you better BELIZE it!!!, part I

ok, so it's the 11-july, and i get a call from a college buddy i keep in touch with, TheJay. he calls to tell me that he and his wife booked a spur-of-the-moment weekend vacation in belize, and due to the late booking, they could only get a 2-room bungalow at the xanadu island resort. knowing i'm one of the few people who can pretty much up and go at an instant (if i'm not working), he called to see if i was interested in going. i wasn't doing anything, the price was cheap enough, so i did. i made it to cleveland thursday to fly out early friday. since i was flying as a "buddy", and TheJaysWife works for an airline (not a flight attendant), we had to dress up. that was the sucky part. i know i get hot on planes so i wear short-sleeved shirts and shorts, but it was a good deal, so i had to cave and wore slacks, nice shoes, a nice shirt with a pre-shirt.

we flew from cleveland through houston on to belize city with TheJay and TheJaysWife lucky enough to get upgraded to 1st class on the houston-belize leg (both ways). ocne we got to belize city, we had to just find a local carrier to hop us out to ambergris caye (pronounced am-BER-gris key) to the town of san pedro where we were staying. they fly pretty regularly, so that was pretty easy, but it was on the smallest plane i've ever been on. i'm not big on prop planes, let alone little 11-seater cessnas, but it really wasn't that bad. on our way to our island, we made a stop at caye caulker to drop off two people at the TINY airstrip and you-can't-even-call-it-an-airport shack. we continued on to our island, got our bags, and got to the hotel around noon, if i do recall correctly.

immediately after getting there, we dropped our bags, found the bathing suits, and went for the pool, as it was crazy hot and humid. we dallied about for a bit there, dried off, and then hit the corner store to get some beer to stock our fridge with. it was only a 2-3 minute walk right around the corner. it looks like they typically sell beer by the bottle, so when we wanted about 12, they lent us a plastic beer crate to carry it back with. we bought the local beer, belikin, which was decent, some guinness, and lighthouse (i think another locally brewed beer). we had a few beers and relaxed while taking in the AWESOME bungalow. later, TheJay and i (and probably TheJaysWife, but i can't recall) strolled out to the end of the dock where they have a shack-like thing, some chaise lounges, and some seats. we were bullshitting, enjoying the tropical breeze, when a boat pulled up to the dock and let off two people. the guy (TheJim) went to the room while the girl (TheRicki) stopped for a cigarette and to chat. it turns out they were from jersey and were there on on their honeymoon. i think they said they'd been there about a week and had just shy of a week left. TheJim came back and we continued talking. apparently, they'd been on an all day boating/fishing/barbecuing/mayan ruins trip. it sounded pretty fun, and we found out that their bungalow was just across from ours. TheRicki told us about this restaurant called "wild mangoes" that served great food that look all "iron chef" style with the fancy presentation. we decided to meet up with them later to go to dinner. we took a walk up the beach a ways and stopped in at BC's beach bar. it's an open air bar with a thatched roof and you are allowed encouraged to write on any piece of the bar, uprights, stools, handrails you'd like. they also collected funny/interesting T-shirts from visitors around the world who'd stopped in. we sat eating nachos and drinking our belikins, and i found out the the man (american) seated to my left had come for vacation 27 years ago and never left. how awesome is that. we finished up and made our way back to the resort. we'd since run out of beer or were very close, i made another run for beer and some munchies. then we kinda lounged around, showered, drank, and waited for dinner time.

we met up with TheJim and TheRicki outside our bungalow and walked up the beach for dinner. the walk was nice with the cool breeze despite me being a 5th wheel and all. i'd been drinking moderately most of the day and was feeling pretty fine when we got to the restaurant. i was put on "prohibition" by TheJay during dinner which was probably a good thing. i had a fancy tuna steak that ended up being really good. the food, the company, the conversation... ah, this is the life. somehow, those little umbrellas you get in fruity drinks were being stuck behind my ear and in the holes in my hat. after dinner, we all stumbled down the beach (probably me more so than the others), stopping occasionally at a bar here and there. at one point, one of my umbrellas was falling out so TheJaysWife was kind enough to try to fix it and proceeded to nearly run it straight through my skull... but i was feeling no pain. there was a casio keyboardist rocking out at one of the bars and TheRicki wanted to dance with TheJim. like i said, my public dancing has increased dramatically, so i danced with TheJaysWife while he stood back. he doesn't dance. i remember those days when i said i didn't dance, so i grabbed him and basically manhandled him onto the dance floor so he could dance with this hot wife (that's OK, he says i'm allowed to say that). he did for a bit, we all danced, it was fun. that was about the end of that night. after the dancing, we continued on our way down the beach to our hotel. TheJim and i met up at the end of the dock for a beer and a smoke and TheRicki came out for a bit, but decided she was too drunk to contribute to the conversation, so TheJim and i cautiously watched her weave her way back down the unlit dock and to their bungalow. TheJim and i talked about his recent wedding, the GREAT breezes they had in belize, and i learned more about the long tour they'd taken the day before. after about an hour, we went our separate ways, and i settled in for a good nights sleep, for tomorrow, we snorkel.

saturday morning, i awoke to a refreshing rainfall outside my window. TheJay and TheJaysWife were dicks (just messing) and went to breakfast without me, so i'll never have the chance to try out monkey bites (restaurant serving breakfast). they'd just gotten back not to long before i decided to rouse myself. there were two snorkeling sessions that day, 8AM and 2PM, i think. i would suppose that the 8AM one was canceled. just after i'd gotten up, the rain let up, and we decided to take bikes into town to look around and find some postcards and souvenirs, since the resort let's you take bikes for free around the island. we biked up the beach through some mushy sea-grass and along narrow concrete pads like some sort of alternative family... TheJay (daddy), TheJaysWife (mommy), and me (the fully-grown "slow" child who's fully content to fling pooh with the monkeys, that's what people probably thought of me). we stopped off at a mexican restaurant that faced that ocean called "caliente". it wasn't. i mean, the food was good, but definitely not as spicy as one might think. the waiter was cool, but he's lucky i'm a jovial fellow. he would make an occasional "fat" comment to me in good humor, i'm sure (TheJay, do you remember what it was?). he said that TheJay looked like steve-o from jackass. i called TheJay a maricón with the waiter in earshot and he got a laugh out of it. (really, it's OK, this is what TheJay and i do, an old college tradition). after the meal, we found postcards, left NT business cards, TheJay found a belikin-style beer glass. when we came back for our bikes that we locked to a tree in front of "caliente", we noticed that some locals had setup a jewelry table right next to them, so we took some time to look at their wares. TheJaysWife bought a nice green jade-ish bracelet (that ended up staining her wrist green), and i bought some small jade turtles, but we couldn't dally long... time was running short, and we had to head back to xanadu to get me some snorkeling gear.

more later, with PIX. this post is getting long and i don't want to bore you. these pix are worth it.