Convenience Store Hopping in Caye Caulker

The next day in Caye Caulker was destined to be a Sheldon Day. Most of the other folks on the tour were going snorkeling and I was going to stay around town.

There’s really nothing much to Caye Caulker. Like I said in my earlier post, none of the streets are paved and there are virtually no vehicles on the island except for golf carts and bicycles. I went out to breakfast with some friends and then decided to explore as much as exploration was possible in Caye Caulker. I walked the streets for a couple of hours, stopping in to several shops to see if anything was worth buying (it wasn’t) and stopping off here and there for a drink. Close to our hotel, next to the graveyard that we had to walk through to get to our hotel, was a restaurant at which I stopped for some lunch. It had internet access, so I played on the internet, had some fish and chips and some beer. That was the highlight of the day. I went back to the hotel and wrote a little bit before the others returned from snorkeling.

In the group, somehow I’ve been linked in with the “bad kid” group. (Okay, it’s not “somehow.” I know how.) The rest of the people just sort of look at us with disapproving glances and then we respond by doing pretty much whatever we want. When the group returned, we went out to dinner. Sadly, two of the “bad kid” group were diving the Blue Hole at 5:00 in the morning, so they went straight to bed after dinner. That left two of us to do something I’ve never done before – convenience store hop. There’s really not enough bars to go bar hopping in Caye Caulker, and walking with open containers is not a problem there, so a friend and I went from convenience store to convenience store, buying beer whenever we ran out, and walking the streets of Caye Caulker at night. That lasted until about midnight when the last of the convenience stores closed. The highlight of the walk was watching a crab try to cross the street while, at first, we started gawking at the crab and then a group of tourists joined us. We got back to the hotel about 12:30 when we got shushed by another hotel guest. We ended up going out to the pier and hanging out for an hour or so before going to bed.

The next day, the group was stuck in Caye Caulker until around 4:00 pm and few people really wanted to do any of the water activities so the day was pretty much like the day before except I had people to hang out with. It was hot and we were bored so we just went from restaurant to restaurant and sitting in each one for an hour and a half. The highlight of this day was going back to the restaurant in which I had eaten lunch the day before and ordering a mango colada while we played on the internet. The mango colada was one of the best drinks that I’ve had on the entire trip.

We took a boat ride off of the island and then hopped on a local bus to San Ignacio, going through Belize’s new capital, Belmopan, on the way. By the time we arrived, there was time for little more than dinner as there were plenty of activities planned for the next day – our only full day in San Ignacio – so that was pretty much it.

Sorry there wasn’t any more excitement than that on which to report with respect to Caye Caulker, but excitement didn’t really seem to be on call there. I’ll get into my day – and night – in San Ignacio in the next entry.

Belize is Alright With Me

Tulum was the end of the Mexican leg of this trip. From Tulum, we took buses and boats across the border into Belize and Caye Caulker. Belize was to provide me a few days of being able to be by myself.

The trip into Belize started at mid-morning. After breakfast, we headed into our final comfortable Mexican bus to head to the border. The bus took us to a port where we were stamped out of Mexico. Then, for the next hour or so, I suppose I was a man without a country. When we stopped, we went through immigration and customs in Belize, where I got to declare my water bottle filled with vodka. It’s a long story. From there, we hopped on another boat to Caye Caulker.

There’s really not a lot to Caye Caulker. It’s about eight kilometers long and even at its widest parts is less than two kilometers wide. It’s strictly a tourist trap, but does have its charm. There are no paved roads on Caye Caulker and the only motor vehicles that you see are related to construction on the island. People get around by golf cart and bicycle to some extent, but walking will get you pretty much everywhere.

On the first night, we went out to dinner and then a few of us went out to get some drinks. It was just a few of us going out since the group with which I’m currently traveling isn’t exactly the party crowd. Anyway, we went to a reggae bar and had some Belizean beer. I like the taste of the Belizean beer (Belikin), but it makes me feel a little cheated because it comes in heavy bottles that only hold 284 milliliters, so you never get as much as you think you’re getting. People usually hold up the empty bottles to their mouths thinking there will be more because of the weight of the bottle only to have their little beer-guzzling hearts broken.

Back to the reggae bar . . . downstairs, there were swing set seats at the bar. After a few beers, we headed upstairs to see what that was like. It was a pretty cool area, with tables and hammocks and a loungy-type area, lots of rasta folks and tourists and a distinct tinge of marijuana in the air. The upstairs closed around eleven and we moved back downstairs for a little more beer, some dancing and then we wound up closing the bar at midnight.

After the reggae bar closed, three women and I headed to a night club that was open until 2 am or so and the night’s goal had changed as everybody started looking to score some jerk chicken. (Okay, we weren’t looking for jerk chicken, but this is a family blog, so let’s just call it jerk chicken.) Assuming that the rasta guys were the best sources, the women went into search mode and I drank some more. The entire ordeal turned out to be a lot more trouble than it should have been since there were people all over Caye Caulker willing to sell jerk chicken to anybody that was interested. It took so long to score in the club that I finally decided it wasn’t worth it and at 1:30, I just headed home. (Oddly enough, somebody tried to sell me some jerk chicken on my walk home. By this point, though, I was no longer interested.) The ladies did eventually find what they were looking for and ended up getting back to the hotel around 3:00 am. There were some ordeals involved in that adventure, but that’s another story for another person’s blog. As for me, the night was over and a new day beckoned.