PANAMA

We recently returned from a 2-week cruise to celebrate my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary.  There were 11 of us traveling all together, including other family and friends.  We left from San Francisco, transited through the Panama Canal, ended up in Fort Lauderdale, and made a number of ports of call in between.  Fair warning that this post is going to be heavy on vacation photos… because it was a spectacular vacation!  We had amazing weather all along the way, good fun at every port, and a fantastic visit with family, old friends, and new friends met along the way.

First up, San Francisco.  They don’t make days there any nicer than the one we had as we sailed out.  Trust me. 

Ahoy mateys!

I mean, seriously, how many days a year does San Francisco look like this?

Heading out to sea.

First port… Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Andrew and I walked the town a bit, with a stop at Slim’s Tequila Bar, which is the self-proclaimed smallest tequila bar in the world.  And then we hired a water taxi to take us out to Los Arcos at the tip of the Baja Peninsula. 

This was the view from our cabin when we woke up that morning.

Sampling the goods at Slim's.

Water taxi to Los Arcos - and our cruise ship in the background.

Next port… San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.  This small beach town was still recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Katia a couple months prior.  Locals told us all the boats in the harbor had been either sunk or washed ashore, and there were still several sailboats half-buried in the beach.  But my parents and we walked around the town a bit, found a donut shop and a local brewery that a friend had told me about and that satisfied my craving for all manner of carbs, and bought some of the local rum to have on hand as we sailed onward.  An excellent stop.

Welcome to Nicaragua!

Looking over the options at Dia de los Donuts.  You don't know how excited I was to have my first real donut in almost a year.

And some rum for the road...er... sea.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katia was evident on the beach.

Next port… Puntarenas, Costa Rica.  It was HOT and we watched finishers of a running relay race coming into the finish line.  I have no idea how these people can run in this climate.  I’ve tried several times now and have given up. 

A lovely old stone church in Puntarenas.

Central America has AMAZING sunsets!

And the sunsets are even more enjoyable with some local Central American rum. 

And then… the Panama Canal crossing.  We started the passage about 7am and it took the better part of the day to transit through from the Pacific to the Caribbean.  100+ years later, the canal is still a well-oiled machine, and it was completely fascinating to see it in action first-hand.

Moon on the morning of our Panama Canal Transit

Panama City over yonder.

Under the Bridge of the Americas and into the canal we go. 

Some local wildlife along the way.

There is less than a meter on either side of these big ships passing through the locks.

Through the first set of locks and into the Culebra Cut.

The Culebra Cut - basically a 9-mile ditch cut through the mountains to make the whole thing work.

The spectators in action.

Heading through Gatun Lake and it's submerged hilltops-turned-islands.

A ship coming into the Gatun Locks along side our ship.

1913!  They don't make 'em like this anymore!

View of the lock gates from the back of the ship.

We made it!  The last gates before we head into the Caribbean Sea.

Next port… Cartagena, Colombia.  Six of us ended up stumbling into a private tour of the town and in particular the old walled city with its super cute cobblestone streets, colonial churches and buildings, and fortress walls.  My favorite stop of the cruise.

View of Cartagena from a hilltop monastery.

The intrepid explorers - us, my parents, and our family friends

The old city walls are no joke!

Such a lovely old city with its town squares.

Art imitates life, 21st century style.

Adorable!

This church had just gotten a fresh paint job before the Pope's visit in September.  Spiffy.

I loved the old street signs - and since the street names change every BLOCK, there were a lot of them.

And lastly… Aruba.  We’d spent a week here with our friends Meg and Chris several years ago and had fun walking on the beach there again.

Ahhhhh-ruba.

It was a fully relaxing two weeks away, and I came back to work on Monday feeling very rusty.  But by Friday, I felt like I’d already been back for a month.  Oh well.  On to planning the next vacation!  (Which is still TBD.)   At any rate, we had a wonderful time exploring new places and visiting with our family and friends at the same time - a two fer!  So glad we were able to celebrate my parents' 50th with them in such a special and memorable way.  Happy anniversary, you two!

And now, we are also anxiously awaiting news of our next assignment.  We should find out any day now.  I’ve put up a poll on the right-hand side of our main blog.  If you’re on your phone reading this, check out the desktop version to submit your vote for where you think we’ll be headed next… and stay tuned for the announcement very soon!

FALL FUN

*Note: This post was written a few weeks ago, but I’m just getting a chance to post it now because a lot has been going on the past few weeks… which will be featured in another post very soon!

