horrible, according to Martin, but it was pretty good - lots of bumps and mud holes of course but at least we didn't lose the golf cart in any of them!!

One of the first places we stopped was a granite fabrication shop!!! They were doing granite for the big hotel on the beach side - The Grand Caribe - Glenn talked to one of the workers for awhile and checked out their granite and their work and decided they weren't doing as good of work as he does.......ha ha........

We decided to walk on into the resort and it was beautiful - reminds me of some of the all-inclusives that we have been to EXCEPT for the fact there was hardly any people around!! I love this shot of the 2 trees with the water in the background!!

Along our journey, we finally saw a banana tree and whatever the long stem is with the flower on the end - I didn't read up on banana trees so have no idea what it is!

Not surprising, we were always running into the same people!!! We were at the end of this gorgeous dock, when 2 guys came out to talk to us - the same ones we had met at the fish market who wanted us to snorkel with their company!! Nice kids! Another couple on the dock offered to take a picture of the 4 of us!

While we were standing there at the ocean, this barge went by!! It was moving pretty slow and I was amazed at what was on it!

Here's a picture of this neat dock that goes out quite a ways into the ocean!!

Anyway, the 2 kids talked us into doing a time share presentation up at Captain Morgans - a place we were going to stop anyway for lunch and by listening, we would get enough money for lunch, drinks and whatever else we wanted to buy!! The resort is VERY nice and the time share places we saw were extremely nice!! So nice in fact that we listened to the presentation with interest!! It WAS a good deal but since we never make decisions on a whim, of course we didn't buy one!! We all had drinks afterward and then went to the store to buy t-shirts and the only ones they had were X-LG! So we ended up buying some Belize coffee to bring home along with some jelly, candy for the airplane and some needed things for dinner that night!! Nothing like shopping when you don't have to pay for it!!

I snapped this picture right before lunch - just because I thought it was a great shot!!

Martin and Joleen - FINALLY a picture of Martin smiling!!

After the shopping we headed back south on the golf cart and then stopped at the Palapa Bar - a bar at the END of a pier! AND it's a second story place - so you can sit along this open air bar and look down at the aqua bar - a super cool place!! We ordered rum punches and some appetizers and enjoyed every minute spent there!! Glenn and I were playing hide and seek when Jo took this picture!!

At this point in time, the mosquitoes had arrived and we had to high tail it back to our end of the island!! I made another batch of the potatoes/onion/ carrots wrapped in foil and Martin cooked our lobsters (that Glenn had bought the day before) on the grill - my oh my - those lobsters dipped in garlic butter were the BEST!!

Another fantastic day -and we're down to ONE MORE DAY on the island.......To Be Cont'd.....