I'm back - in the groove...

Haven’t posted here for a week, in large part because I had a stomach bug that knocked me down this past week right after my birthday. Had to stay close to a bathroom, not much fun, but I’m recovered, and will try to make it up to those of you who have been following this, and been disappointed by the lack of posts.

I’ll start with today, and go backwards in time or ..... Got up this morning at 4:40 AM to get ready to join my fellow Rotarians and others at 6 at the airstrip, to walk from there to Placencia point to raise money for Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio from the planet. The decision was to start at 6 to avoid the heat of the day, and because many people are up by then. I’m usually awake by 6, but still in bed. I’m not usually awake, and certainly not out of bed at 4:40.

Speaking of my Rotary club, the fabulous online raffle for the two week, all expense paid trip to Belize is still going on. Originally they/we planned to sell 1000 tickets @ $50 ea. At this point they have sold less than 200, which is the break even point, and I know they won’t try for 1000. That means your chance of winning is greatly enhanced! Check it out at www.rotaryclubofplacencia.org!

But I digress…the goal was to raise $1000, and all the Rotary clubs in our district, which includes Belize, Guatemala and Honduras, were also walking to raise that minimum today as well. Our sponsor, the Turtle Inn, donated $1000, because it’s owner, the director Francis Ford Coppola, is a polio survivor. Here’s a photo of the entrance:



I, and other members, didn’t think the publicity was very good, so weren’t expecting many more than our dozen or so members. We were wrong – there were nearly 70 people, out for a walk at 6 AM! I walked with a fellow Rotarian (Bob) I recently sold a MagicJack to, and since there was a sign at the entrance, I asked him about the village cemetery that Rotary had cleaned up. Here’s a picture:



And another:














It looks much better than it used to, but is no Evergreen Cemetery! Bob told me he had helped bury two people there in the 5 years he has lived here. They were sub-surface burials in wooden coffins, which presented problems. They bury folks 4 feet deep, it really isn’t possible to go deeper because the water table is at two feet, and because the soil is sand, they have to use plywood to keep the sides from caving in. Then the coffins float, so they pile sand on them until they sink and they can fill in the holes. That’s why some folks are in above ground concrete coffins. And as you can see, there’s no problem with mowing!

Yesterday, Carlos, Bradley’s highly skilled foreman, came by the house to do some minor projects, since Placencia Properties is between jobs.

He installed the boards above the windows in my bedroom so I can mount the curtains Patti sent down with me. As much as I want to, I’m going hold off until the road out front is paved. Otherwise they will be embedded with a fine brown dust. The good news is that paving in the road project is getting closer and closer, and we may be paved within the next 10 days. He also drilled holes in the concrete walls so I could hang pictures. At any rate, he said I could scrounge their waste pile of wood (which is primarily mahogany!) for material to support my weather monitoring system. Don’t know if I’ve written about it here before, but here is a photo, with the village of Seine Bight in the background.

This rig measures:
Wind speed – 11.2 knots
Wind direction - ENE
Barometric pressure - 30.10 and falling
Temperature (indoor & outdoor) – 83.1 F & 81.1 F
Relative humidity indoors – 72%
Relative Humidity outdoors– 80%
Dew point – 74.4
Wind chill – 78.1
24 hr rain - .04 in.
1 hr rain – 0.00 in.
total rain – 2.01 in.

It’ll also tell me maximums and minimums, and has an alarm function. I had to reinforce it because the other night the wind was so strong it blew it over. There is a steady wind from the east of 10 to 15 knots most of the time, but one night it got much stronger when a front passed through. Right now it just reports all that stuff on a device here on my desk, but in time I’ll get it hooked up to my old laptop, and the internet, so you can see what the weather is here, and perhaps will be encouraged to enter that Rotary raffle mentioned above!

When I headed up to the roof to work on it, I startled an iguana by my back door, and she startled me as well. She took off into the vine, and after watching for a minute or two, I resumed climbing the stairs, only to be startled by another, larger one at the upper stair level. She leaped into the tree, which caused two others in the tree to scurry down. So now I know there are at least four, and I don’t think I’ll be quite as casual about leaving my back door open as I have been. At least they’re herbivores, but I wish they didn’t prefer the stair landings as their bathrooms!

