Belize Day 1: Fly'n Like a Mayan

After our pilot turned left then right then left then right, we finally landed at Belize City International. Our American Airlines plane barely fit on runway. We would have more pictures of the airport except that Wyatt got in trouble, taking pictures in customs. He had to show a relatively laid back customs officer a picture of Ann in a snorkel mask to convince him that the offending pictures had been removed.



The airport was small; it had about 5 gates. We had a little less than an hour to make it to our plane bound for San Pedro. We had to wait through a couple customs lines, a bag check line, a fee collection line, and a security line. It's amazing how many lines they fit into this airport. Somehow we made it to our flight despite the fact we were still in the security line less than 5 minutes prior to our departure. Twelve passengers and one pilot. We've never seen a more laid back grounds crew. The crew member guiding us out seemed to nearly forget to do it.


The flight to San Pedro was smooth. We only had to go through a couple of clouds. The San Pedro runway was grass, dirt, and short. The landing could have been worse. The airport consisted of two weather beaten buildings, each housing one of the two competing airlines: Maya Island Air and Tropic Air. We flew Maya Island Air.


We picked up our bags from baggage claim. We've basically been on autopilot since we arrived in Belize City, just following directions. They called a taxi for us even though we thought we could walk to our hotel. (We could have, but it would have been hot and dusty.) Nearly all the cars on the island are small Toyota vans. Personal transport is done via golf cart, bike, and legs.


We were greeted by Frank at our hotel, Corona del Mar. (Later, we discover that Frank's favorite phrase is, "It's all good." You say, "Hi." He says, "It's all good." You smile at him. He says, "It's all good." We're pretty sure you could fart in his general direction, and he would say, "It's all good.")


Our room is exactly what we need, and almost nothing more. It's great! We grabbed some free rum punch and Belikins (the beer of Belize) and sat on our veranda. From there we looked out at the beautiful reef and the gulf beyond. We also watched the hotel crew play horse shoes. Wyatt rooted for the men. Ann rooted for the women. The women won, but that's probably because they cheat.


We checked out the view of the sun set from the our dock. Then we walked to Blue Water Grill for dinner. We tried all 4 kinds of Belikin: Regular, Stout, Lighthouse, and Premium. Regular is Ann's favorite. Stout is Wyatt's favorite, because it takes like regular, costs the same as Regular, and has more alcohol. Lighthouse is skunkier than Rolling Rock. Premium is only slightly different than Regular, so why pay a premium? Our appetizer was coconut shrimp sticks (9/10). Wyatt had snapper in a curry sauce (9.5/10). Ann had seafood angel hair pasta (9/10). The seafood is exceptionally fresh!


We stopped by Crazy Canucks on the way home. There we met Roy. He came to live on the island in February, and still hasn't found a steady job. He had lots of good advice about the island (of course Ann already knew most of it from her research). One other thing we learned is that Roy hates single barrel rum--and he damn well knows the difference. We also watched a decent band play a bunch of different kinds of music. The bass player was 13-year-old native of the island. The lead guitar was a semi-famous island musician. The female mediocre vocalist had a fake rack and a smoking habit that rivaled Juliet Lewis' character in "Old School" (i.e. "I said I was sorry."). But the real star was Drummer Dan who was formerly part of the band Berlin of "Take My Breath Away" & "On the Metro" fame.

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