Caribbean Travels

We are in Guatemala now and got caught up in traveling so we missed posting our blog on time. No internet out to sea. We were in Belize when I wrote this but heading to Guatemala. This is old news now because we are not there now but this was what was happening then.Every one there was working in the direction of Lobster Fest. They sell boats they build there at this boat yard and they want to have them on display for the people coming in.

Boat Built here

In all the Caribbean, celebrations are different than you might think they will be. First they are never on time or what you hear is the time for some part of an event. With any celebration down here there is food for sell.

Belize Boat

This usually makes people that dream of coming down here say something mean about me but I don’t like the food in the Caribbean. I would never ask for the recipe of street food. I still do like trying different foods as we travel, still looking for something we would cook on the boat after we move on. There is some fun in that and that adds to the adventure of being here. In Mexico one year we were there for there version of Carnival on the island of Isla Mujeres. It was better than I ever expected. Costumes were all hand made and wonderful. Other celebrations as we travel around the Western Caribbean have been from just okay too, you can’t help but think someone here needs to help organizing at least something. In the Bay Islands they were celebrating their Independence and a parade was to be in the afternoon. We stayed all afternoon and ask several times when it would start. Always the same, “This afternoon.” We finely left late and went on back to our boat. Just before dark from where we could see there were lots of people and a very old fire truck with ambulances going up the street so we thought it was the parade but no. A plane had crashed at the airport, came in with the gear up. No one hurt we think. That’s another thing, getting the truth of what is going on can be very difficult down here. If you can speak the language here you may can ask a local but asking another gringo you will just get what they thing has happen or maybe what they want you to think happen. It’s like we were walking by some people from the fire department helping a drunk get up laying in the street when I heard a women from the US “I think” say she thought the man had passed out from being undernourished because people were so poor and hungry in the Caribbean. This was in town and there was food every where. Lot of fat older women. Fat dogs running around in the streets. Hungry people don’t have fat dogs running around and if you are wondering about drunks in the street in the Caribbean, you don’t see that much but I like the way they handle them. Just get them some where safe to sober up even if it’s just under a shade tree. No mad police rough handling them. This is some of the boats they build here. This is still and adventure and if it was the same as traveling in the US. We would just go back to the US. It’s cheaper living in the US if you like living like we do in the US and maybe we are just still looking for greener pastures. For sure we are lured along looking at how other people live. What ever it is that drives us we are not through looking. We will tell you how the Lobster Fest goes latter. That was last week and now we are in the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. We needed to come here to do some things and I will try to post, what, why and how we did it latter this week.

One thing for sure, “There is never a rerun day. Sailing and old home built schooner around the Caribbean.”

More Belize

Sorry we got behind doing a weekly blog but we have been busy working on our boat and that’s not that interesting. We have taking some time to work more on our rickshaw and Pam has taking to it more moving things around the marina here. It’s like a little work truck if we need to go get something or if I’m going some where. She will be saying, “Wait for me, I’m going too. We haven’t road it to town yet but it’s stopping traffic here in the marina. They sell gas here at the marina and there’s only one other place around here you can buy gas for your car so there’s a lot of cars and trucks come in here. We are having trouble keeping the workers here off it when we stop somewhere here to do something. This is a big marina with boat storage, a shop and they build boats here. The reason we have not road it to town and town here is really just a village is, I need parts to make it where we can change gears and I only have a brake on the front wheel, that may be important. I guess for some people who need brakes on what they ride. Remember we are still in Belize where shopping is an adventure. You can’t just run up town and buy parts to change gears on your bike. First there no towns near here, there is just little villages. No where near here can you buy fresh meat. What you can find is frozen and is limited to what you can buy. Every thing is like that. Buying tools here is hard. Need a tap to re-tap a hole to replace a bad bolt. Not happening. I went to what they call a hardware store here and ask for a number 2 Philips screw driver bit for a drill and the women came back with a number 2 Philips bit maybe ¾ of and inch long. I said this needs a carrier, I need one long enough to use in a drill. She said this will work in a drill, you don’t know your tools. I said, but if you but pressure on this it will slide up in the drill. She said, “Like I said you don’t know how to use your tools.” Shopping in places like that, how do you buy parts to make your home built Rickshaw change gears. It’s an adventure shopping here. Maybe we need to go to Belize city and that may be a city to people here but its really just a town with limited shopping even there. We have no car and gas here is $5us a gallon. Ride the bus to the city to go shopping is a two day trip. It’s about a 4 hour bus trip up and ride back the next day. If you need to buy something it will cost you double what it cost in the states when you find it or more and you can add the coast of the trip to that. Ever hear some one say you can live cheaper in the Caribbean than the states. Only if you never buy anything more that warm beer. Some time back I was talking to some people that had just got here and I said the food is bad, the music is worse and it’s hot here. This seemed to make them mad, one of them said “What are you doing here if that’s so?” I said its the adventure of seeing all this and how other people live. We didn’t leave New Orleans to to come down here for the food or the music. That’s for sure. Pam was giving me the signal to shut up and let them alone because they were not there to see Belize. They had maybe a week here and they were going to be entertained at a great expense by the people here set up to do that, they will go diving snorkeling hit the bars, tourist stuff and go home never knowing how diversified this place really is. Never listening to the radio, never eating what the locals eat, never seeing the people that live here with no power, the Mennonites and there way of life. The real way life is here. We have seen a lot of it and I want to see more before we leave for good. We are not with the so called slow down and smell the roses crowd either, we are the go slow enough to see a few weeds that might be slipping into the rose garden along with a few bugs making the garden more interesting for the few of us that don’t mind the weeds and a few bugs along the way in life.

A get it to go restaurant on the street

Palm trees with real coconuts

Going shopping on a quite street in the village

Beach front in Placencia Village