In addition to selling my first MagicJack, I also sold my first photos last weekend. In this case it was photos of a building that Bradley (actually Carlos) built, and the owner wanted good photos to take to the bank to show what they had done, and to get a line of credit extended. Here’s one of the photos:


See more about this place at www.palmettobayresort.com. If you click this link, then click “palmetto bay”, and then click “resort”, it is the central building (#6), but the view from the road instead of the beach.

The owner, Carlton, who is a former stunt man (his specialty was falling out of buildings), as well as many other things, is from Vancouver, and is in Edmonton, Alberta, where he is sharing a booth with Bradley (Century 21) at a consumer Recreational Facilty Show. There are lots of Canadians here, and lots from Edmonton area. We’re hoping the trip generates good leads.


I was going to include in this post a description of the local cable TV offerings, and my other video entertainment, but I think I’ll save it for another post.

When I'm 64....

It's my birthday, so thought I should post something.........Made myself a cake, which got much more complicated than I had expected. My favorite recipe uses baking soda, and I didn't have any when I had assembled ingredients part way last night, and Rilda didn't have any either, so I put what I had already prepared in the fridge. Figured I would restart today. Turned out that baking soda is so popular that stores were sold out, or is so little used, compared to baking powder, that they don't keep it in stock. I eventually found a small box.
At any rate, I took the stuff out of the fridge to bring it back to room temp (85 +/-degrees) before going to work this morning. Got home for lunch, put it together and bake it - came out a bit flat, and don't know if that was because of the heat, the fact that I had held some overnight, or ? The recipe called sweet butter, which isn't available here. In fact, the only butter you can get comes from New Zealand and is packed in cans, and includes water as an ingedient, which I didn't account for. That may be why the buttercream icing turned out a bit runny as well. Will have to work on the recipe for these conditions and see if I can make it better.....

Road Kill Tire Shop

Last posting was all text, so this one is primarily photos. Yesterday I mentioned my tire problem, perhaps I should have gone to the "Road Kill Tire Shop" shown here. It's a little hard to read the painted signs, but the left post says, "ONE STOP", the right post says "NO CREDIT" and the back left says, "ONE LOVE". Doesn't appear that he has power, so not sure how he inflates tires. Maybe he has a device like mine that you plug into a cigarette lighter.

If I had gone to the "Tree of Wisdom" first perhaps I would have made a better decision re tire care....

I got my haircut today, here's the sign for the Z-Touch shop that does hair, nails, massage, and sells jewelry, ladies swimwear and clothing, etc etc. The shop is just before the Tipsy Tuna bar.

To get there from the main road, you walk down this narrow street, which joins "the narrowest street in the world" according to the Guinness Book of Records, from what I understand.

This street/sidewalk goes for more than a mile up the beach, parallel to the paved road but 100 feet or so east of it. Houses and businesses front on it, so it is like a street.

This is the view from the street looking east...

Got my much needed haircut, and had to encourage her to shorten it. Took about 45 minutes, which is twice as long as my former barber, but after all, she did trim my eyebrows, after asking permission. Here's a photo of me and my new barber, post haircut. It's still wet here, and will look better after a day or two.

Then back to the office, shown here

and a quick stop at the Chinese Everyday Market on the way home.

A final note: When I post these it is 3 hours later than the clock on the post shows. Not sure if I can change that, or if it based on the location of Google's servers.

Comments, anyone?

Another step in the move

Went to the "District Seat" , sort of like a county seat, called Dangriga today and extended my tourist visa for two months at cost of $12.50 USD /month, and went to the Motor Vehicle Office here called the Transport Office, and registered my truck for Belize. So now it's wearing Belize plates, another step in the move. I could have registered it for a month, or 3, or 6, but in a rush of optimism that it would last, I signed up for a year, which cost $117.50 USD. I've been surprised it has held up as well as it has, given the pounding it takes from the boney dirt road.

