Belize: Days 4 and 5

More frivolous fun

On Day 4, we boarded a catamaran to sail to Caye Caulker, another island.  San Pedro is the city on Ambergris Caye.  Twenty years ago, San Pedro used to be a quiet little place without paved roads, where the pace was slow.  Today, the big hotels are moving in, and golf carts on the downtown streets often crawl in congested golf cart traffic.  Caye Caulker is what San Pedro was like twenty years ago.  Progress?

Travel on the catamaran was smooth sailing, despite windy conditions. Bean bag chairs lashed to the front deck provided ultimate comfort.  It didn’t hurt that the crew came around with snacks and rum punch.

Caye Caulker is my kind of place.  I don’t need an adventure every day.  I’m pretty sure that I would be content for a long time here before getting bored. While people back in Wisconsin dealt with the polar vortex, Caye Caulker offered summertime, and the living was easy.

As my mother always told me, there’s no rest for the wicked.  On our fifth day  on the island, our hosts booked a full day of snorkeling, fishing and a cookout.

While I was screwing around catching little fish that the locals call “grunts,” our captain snorkeled out to the reef and harvested something more substantial for supper.

As we drank rum punch, the captain prepared and cooked the food over a fire of coconut tree husks.   It was easily better than any restaurant meal that we had on the trip.

We spent one more day on the island before taking a ferry ($15) back to the Belize mainland.  I think you probably can guess that there was beer and island drinks involved, We then parted ways with our friends and headed off on our own adventure to San Ignacio, base camp to visit the Mayan ruins.