First Weekend in San Pedro

We awoke early Saturday morning to strong winds, driving rain, and intense thunder and lightning. It poured rain for several hours, leaving our street flooded, and the lake rose significantly. We spent the time unpacking and organizing inside. When it finally began to clear up, we headed into town to begin our quest for key items:

• food
• bicycles for everyone in the family
• school uniforms for the boys
• internet access (modem, etc)
• cell phones
• bunk beds

Heavy rain on the lake

Flooded street!

Ramon's Village, a very cool resort that shockingly burned to the ground 4 days after I took this picture

One of the cobblestone streets in San Pedro

The Central Park

Mango smoothies! At Elvi's Kitchen.

Coconut tree in our backyard

One of several very large green iguanas that live in the backyard

On the pier at Banyan Bay, just down the street from our house

The mysterious sea creature Liam found that turned out to be an immature Portugese Man of War

Loki in the Caribbean

 There are bicycles everywhere in San Pedro, and just about everyone rides them--little kids, young adults, old folks, entire families, you name it, they're on bikes. Which is why it was very surprising to us that it was so difficult to find 20" kid bikes for the boys. On San Pedro, most of the 'hardware stores' are actually 'everything stores' and they sell everything from hardware (as you would expect) to major appliances, and of course, they sell bicycles. we started with S.P. Hardware, the one closest to our house. They had some nice beach cruisers, but none that fit our boys. We walked on into town. We stopped at another hardware store, they did not have any in stock but were expecting a shipment that afternoon. We asked at two different bicycle rental places if they had any old kid rentals they were selling, but no dice. Each one recommended different stores, and we stopped at all of them--A & R, Loudes Hardware, Wings, but again, no dice.

Our family transportation

Concoction time!

We had ordered all of the boys uniform shirts via email from the States but were not able to close the loop about how to pick them up before the first day of school. As we headed north, we walked past the boys school, and one of the teachers was sitting on the porch of a house across the street from the school (teacher housing maybe?). We talked with her for awhile, and Amy asked about the uniforms. She said we needed to find Elsa Paz, and she might be found in a yellow building in the center of town (sidenote:  there are no street addresses in San Pedro--or Belize in general--and very few street names. Streets are called 'Front' 'Middle' 'Back' etc, and you find places mostly by description and landmarks. For example, someome might say, "it's the purple building just down from the Dolphin Supermarket"). We picked up a Belize-compatible cell phone for Amy at Cellular World, then nearing the center of town we we came across a new yellow four story building, which is also the new home for the San  pedro post office. There was a friendly looking lady walking a small dog in the courtyard of the building, so I hazarded to ask her "Do you know Elsa Paz?" She smiled and raised her hand. We found her!

In addtion to her embroidery business, Elsa also runs the only pet shop in Belize--from the same storefront! This happens a lot in Belize, we frequently encounter the most bizarre combinations of commercial activity. the boys enjoyed looking at all of the fish, turtles, and birds on display while we settled the bill. Elsa also explained that she and her three sisters were raised on the property, and they had the new building designed and constrcuted and are looking for tenants. She said we'd get a 10% commission if we brought her a buyer. :) Before leaving we asked her for a recommendation for lunch. Her sister Elvi has a restaurant right down the street, so of course we went there. It was amazing! Very nice Caribbean style food served in a sand-floor dining room decorated with local artwork and a Soca soundtrack. We also met a local reggae musician named Tyrell who performs under the name 'Man at Work'. He showed us a video on his phone, and it sounded pretty good. We might try to catch a live performance sometime soon.

Back to the hunt for bikes. Amy started searching for bunk beds, and the boys and I continued looking for bikes. Just a few blocks down Middle Street is Joe's Bike Rentals, where we rented bikes when we visited back in April. He too did not have any kid bikes for sale, but recommended Hamanouch's Hardware, and failing that, Castillo, just a block farther north. The folks at Hamanouch were very friendly but did not have any 20" bikes. They had a 24" that just might have worked for Liam, but it was too heavy and the geometry of the frame was just too big. So, on to Castillo's. We were getting very near to the river (the channel that separates the south and north ends of Ambergris Caye). This hardware store is by far the most modern and well stocked of all the hardware stores we visited, and to my enormous joy and relief, standing in the middle of the store was their bicycle display which included a 20" beach cruiser. Success! We bought that one for Lochlan and a blue one for Liam, which the extremely friendly and helpful staff assembled on the spot for us. The folks at Harmouch's were so friendly that I decided to buy my bike from them. Unfortunately, my credit card was declined, so I used the rest of the cash I had in hand to pay for it. Bikes in hand, we headed back towards the furniture shops, but could not find Amy.

We finally all met up near the detour, and headed back home. We still needed a bike for Amy, but since my credit card was not going to work and we had already maxed out our cash withdrawal, we decided to wait until Sunday. I headed out solo to buy groceries, and quickly ascertained that we are gonig to have to adjust our cooking and eating habits. Fruit is abundant and cheap; dairy products, cereal, and any other processed food, are insanely expensive. So, I stopped at one of the local fruit stands for mangoes, bananas, pineapple, and assorted vegetables, including a cho cho, which is new to me, and made a vegetable soup. It turned out pretty well, but I'm going to have to learn fast.

We met our neighbors in the Green and Purple houses, they are both super nice and welcoming, and offered a lot of information about the town and the island.

On Sunday, we headed to the beach at Banyan Bay to swim and play in the sand. It was still extremely windy from the tropical wave that had passed on Saturday, and the water was choppy and very cloudy with sand. The beach was nice, and the boys played in the sand while Amy and I talked with Tarik, a Pakistani/Canadian ER doc formerly with Doctors without borders who lived in San Pedro for 2 years. He and his family are extremely friendly, and he talked with Amy about the local health care scene and offered to introduce her to the doctor he worked with most closely.

Liam found a most unusual sea creature, which he brought over to show me. I touched the balloon-like structure, and thought to myself "that feels like a jellyfish, and it sure looks like a portugese man-of-war." A couple minutes later, he said his finger was burning in pain. We rode back home and I poured vinegar on his finger, which really helped.

While we were at the beach, I saw a fleet of Optimists sailing in the honking breeze and they were extremely well handled. I assumed this must be the San Pedro Sailing Club, so after treating his finger, Liam and I rode our bikes down to the resort where they were sailing. We met some girls on the beach with sailing club shirts, and they directed us to Miss Tammy at the end of the pier. She too was very friendly (notice a pattern yet?) and gave us the run down on how the club works. She also invited us to the regatta at St George's Caye this Sunday, then introduced us to Randy, the beginners' instructor, who was (guess what!) very friendly. We initially set up a sailing lesson for Liam on Friday after school, but Randy called later in the week to cancel because the club will be packing up the boats on Friday to take to the Regatta.