SEPTEMBER CELEBRATIONS

Belize Independence Day is September 21, and the whole month of September is filled with parades and events.  They call it “September Celebrations” for good reason.  Every town and government building, along with lots of businesses and private residences, are decked out with flags and other decorations.  We attended a steel drum concert here in Belmopan that drew a crowd of about 2,500 people.  We also managed to catch a “parade” in San Ignacio (that consisted of about 4 trucks towing floats and a couple groups of school kids marching) and a carnival parade in the coastal town of Placencia.

Happy birthday, Belize!

The government buildings in Belmopan.

Our car even got in on the action with flags and side view mirror covers.  Oh, and new tires.  We made it 7 months before our first flat tire - and realization that we needed a whole new set.

Despacito meets steel drums.

We went to San Ignacio for a long weekend at the beginning of the month.  San Ignacio is about an hour west of Belmopan.  It’s a cute little town with a wonderful Saturday market and several good restaurants.  We’d been there for day trips a couple of times but wanted to have more time to explore, so we booked a couple nights at the San Ignacio Resort Hotel.  The hotel has several trails and offers guided morning bird walks (perfect for me) as well as a green iguana conservation project (perfect for Andrew, clearly, given the photo below).  There’s also a Mayan ruin called Cahal Pech located right in town, so we checked that out too.  Nature, ancient archaeology, and fantastic restaurants all in one town.  It was a super weekend.

Andrew's new friend.

And me trying to make new friends.

Green iguanas...

...and toucans!

Some of the ruins at Cahal Pech in San Ignacio.

A float in the "parade" in San Ignacio.

There are lots of wonderful murals in San Ignacio.  This one depicts the history of Belize. 

Another colorful mural.  And no graffiti!  I very rarely see graffiti in Belize, which is so unlike the rest of the countries I've visited in central America.  Just an interesting observation...

We spent the actual Independence Day holiday last week fishing off the coast of Placencia with a few other folks from the Embassy.  We also went with Andrew’s taxi driver, a local who helped organize the trip for us with his cousin, the boat captain.  The captain had one other crewman aboard, a salty old fisherman who did some fishing himself and easily caught the same amount of fish as the rest of us combined.  But that’s really saying something because we all caught fish.  Lots of them – probably about 60 all total.  We were told they were silk snapper and good eating.  We gave a bunch to the locals but still ended up bringing home a pile of fish.  Andrew took them to the local market early Friday morning and to get them cleaned, and then we cooked them up for a big feast at our place on Friday night.  It was a fitting culmination to our own September celebrations.

A beautiful day for a trip to the cayes for some fishing.  The brown pelicans were busy diving in to do their own fishing.

First we had to catch some bait fish.  Luckily, we had a seasoned veteran fisherman in our boat to do that.

Andrew's taxi driver showing off the first catches of the day - sardines - the bait for the rest of the day.

Andrew's first fish!

The fish hunters.

The fish feast!