Have had a slow leak in my front left tire, and had to change the spare tire - replacing the tire on that rim with an extra I had because the former had a big gouge in the sidewall that happened when the wheel fell off coming through Mexico. Bradley introduced me to the local tire man who works on tires in his yard -which is the way much tire work happens in this part of the world, and he took the truck while I was at work and tried to fix the leak, changed over the spare tire, and straightened out the sheet metal and rear bumper that had been bent when the wheel mishap happened. Total charge $15 USD, although he gave me back $5 in exchange for the gouged tire, which he said he could use. Unfortunately, this morning that front left tire had lost 10 lbs again, so I'll take it off this weekend and see if I can find the leak with water.

One observation I made when passing through Mexico, and had forgotten to relate, and didn't photograph, was the generous use of white paint. All bridges are painted white, and as I recall the guardrails on the bridges are painted blue. Not only are bridges painted white, but the entire supporting structure is also white. There are crews of 2 or 3 men that paint them with ladders and long handled rollers. You can tell which have been painted most recently by the white spots on the roadway below the bridge. They also paint the concrete gutters, where present. Trees and posts and poles are painted white up to about 4 feet above the ground.

Mexico continues to get bad press in the US, I think in part because many news media organizations have closed their foreign bureaus, and so just repeat the same stuff, or mis-information from the US state dept. I've started reading a blog called "burro hall", written by an expat in Mexico who used to work for 60 minutes. He is quite irreverent. He wrote a good analysis some time in the last couple of months that pointed out that you're less safe in Houston than in Mexico, unless you decide to join a drug cartel or the Mexican army or police.

I bought a pineapple the other day, and it hit perfection today - meaning it was yellow, indicating that it was ripe and sweet. Pineapples sold in the US are not ripe yet. Opened it tonight - and mmmmmmmmm.

Mattmc13 had made a request several posts ago that I will try to answer. He asked about the closed resort where I had taken the picture of the girl with her dog out at the end of a pier. That resort is closed, but has been sold, and will be replaced with something much bigger and more modern that will extend across the peninsula from the sea to the lagoon, and will border where I am now. The distance from the sea to the lagoon at this point is probably 200 yards. In a few places (elsewhere) it is so narrow there is water on both sides of the road. There were a number of resorts built in the 70s and 80s, if not earlier, and they are worn out. They are being replaced with much more upscale accomodations. That said, there is a wide range of accomodations, from cottages in the village and backpacker lodging, to the high end. A respondent to my last post is a Mainer who has cabanas just north of where I am. His site is www.themainestay.com. Or go to www.placencia.com, and you'll find places that start at under $30 a night. Google "placencia belize" and you'll discover this is a happenin' place!

Tomorrow I get a haircut from a different barber than the one I've used for the past 10 - 20 years. Not only that, but my hairstyle, such as it is (or was), is much too long for this climate. So I''ll probably get it cut somewhat short. Of course, I may not have much control over it. Will try to photo document the hairy adventure!

Time to retire (bed).

Sunday afternoon

At the beginning of last week we had a cold spell - which means the temperatures got down to the low 70s at night and early morning. It was pleasant having moderate temps, and sleeping with a sheet instead of on top of the bed. By the end of the week we were back to normal - with temps in the low 80's at night and rising to the mid to upper 80's during the day. Those temps would be uncomfortable, but the breeze, either natural or fan induced, makes it quite pleasant, and also makes the options of no shoes, no shirt and shorts, my preferred outfit, very reasonable. Spent most of yesterday doing office work at home, and today finished my most recent book, and then cleaned my windows and screens on the side facing the road. Bradley thinks they'll be paving it within 30 days, and I hope so. I thought I would wait until they did before I cleaned the windows, but they were so dirty from the road dust that I had to clean them today. I also setup my Sirius radio so I could attach it to my audio system, allowing me to listen to NPR here at home.

I continue to work on my food options. I understood the beef here wasn't very good, but couldn't resist, and last week bought two T-bone steaks. Keep in mind that all meat here of any type is frozen. The only meat that is fresh, and that's because they are caught locally and sold by the fisherman. Well, last night I thought I would grill a steak and have mashed potatoes with tomato and cucumber. I understood that charcoal was readily available, so when I opened the bag ( a brown plastic bag) I bought last week, I discovered that it is locally made chunks of wood that have been made into charcoal. I've found that type to be hard to light, and it doesn't give off much heat. So after trying to cook my steak on the grill for a while, I transferred it to a stove top grill and cooked it. When I finally sat down to eat it, I found it to be the toughest piece of meat I've ever eaten. Not sure what 'm going to do with the other one. Was very glad I had an abundance of mashed potatoes! I'm going to have to concentrate on beans and rice, and variations of chicken.

