Sunday, November 21, 2010 – Our first full day in San Pedro

Sunday, November 21, 2010 – Our first full day in San Pedro:

This morning we try to assess the situation. We can’t bring ourselves to use the coffee maker, so Gerald washed a tea kettle and put coffee in it and we will try to strain the grounds out.  It’s not real successful, so we just pretty much chew our coffee.  We can’t sit out on the deck because someone is cleaning or something upstairs and water is pouring down on our deck.

They change the water filter in the laundry closet (The washer/dryer is outside in the hallway in a closet.)  Anyway, I hope changing the filter helps. This stuff almost looks like river water.

Today we are going shopping for stuff and I start to make a list. We passed a couple pretty good sized stores yesterday on the way here, so I’m hoping I can get a coffee pot, shower curtain and either new pillows or metal pillow covers. We’ll see. It’s Sunday and I don’t know if the stores will be open very long. Plus, I don’t want to spend a million dollars.

So off we went.  Investigating as we go. Like Placencia, it’s poor and simple, just packed in a lot tighter. However, as bad as we thought the roads were in Placencia getting down to Sunset Pointe, they were smooth compared to the ones here. I really feel sorry for large breasted women riding the golf carts here! The only relief is when you finally get to the cobblestone road in the main downtown area – and even that has dips in the streets that intersect.  It’s not all bad really, because if they didn’t have it, idiot foreigners would be going as fast as they could on the carts running people down!

There seems to be a large Lebanese population here. They own several of the grocery and hardware stores. We actually ended up renting a golf cart from one of the companies. The hardware store that looks like a Home Depot (Do It Center) is closed today, so we end up going through several of the other hardware stores. The cheapest coffee pot we see is $25 for a 4 cup pot. I get a white shower curtain (one you can wash and bleach) and a few kitchen items (a cutting board, peeler, scrapers, brushes).

There is a city center and it looks like they have music and the locals and tourists gather for food and entertainment. 

We end up down around the middle of town and my hips and back are killing me.  Gerald is hungry and so we stop to get a bite to eat at The Bakery.  We call Rob to make arrangements to get a golf cart. This town is way bigger than Placencia and we are too old and not in good enough shape to walk this every day. (Plus there is no TuttiFrutti for motivation!) They pick us up at The Bakery and take us to their office, which is way south, to do the paperwork. They give us the cart that the kid came and picked us up with. We take off…sort of, and before we are 10 feet I already have whiplash. It’s either go fast, or stop.  No in between.  And you have to have an in between with these roads. We jerk down the street like a 15 year old trying to learn how to drive a stick. And I can’t take it anymore so I finally tell Gerald to just take it back and get a different one if this one is not right (and before I need medical attention), so we “turn around” and get another one. And it is better!

After we get that straightened out, we go get gas and drive around a little, pick up a hitchhiker and drop him off downtown.  We stop at a local grocery store and buy some food and more water. They are really nice and laugh at all the stuff we buy! (thank goodness we have the cart) But we really get some good tortilla chips and homemade salsa.

We head back and unload. Then try to decide what to do for dinner. We are going to go explore some more tomorrow, so we want to keep it simple.  Unfortunately, there are apparently no restaurants this side of the bridge that are open – except for Reef Village, which we ate there last night.  We have to get a monthly pass from the Town Council tomorrow because it’s cheaper to do that rather than pay $5 each time we cross the bridge.  Plus, we don’t want to cross the bridge tonight again and use up the last of our round trip ticket.  

We end up going across to the other grocery store to get some Cheese Wiz, and decide to have chips, salsa and quesadillas.  As I’m in the store buying the cheese, I look out the window and there is Gerald, taking a toke off a HOOKAH PIPE one of the workers had lit!!!! We were wondering how come they always had a pan of coals burning in the front of the store, and apparently it’s because he takes a piece or two of the red hot coals and lays them on the tobacco to keep it lit! I thought I would die! So I picked up my jaw from the floor, and went outside and asked what in the world he was doing! =)  He said it was apple flavored tobacco…whatever! He said he was driven to smoke cause he misses The Girls! =)  We are lost without our extended family!

Back to the condo to fix dinner.  It was really yummy! The chips and fresh salsa were the best!

I also heard from the lady I rented the condo from.  She is being very accommodating with allowing me to purchase the shower curtain, sheets, pillows, kitchen utensils, etc. and will reimburse me. (not sure about coffee pot yet)  You can’t undo what’s already done, but I’m sure it’s difficult to be a long distance landlord and not know what is going on. At least she is trying … I think the pictures helped! Also, the water looks better, but we just can't bring ourselves to drink it. Showers and laundry will be our limits.

