Belize - Travel Day/Friday

Writing a blog on vacation???? Yes, I am!! 2 reasons prompted me to write: 1) I was journeling by hand and decided that was a waste of time to HAND write it and then type later and 2) I know how incredibly busy I am once I get home and never seem to do my vacation blogs justice!!!

So since I now have Internet and the sun goes down early here, why not spend a little bit of time downloading my pics and writing..................

I'm already 4 days behind and I probably won't get caught up before I come back home but at least it's a good start!!!

Last Friday seems SO LONG AGO already!!! Glenn, Joleen and I headed up to Denver on Thursday night and Brad took us to the airport on Friday morning where we met Martin!! For once, we didn't have a 6:00AM flight so it was nice to sleep in a little bit and just have to be there by 6:30!!

Our journey for the day consisted of 3 flights - Denver to Houston, Houston to Belize City, and Belize City to Dangriga - and a boat ride, Dangriga to Tobacco Caye!! All the flights went great - we had a wonderful lunch in Houston and were all excited to head into Belize City!! I was surprised at how small the airport was and after finally getting through customs (since we were at the back of the plane), we headed to the wing where the "small" airlines were!!

Tropic Air was the name of our next airline but since we had an hour layover, we went to Jet's Bar - a famous bar that is TINY, TINY and run by this little old wizard looking guy named Jet - his voice sounds like a munchkin!!

Of course Joleen and I had to walk around the bar to get our picture taken with him!!

This guy was kind of cute so I thought I better get a picture of him - and also because my sister Patty, told me to take a picture BEFORE I got to Belize since I had this beautiful tan!!

Jet made some pretty darn good rum punches and before long, we were heading out to catch our ride!! The plane was pretty small - probably held about 15 total people and because I was snapping pictures, Glenn and I were the last ones in and had to sit on a bench seat at the back along with another guy!! No seat belt checks here - we were in the air before I even got mine fastened!!

The guy I sat next to was a wealth of information and pointed out all kinds of stuff from the airplane as we flew along!! It was really neat to see the shrimp fields and I think a tour of that would have been fun!!!

After a short 15 minute flight to Dangriga, we unloaded and there was a taxi waiting for us to take us down to the boat dock, another 5 or so minutes away!!!

Captain Fermin was our captain and it was just the 4 of us riding out to Tobacco Caye!! Because it was stormy looking out, the waves were pretty high - and yes, we got wet!!! But not a lot!!

It was a great boat ride which took about 30 minutes - and soon we saw the tiny island ahead, our home for the next 2 nights!! It was almost dark as we pulled up to the dock and a guy came with a wheelbarrow to take our luggage to our places!!

With just a generator for electricity, it was dark - I mean REALLY dark!!! Luckily we had both brought flashlights!! We walked to our cabins and yes, they were quite dark too!! An extremely basic room with a double bed and a set of bunk beds, a night stand, a shelf for some clothes and a small bathroom!! The lights were so dim, we had to dig out the flashlight to find what we needed for the night!!

They told us to come and eat, as soon as we got the bags to our rooms and we headed to the small dining room to eat our dinner - the only other people visiting on the island were 5 Canadians and a guy from Holland!! They were already done as we were served a plate of food ( just a tad different all-inclusive!!) and it was delicious - a huge serving of rice, BBQ meatballs and a soup which we decided was a split pea and potato type - it tasted SO good, probably because we were all starving by this time!!

After dinner, we headed over to the gathering area - a bar on the beach with some music coming out of a boom box and the 10 of us visitors, sitting around the bar having a drink - it was great - probably the most LOW-KEY place we have EVER been to!!

Since it had been an exhausting day traveling, we didn't stay too late and headed back to our cabins, with flashlights in hand!! All the beds had on them were a bottom sheet and a top sheet but I didn't need to worry about getting cold - it was hot and humid and before long the rain started pouring down on the tin roofs!! It was one heck of a storm and all I could think of was that I was glad the cabin was on stilts!! Did I forget to mention that Tobacco Caye is only about 200 feet wide and 400 feet long??? That when you pull into the dock to unload, you can see the water on the other side of the island???? That a grand total of 5 acres is all that makes up this island????

But the storm passed - the humidity stayed - and it wasn't a great nights' sleep for me - I think I had JUST gotten to sleep when the first BANG woke me up!! I knew exactly what it was as Martin and Joleen had prepared me - the biggest threat on the island, coconuts falling from the trees!! And the BANG is when they hit your roof!!! Ah, the memories I'll have from this tiny island................To be cont'd...............