Below is a picture of the ship that my two pallets came on. It is kind of amazing to see, because the access to the pier is not very wide or deep, and the ship is so much bigger than anything else man made here. I think the primary cargo coming into the country here at Big Creek is building materials, With bananas being the big export item. I learned that tankers also come here, because the crude oil produced in Spanish Lookout is brought here in trucks for shipment.

On the drive home, I stopped and took a photo of a house in the village of Santa Rosa that had been painted in a colorful way. It is unusual in that respect, the following photo of a house complex with thatched roofs is more typical in Santa Rosa. There are some houses here in Seine Bight and Placencia with thatched roofs, but metal roofs are more common, except on concrete homes. Thatch is a low cost roof, but Francis Ford Coppola's local resort, the Turtle Inn, has thatch.

It's now 6 PM, 87 degrees, and time for me to figure out what to have for dinner. Til next time..

Yaaayyy!

Picked up my two pallets of "stuff" last Monday and brought them back to my two room abode. Since they completely filled the back of my truck, and I had already integrated a truckload into my space, I wondered how it was going to fit. Well, it has taken a few days, and there are a few things that I'll store in the construction container in the yard, but for the most part, I'm in, and almost completely nested. What's best of all at this moment is that among all the stuff I brought with me I included a spare wireless router I had, and a wireless signal booster I had purchased. Bradley's wireless router had been fried by a power surge, so today we setup the replacement, and then the booster, a necessary device in concrete construction. So I am writing this from my space at home - I now have internet at home, so can read the NYTimes, New Yorker, post to this blog, etc etc. After being without a convenient connection for a month, it is very nice to have it.

Zabeth69 noted in her comment to my last post that Easter week in Central America is beach week (if I recall her comment correctly). Here in Placencia, and perhaps Belize as a whole, it is a vacation that started yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, and will extend through Monday. This is not a religious culture as near as I can see, but it certainly is one that wants to party. Grocery stores are closed (except for the Chinese owned stores, like the "Everyday Market"), construction stopped on the road, and everyone is on break, even Bradley and I.

Another benefit of getting my pallets was getting other parts of my audio setup, including the audio cabinet and sub-woofer. So I now have much better sound quality, and my DVD collection so I can watch an occasional favorite movie. I've learned that the heat and humidity here will destroy CDs, and probably DVDs, so I've started listening to all my CDs, flagging the occasional one I don't want to convert to a MP3 format to store electronically. Then I'll start that process. It is interesting, and fun, listening to music I haven't heard in, in some cases, years. At this moment I'm listening to Deep Forest, which will be followed by Diana Krall.

Once I've finished nesting, I take some photos of my living space and post them. Posts will be much more frequent now!

(Written on Sunday, 4/5)

Good day Saturday, although I got a later start than I had intended. It really baffles me, but back in my drinking days I would occasionally have attacks of gout. Technically, it is a buildup of uric acid in the bloodstream that forms crystals, that in turn can’t pass through capillaries far from the heart. Physically, it is concentrated at one's big toe, on either foot, and can be extremely painful if it is not addressed when it starts coming on. On a past trip to Belize I had the start of an attack, and had a couple of meds with me, which I took. Went to the local pharmacy got more.

Woke early Saturday morning with the characteristic pain in my toe, but no meds. (Really don’t know why this happens here, because I’m not eating rich foods, and don’t drink alcohol. I do drink a lot of citrus/seltzer drinks, so they could be the culprit.) Well, got up, checked my Pharmaceuticals Alternatives book, which did not address the issue. So back to the Pharmacy. Got there a few minutes before she opened. Here’s a photo of the sign above the door…..