Happy Fall everyone!  I always associate October with autumn, and even though there are no turning leaves or cooling temperatures here in Belize, that has held true here as well. 

First of all, there was my birthday.  This year, I was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” live on-air while promoting some embassy programs on a national TV show.  The show is more “Wayne’s World” than “Today Show” since it’s filmed in a house-turned-studio in a residential neighborhood here in Belmopan.  But it was definitely memorable.  After work, Andrew arranged for a happy hour with several colleagues at a local watering hole following by birthday cake back at our place.  A very happy birthday celebration indeed.

My Belize TV debut.

The weekend after my birthday, several of us went on a tour of the local brewery – Belikin Beer.  The facility was modern and had a very nice bar to sample some of the varieties after the tour.  We learned that they brew and bottle about 3 million bottles a year… and export none of it.  That’s just under 10 bottles/year for every man, woman, and child in this country with a population of about 380,000.  Well done, Belize.  Drink up!

Touring the Belikin Beer factory...

...and tasting some of the final products.

Our tour and tasting companions.

And of course, fall also means Halloween.  Costumes and candy are not a huge tradition here, although there will be a party for embassy families on the housing compound.  However, as seems to also be our tradition, we will be out of town for the Halloween celebrations.  We’ll be on a cruise through the Panama Canal with my parents and several other friends and family members (but are planning to don some costumes while on board). 

A shrub turned Jack-O-Lantern, courtesy of the landscaping crew on the housing compound.

The other big upcoming news is that we will soon find out where we are headed on our next assignment.  Even though we’ll be in Belize through at least February 2019, our next post will be determined in the next several weeks.  Enter your guess as to our next country – or continent – in the comments and stay tuned for the result!

PUNTA GORDA WEEKEND

Last weekend we headed south to Punta Gorda, which is the southernmost “major” town in Belize.  (Quotation marks are necessary because the population of the town is probably around 3,000 max.)  Belize is broken up into six districts, and Punta Gorda is in the southernmost one - the Toledo district.  Toledo is the least developed region in the country and has diverse cultures, including the Q’eqchi and Mopan Maya and the Garifuna.  A local non-profit called TIDE (Toledo Institute for Development and Environment) was having their annual Fish Fest fundraiser last Saturday and Sunday, so we took advantage of the long holiday weekend to head down and check out the area. 

Views on the drive south.

We broke up the 3½ hour drive with a few little stops along the way, including a tour of the Marie Sharp’s hot sauce factory.  Marie Sharp’s is big here in Belize.  They make lots of varieties of hot sauces, jams and jellies, and most assuredly there is a bottle of their signature habanero sauce on every restaurant table in the country.  The factory was actually quite impressive, complete with huge storage vats and assembly lines. 

Photo op with a cut-out of Marie Sharp herself, complete with keepsake hairnets.  But we ended up seeing the REAL Marie Sharp when she walked through the factory later.

Punta Gorda is on the Gulf of Honduras.  The water is pretty much completely flat and there is no actual beach, per se.  It was incredibly hot while we were there (and is probably incredibly hot all the time), so we got in the water briefly to try to cool off.  But the water was like a bathtub… and I was a little creeped out about what may be in the water with us (bays gross me out), so we didn’t stay long.

The Punta Gorda waterfront.

Instead, we got in the air conditioned Pathfinder and headed west toward the Guatemala border to check out the jungle scenery and the Q’eqchi villages with their thatched roof houses along the way.  It is definitely a very remote and untouched part of the country, and the scenery along the drive was a bit like a step back in time. 

A pretty waterfall on the drive through the Toledo district.

We stopped at a little roadside "fast food shop" for some fresh watermelon juice.

The scenery is pretty spectacular.

We passed by several little Q'eqchi settlements on the west of Punta Gorda.

We also stopped at another archeological site, the Lubaantun ruins.  The ruins there have not been as “restored” and recreated as some of the other sites we’ve seen, and so it was interesting to see Mayan ruins in that less manicured state. 

The ruins at Lubaantun.

And the Fish Fest itself is definitely a major event in Punta Gorda.  We went to a well-attended dinner on Saturday night and then went to the festival the next day.  There was also a fishing tournament on Sunday that was part of the festival.  There were easily 1,000 people at the festival, if not more.  A bunch of local restaurants set up stands to sell food, and I had some delicious snapper.  But it was crowded – and did I mention it was HOT??? – so we didn’t stick around too long.  But the festival did serve as an excellent incentive for us to head south and see a less-explored part of this country.

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!