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After sorting all our stuff into the condo we decided to go for a walk and explore our temporary home for the next six days. All the beaches are public on Ambergris, so you can walk through them and whenever you want just plop down and swim or work on your tan. Swimming was good only around certain beaches because the seagrass was thick (those clumps you see washed up on shore). But around some beaches they'd cleared out the grass, allowing you to see the beautiful turquoise blue water you always see in the Caribbean. The walk to San Pedro from our condo was about ten minutes. A nice walk because there was lots to see on either side: either the ocean and the numerous docks, or the hotels and beachfront restaurants. A perpetual wind blows off the ocean, which kept it cooling. Our condos offered free bike rentals which we took advantage of once. It wasn't so easy riding on the sand and we suffered a few crashes, but we eventually got the hang of it.
Because there are palms everywhere, there are also coconuts everywhere. Every morning there would be another handful of nuts that had fallen onto the sand. The coconuts here aren't like the kind you see in supermarkets in the States that are hairy and dark brown. When these fall, they are a medium brown and smooth, yet you can cut them open and they'll contain the same meat as the coconuts we're used to.
I believe this was taken by Heartfelt in Belize, but children in Ambergris wore uniforms, also. The schools we saw were Catholic, which might have something to do with it. There were two soccer fields in Ambergris, one being a wide public area surrounded by a metal fence, and another being a more private field enclosed by stone walls and bordered on either side by bleachers. There were a couple of nighttime games held while we were there. We could hear the announcers speaking excitedly in Spanish and the occasional cheer. I wish we could have sat in on a game, but entrance was guarded by a gate and appeared limited to locals.
Food vendor. There weren't as many as I expected to see. I saw only two vendors selling fruits packaged up in ziplock baggies, and two ladies selling burritos and tortillas. I guess street food isn't a big thing down there.
A library, just steps from the water.
This hotel is called Ramon's Village. It gets mixed reviews. It looks fantastic, like it's an amusement ride at Disneyland, but because everything is thatch and bamboo, I've read that bugs and rats are a frequent problem. The ring of flowers is for a wedding ceremony. We saw the bride and groom posing for pictures along the beach.
Motorized travel on Ambergris is done either by taxi (minivan) or golf carts which every hotel rents out or which you can pick up at a cart rental place. They're everywhere, and yet for some reason they all look the same. The most customization we saw was a cart to which its owner had affixed photos of his/her family. If I lived there and bought one of those things I'd pimp it out and paint it pink with zebra stripes and add some cool neon lighting or something, haha! None of the roads are paved, they're either sand or white dirt, and they have the most ridiculous potholes. You should hear the state of the suspension systems on the taxis there -- groan, crunch, squeek. Yet in a way the roads are good because they control the speed of vehicles. No one can drive faster than a few miles an hour without totalling their vehicle or flying off the road.
Construction on a new condo complex. I found it interesting that they use natural tree limbs for their scaffolding. I saw a ladder for this same project that was also made out of tree limbs rather than aluminum.
Here's a cemetery on the beach, smack dab between two hotels. I guess Belizeans don't worry about the presence of dead bodies putting off tourists.
Our first night we had dinner at Ramon's Village (the tiki hut place). It was very nice to have lobster and fish to ring in our trip. Heartfelt and I became hooked on the Purple Parrot drink, which oddly enough wasn't purple. As you can see, the restaurant was mostly empty. We'd booked our trip for the last week of the high season and the impending low season was evident as restaurants and most beaches were pretty quiet. I think it was the perfect time to go because we didn't have to wait for anything and we enjoyed avoiding crowds of tourists. Also, tour companies were eager for our business and willing to cut us deals.
I slept the first and second nights on an air mattress on the balcony because it was too cool of an experience to resist. It was a bit odd, because the wind never stopped blowing, which gave the effect of having a fan set on low blowing constantly against the side of your face. It wasn't unpleasant, just different. I ended up moving into the condo for the remaining nights only because I was getting eaten by mosquitos. I'd thankfully remembered to bring a strong Deet product, so we didn't get bitten too badly. Some other tourists we saw had polka-dotted skin.
Morning sunset.
Our first full day on Ambergris. Heartfelt and I are waiting for Kenisha to arrive so we could arrange some trips. We sat there for half an hour, cursing Kenisha for operating on Belize-time. Little did we know our clocks were wrong, so we were an hour early.
Breakfast on the beach. I had the Belizean breakfast, which consisted of sausage, eggs, refried beans, and fry bread. Mmm, low-cal and healthy!
We walked around some more and here is Cinders taking a break on the wall that runs along part of the beach.
I was hot and the water was pretty, so I shucked my shorts and took a seat. I hate being cold. My saying is, "I'd rather be dead than be cold", so it was so very nice to sit in water that was around eighty degrees. Ahhhhh. Later in the day, I offered to show Heartfelt and Cinders how to snorkel since neither had done so and weren't sure if they'd like it. So we rented snorkel equipment from Kenisha and walked to our private beach and kicked around in the water there. The seagrass was thick, but there were plenty of small fish around the rocks and under the dock. Both girls did very well and Heartfelt became instantly addicted, I think. She puttered around long after Cinders and I retreated to lay out on the beach.
Here's the view standing at the end of our dock and looking back toward the shore. Our condo is to the right.
There were hammocks on the dock, so I took advantage.
Cinders, ready for a day of fun and sun.
Our first activity was a mantee watch and snorkel trip.
Our guides had to zoom up to this catamaran for supplies.
Bye, catamaran! They were sailing to Caye Caulker, which on that thing must have taken hours. |