She wouldn’t give me the real stuff without a prescription, or a prescription container, or even knowledge of what the prescription was, but she did give me an anti-inflammatory drug, that over 24 hours relieved the pain. So I got started to San Ignacio (aka Cayo) at 8:30 instead of 7am.

The road north passes through many citrus groves and banana plantations. The photo below shows the characteristic blue bags they put over the bunches of bananas, I once knew why, and when I do again I’ll let you know!

Continued on, up the Hummingbird Highway, and then a short trip north to an area called Spanish Lookout. It is a large Mennonite settlement area, with a landscape unlike any other I have seen in Belize. Large prosperous farms (which account for the big combines I see on the highways in the area), and businesses that serve them. I think this district is the source of milk, cheese and chicken in the country. Other similar areas provide the beef and pork. To add to that, there were several oil wells, a recent discovery in the area. There was a small plant that processed the oil prior to it being trucked out for parts unknown. My map showed one road to the area – when I got there I found many roads and turns, so not wanting to get lost after making several, I returned the way I came in.

Then onto San Ignacio. This is a town, I would guess with a population of 8 to 10,000. There are two bridges over the river, each one lane wide, so one bridge is for traffic going west, the other for eastbound. What I didn’t know, as I approached, was that Saturday was a big Easter holiday weekend festival and the festival grounds and stadium were at the western end of the westbound bridge. After a long wait, traffic crept forward, and I finally crossed the bridge. I might have stopped, or even taken a photo, but there wasn’t much to see from the truck, and no, nada, place to park. The craft stalls, that I could see, were all clothing, which did not interest me, so I passed through town, continuing west.

The last town before the Guatemala border is Benque Viejo del Carmen. Not much to see there, so turned back, and stopped at the Myan ruin Xunatunich. In truth, I didn’t stop at the ruin, I stopped at the ferry that takes you across the stream so you can drive the mile or so up the hill to the ruin. Interesting ferry – a small barge, with a cable arrangement with a drum on the barge. The operator turns a crank which winds the cable on the drum in the direction you’re going , unwinding toward where you’ve been. Didn’t have time to take a photo on the way, but here’s one while I wait for him to pick me up on the way back.

Xunatunich is not a large site, at least not much has been exposed, compared to other sites in Belize, and there are many. Some day I will learn more about the Myan story, but for now I can only say it was a sophisticated culture that declined prior to exploration of the Americas by Europeans. The sites I’ve seen have all been high points in the landscape, made higher by the structures built by the Myans. The photo below was taken looking toward the Major structure on this site, followed by a photo looking back from point about halfway up. He view from the top, on a clear day, must be incredible. I spent an hour or so sitting there – it is a very quiet place save for the breeze in the trees below, and you can feel the spirituality that emanates from it.
I could have spent the rest of the afternoon absorbing the place, but headed back down the road, the next stop the San Ignacio Hotel – the fanciest place in town – but they also have a “medicinal jungle trail and iguana exhibit.” I was there 45 minutes before the next tour, and they were too far from the center of town for me to get to the festival, so I had lunch there on the veranda overlooking the pool. Here’s a photo:

When it was time they asked me which tour I wanted – so I said iguana, which was fortunate, because the other three also wanted that one, and it had started while I was getting my camera! So I joined them and learned lots about iguanas. (I posted a photo of one here recently.) What I did not know is that they are hunted, both for their meat and the delicacy of their eggs. A female lays 20 to 30 eggs, and without human predation, less than 10% are expected to survive to a year. So they harvest eggs and incubate them in a protected area, and then grow them to a point where they stand a better chance of survival in the wild. Here’s a photo of an eight year old male that they have kept so people can see what males look like when they get bigger - and they get much bigger than this. The guide/keeper kept handing them to us – as you can see from the man’s expression, he wasn’t too happy about being handed this one.

Here's one a month old on the back of my wrist:

Iguanas eat leaves, and prefer to be in trees. I/m not sure why they like to get on the top landing of my steps and shit there, but let’s just say I have to use a flashlight when going to the roof at night. A close look at the tree outside my window revealed two. I think I’ll leave the screen door closed…..

