New Friends in Cayo: Friday, June 5

We slept well again and awoke to another sunny day. Wasn't this supposed to be the rainy season? I brought up two cups of coffee and set them on the nightstand. By the time Dean got his just a couple minutes later, there were four little bugs in it! Speaking of bugs, thanks to our evening jaunt to Cerros, we were each sporting five bites or so. We had sprayed 100% DEET on, but didn't cover every spot of exposed skin.

Clerks and attendants had a much different work ethic – but there's probably a distinction, albeit small – between family-run businesses and hired help. However, most staff/owners sat around relaxing, watching TV, or surfing the net until something needed to be done. There wasn't the “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean” mentality. We're used to staff tidying or working almost their whole shift. It's a different mindset here, and I'm sure the heat contributes to it.

Driving around, we certainly got more big smiles and waves than in the U.S. Everyone (except some grumpy Asian shop owners) was friendly and polite, although many were very shy around us. They acted as if they didn't speak much English, but then did just fine when they tried. Were we intimidating? I tried to be very friendly and sweet wherever we went, taking the initiative to say “good morning”, etc. Maybe I needed to go further to get a little conversation going?

We wanted to try Café Kela for breakfast, a French restaurant serving crepes and such, but we never found it. We set out on foot at first and even got directions, but no go. Dean was very hot and grumpy at that point and it seemed like a very long walk back to the hotel. We tried to find it in the Trooper, but still couldn't so we stopped at Patty's again. Two plates of rice, beans, chicken, potato salad, and fried plantains plus two bottles of water: about $18 BZ.

We almost forgot to get gas, but I remembered before we really got out of town. Whew!
We headed towards the Belize Zoo, finding our way pretty easily. A few raindrops here and there turned into a downpour. It didn't last long; we drove through it quickly. We passed the prison at Hattieville, it is supposed to be one of the worst prisons in the world (or something like that).

It was very hot at the zoo, partly because there was less breeze than on the coast. $20 BZ each for admission (locals get everything cheaper, by the way) It is a small, but nice zoo – very impressive for a country with the size and resources that Belize has. It's worth reading about how it all began. The peccaries (hogs) really liked us (maybe we smell like pigs?). The wild cats were impressive, and you can get fairly close. All the monkeys were sleeping (we arrived at midday). We saw our first and only croc in Belize...behind bars. There were several huge birds – a toucan, harpy eagle, jabiru stork, and macaw parrots. The signs all throughout the zoo were handpainted and very creative! Our daughter had asked for a shirt that said Belize and had a monkey on it, but the gift shop was all out of children's shirts, so Dean picked out a cute magnet - $5 US!


We headed on to Belmopan and found the Caladium Restaurant for lunch. It had good food at decent prices. Water, Coke, fish'n'chips with salad, chicken fingers and fries: $38 BZ. Belmopan has a large market that we briefly looked through.

We had learned about a family from Indiana who were to be in Belize at the same time as us, and made plans to meet up. They were preparing to lead a mission team to work on a local church. We tried to call them, but didn't get though. When we asked for directions to their hotel, we didn't understand, so we drove around a bit. Belmopan feels cleaner and more modern than other places we've visited so far. There are some amazing, huge, fancy homes. The American embassy is ridiculously huge. We found the hotel we were looking for “on accident” (thank You, God!) The clerk rang the room and soon we were chatting with Nathan, Ginger and their two youngest children. They had a realistic view of life in Belize, having spent a couple months down there last year. Nathan does contract work at U.S. Embassies for computer systems. One of them would not want to move to Belize permanently, but the other would be up for it. :) There can be days without water. They had a bad experience at the Belmopan hospital. There can be times where imports of bread flour or rice are cut off temporarily while taxes are hashed out. Nathan said that few people in Belize grow wheat or corn. There are high taxes on businesses, making it hard to thrive.

After lots of good discussion, we tagged along when they went to give some $ to Emily, who will be the cook at the mission camp next week. She and her husband came to Belize from El Salvador during a civil war 20+ years ago. They have a nice house outside San Ignacio, up on a hill in the jungle. Her daughter interpreted for us. They are a very nice, hard working, Christian family. They had a beautiful yard, even though we only got to see it in the dark.

We found the Aguada Hotel and after moving our bags in and kicking the cockroach out, we hopped in the pool! We've seen more “wildlife” here in Cayo: frogs, geckos, and iguanas. I wondered if the iguanas were kept as pets at the hotel. Emily said she was given and iguana for food once, but she didn't know what to do with it! That was encouraging – she grows a lot of their own food and can cook from scratch, but didn't know everything!