Trip to US

After leaving our boat and a long bus ride all night across Belize, we made Mexico.

We hit a Burger King there craving American food but remember we were still in Mexico. This is normal for Pam and I if we find a Burger King because Burger King is the only franchise south of the border that is close to if not the same as it is in the USA but not this time. It was what good old boys back home in the Carolina’s would call a little slack.

Burger King in Cancun Mexico

The next day we made the plane.  We were on our way back to the US for Christmas and the comfort of food we all enjoy in the US. Remember all food south of the border is based on tortillas, rice and beans with little pieces of meat most of the time cut very thin and hot peppers to flavor it. They drink more juice south of the border than we do like watermelon or cantaloupe juice and they don’t put toilet paper in there commodes.

The money exchange is always a problem from country too country and you have to think fast. It’s like how much and they may say 180 Pesos, this sounds really high but it is only 10 bucks US. Then there is getting gringo-ed, that is being charged more just because you’re a tourist and being a white tourist it is worse. It first happen to us in Mexico where we bought a ice cream years ago and paid what turned out to be 2 dollars US. We noticed every one else was paying 50 cent after we did the math. We had been gringo-ed our first time. This time in Cancun, Mexico we were scammed by a taxi driver that insisted that we needed to pay for a 30 minute ride and pay up front to our hotel from the airport where we were dropped off just after day light by the all night bus we were riding. Very tired Pam finely gave in and we payed 30 US for a 2 minute ride about a ¼ mile and I’m not kidding the driver ask for a tip. Now back in the US for a few weeks and before we go back to our boat I’m eating good food, wearing blue jeans, not just cut offs, listening to music on the radio where rap is not always there and there is not the sound of flip flops where ever we go. To our friends back in the Caribbean we hope you a very Merry Christmas. We will be back soon. To our friends and family here in the US, Merry Christmas and I may need help getting on that plane going back if I keep eating like I am. Waffle House, “buffet” at Kentucky Fried Chicken. All the stuff here to put on the grill.

I need to stop now, I think I see Pam coming with a box of  “Hot Krispy Kreme Donuts”

Radio Christmas Parade

To all that read our blog,we are in Belize and the internet has been down. We are posting this blog late by a week. Our next blog we should be in the US. Remember this is a week past and it’s 84 degrees here as I write this. Christmas is coming and Pam is excited. We are leaving our boat in Belize and flying to the US to spend Christmas out on the prairie with our son. He lives in the middle of Kansas where the only trees are the ones people have planted in their yards for wind breaks and the only water there will probably be froze. We are writing this listening to the radio here on our boat tonight and they are broadcasting from San Pedro, Belize for the Christmas parade. It’s funny to Pam and I to listening to the people complain about it being so cold here on the radio. At this minute the parade is going on and it’s 72 degree and the people are and I’m not kidding complaining about it being so cold on the radio. The parade was to start at 6 o’clock but as island time is what people go by here It’s 10 after 8 and It’s just starting. The officials language here is English but most speak Creole or Spanish. That English spoken with a slier so the masters of old could not understand them. It works because I can’t understand anything they say. It’s amazing but they can sing in Creole and they love to do rap in Creole. If you love rap it’s wonderful but if you don’t. Need I say no more? On the radio they speak what Pam and I call Caribbean English. Understandable but you have to listen close sometimes. The best I can describe it is they don’t waste any words to say something. In days past when Pam and I would dream of going cruising we could only wonder what this would be like this hot this near Christmas. What people in other places are like at Christmas? They don’t make as much out of Christmas in the Caribbean where we have been as they do in the states. The stores here seem to be stocking up on little expensive smoked hams and one store we went in had a good supply of chicken feet.

Chicken Feet?

Mango Creek , Belize main street The Mennonites are selling their stuff they build on the side off the road and you can some times find a plastic snowman in stores here. Our Christmas adventure will start Monday for us with a bus ride across Belize and then it’s a bus on across Mexico to Cancun to the airport there and then fly on to Kansas. One thing you will find in all the Caribbean is if they see white skin and blue eyes “all people here” think “Money.” The other day we were laughing about it with some locals here that know we don’t have a lot of money when one of them ask me in broken English, just what would you do different if you had more money and I told them the truth. “Work less and travel more.”

Christmas Is Coming

It’s official Christmas is coming, even down here it’s on the radio. Christmas songs and here in Belize they are in English, most of the time. Songs like, “The Sombrero Santa Brought Me For Christmas Is Too Big”. It goes on and on about bumping in to things and falling down a lot. Being out of the states holidays loose a lot of value, 4 of July maybe the most. Thanksgiving a couple of years ago we had a dock party in Guatemala and the water was so high from the rains that never let up for a while there in the river we literally had the party on the dock and our boat with a friend’s boat rafted to us. The water was just about and inch below the dock boards. We had turkey and friends and even with the high water it all went well. This year we were invited to the owner of the marina here apartment and again it was turkey and friends. We have spent Christmas day in boat yards before and I think that is about as lonely a place as you can be. We have been saving and cutting back as much as you can on a fixed income and with the help of our credit card we are on our way back to the prairie again this Christmas. Leaving our boat here and flying back to the center of Kansas where the only trees are the ones people have planted over the years to make a wind brake. Where oil wells pump night and day, where giant wind mills produce power and Jack rabbits will run up the road looking back at you. Our son lives there and it’s a quite farming community where just being out there feels good on Christmas day or maybe being with family makes Christmas day better. Here in the boat yard thing are still happening. The plane that crashed and ended up in the water is still here. The catamaran that hit the reef and caused the Belize government to come down hard on them is still here. They haven’t fixed it and it just sets here.

Someone’s toy

Another toy