From there I headed home, and when crossing the eastbound bridge saw the following downstream:

Some Mennonites are of a conservative sect, much like the Amish, and in fact, related to them in a religious sense. They have wagons drawn by two horses, but with rubber tires. I saw a cluster of them at one point getting grain, but could not stop.

I continued on, stopping at a craft/art gallery along the way. Purchased a locally carved slate coaster ($11 USD), 5 bars of Rubba Dub soap, a locally handmade soap I like that is worth the $6 USD I had to pay for it (each). And a cook book with Belizian recipes. Continued home, and found myself willing to go faster on the last 23 miles of rough dirt road than I had been on the trip out in the morning. The dirt is what is called "boney", which is to say that rocks are imbedded in it, so it's like driving over a poorly made cobblestone street at 20 or 30 mph.

Got into Placencia Village at about 8 PM, and went to La Dolce Vita, the local Italian restaurant next door to the pharmacy. Slow service, but good dinner, headed home and was so tired I hit the hay early.

Got up Sunday morning, and went to the local AA meeting. First went last week, there were six of us, two of which were visitors. This week there were six again, one new one (to me) had been in Mexico last week, and another one is from an area about 2 hours away. He was extremely grateful to be at a meeting, had recently lived through a bad accident in Mexico where he lost control of his truck/camper and after rolling over several times ended up in a swamp off the edge of the toll way. Made me grateful I had survived my trip intact. It’s a good little group, my only disappointment is that after reading “How It Works”. Everyone shares, or not, the promises are read, and the meeting ends. So today’s meeting was 35 minutes long, which is not enough for me, once a week.

Tomorrow, Monday, I get my pallets, which include all my AA materials, and lots of stuff I really need. Don’t know if I’ll get into the office, which is when I’ll post this. Hopefully next post will include a photo of the port.

Hot!

It's been hot this week, with little breeze, making it a bit harder. I know, I know, you folks in Maine wonder why I'm complaining about 80+ degree weather...The coolest place at home is the central area on the second floor, where the breeze funnels through and because of the shade, it's always the coolest spot. So I try to hang out there, reading my book, sipping a tall glass of "lime squash" and Fanta seltzer water on ice. When I leave work today I'm going to pick up an 18" pedestal fan at the local home goods store. It will help keep me cool at night. The AC remote doesn't work, and besides, electricity is very expensive here. Bradley's last bill, which was for the period before I got here, was over $500 ($250 US) for one month.

The ship with my pallets finally arrives tomorrow, Saturday, but I have to wait until Monday to get them because they have to clear customs. I am sooo anxious, because they include all sorts of items, like most of my cookware, that I need for general living. I've been eating my major meals at noon at the restaurant downstairs here at work, and I want to start doing my own serious cooking in the evening. Also on one of the pallets is a wireless router. I've been responding to some e-mail and posting to this blog at work, but would rather be doing it at home in the evening. The wireless router should make that possible.

Tomorrow I'm going on a "field trip" to the Cayo District up in the mountains. Supposede to be a lovely area, so I look forward to it. Will take photos and post them here next week. Well, back to work!

The watchdog

Took the photo above yesterday in late afternoon when I was taking my step-grandson Peter for a walk on the beach. This girl came onto the beach with her dog and walked out to the end of the dock of a closed (but for sale) resort to get some alone time, I suspect . Thought it was a good photo so I took it. Seems like "the watchdog" is an appropriate title.

Below are photos of Peter, taken at the same time, and of Jamie and Mattie, taken this morning. Peter loves to have his picture taken, and always has. It's hard to get a photo of Jamie without a serious expression on his face, and Mattie is curious about the whole enterprise.

We were without power again this morning - and annoyance, especially when it means no fans. My laptop battery is good for about 2 1/2 hrs of work before I have to quit. Bradley and Rilda had friends over yesterday for a BBQ, one of whom I met at the last BBQ and who is very interested in the Logix ICF system. That may turn into some sweet extra income.

Before coming down here a number of folks asked what the cost of living is. I'm going to start keeping track of what I spend for groceries etc., and will post that information here. There are a couple of dozen people who check this blog from time to time, but only a handful who have left comments. I encourage you to leave comments or ask questions that I will try to answer, if not truthfully, then whimsically!