Till tomorrow’s adventure at Captain Morgan’s!

(REMINDER – November 18 – Monkey River and November 20 – Moving Day blogs have been updated so be sure to check them out again!)

Saturday, November 20, 2010 – Moving Day - UPDATED:

Saturday, November 20, 2010 – Moving Day:

An early rise at 6:30am. A final weighing of the suitcases, a little shifting.  Francisco, Rosa, Rosalind and Sharene leave for San Ignacio for the weekend.

It’s cool and rainy. Great.  The plane ride should be fun! At least we don’t have far to go.

The last laundry is done, and we are ready.  It’s 8:30.  Guess we just sit and wait. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get a glimmer of internet.  It’s been out since Thursday night.

10:25 am - YAY INTERNET!  I’ll post the blogs from Wednesday on … and will upload pictures and video after we get to San Pedro.  For now…just the postings! SEE YA WHEN WE LAND!

Moving Day – UPDATED:

Gerald was bored from waiting so he re-tuned his guitar and started to pick some songs. The acoustics on the front porch are great! When the neighbor, Ken, drove by, he stopped and decided to go get his guitar and join Gerald for a few minutes. Of course, Jimmy Buffet songs were played. We had the people across the channel listening and having a good time! One last JB song for the Parrot Heads and we have to leave. Patti, Lucy, Jane, Lynda and Glen come by to say goodbye. I got a little lump in my throat saying goodbye…we’ve had such a good time here and the place was truly growing familiar. The only person we didn’t get to say goodbye to was Sharene…so…BYE SHARENE! It was nice to meet you! And thanks for your hospitality!

We load the truck and off we head to the airport to get our officially laminated boarding pass. We are the last ones to board, and of course, people refuse to occupy the front seats first (what is wrong with people?), so I have to weave through an isle about 12 inches wide and all of the seats to get to the seat directly behind the pilot.  It’s at this point that I wished I had eaten beans the night before and weighed about 300 lbs so I could wave my big derrière in their faces (not that it wasn’t bad enough anyway!) Oh well. 

We end up flying through some heavy rain clouds and make more stops than I anticipated. First, we stopped in Dangriga, then Belize City International, then Belize City Municipal, waited for 45 minutes then finally off to San Pedro. All in all, considering the weather, it was a pretty good ride (only a couple small rollercoaster dips).

We get to San Pedro, unload and get our luggage.  Rob picks us up in a golf cart and even I had reservations about getting all of our luggage on it, but he did. And off we went.

This is a busy little town! (I’ll take and post pictures later). We weave through the streets (which make Placencia look great) and he ended up taking us down the beach because the one main street is pretty rough. Plus, the streets are water covered from all the rain. We cross the bridge and get to the condo in one piece and carry all our bags up the stairs.  Luckily we are only on the 2^nd floor. Rob shows us around, and there is even a cell phone to use. That’s cool.

Everything sounds fine right?  Well, here is where it all goes wrong.  And, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s just me! Am I having a string of bad luck? (Tooey! Tooey! Tooey! Tooey!) =)  Am I expecting too much to want to have a place clean and in decent condition?

The first thing we see is the broken blinds on the door.  Someone probably didn’t have them tied down right and they got mashed in the door during the hurricane. So…there will be no privacy. Now I have to find something to hang over the door…which will so look like a trailer park. It’s a small thing individually. You don’t get stuff like that fixed quickly.  I’m thinking the best thing to do though is to take it down and put a curtain up or something. But I digress. Allow me to continue.

I took my shoes off, and started to walk around the condo.  The floor felt dirty…I took the suitcases outside and swept off the sand and started to sweep up the sand we brought in earlier with the suitcases as we dropped them by the door, and noticed I was sweeping up lots more than just sand.  There was dirt. I was also barefoot, and you could feel the dirty film on the floor.

Oh no! Not again! Now I start looking around.  The appliances are dirty, inside and out. The coffee pot actually has dirt in the water well part.  But it’s gross dirty on the outside too. Along with the blender. Crumbs on the toaster. The fridge is rusted on the front doors (which you can’t help in the Caribbean) but at least the inside is clean. It just looks bad. And someone left us 3 beers…too bad we don’t drink beer. But I might start. The stove looks ok, and the microwave is not disgusting.  The dishes look ok too, but someone has put a couple dirty greasy forks back in the drawer… so you know I have to clean it all now.  Someone left tortilla chips in the freezer so I took them out and threw them away and a big cockroach was in the trash. EW! Ants are running all over the counter tops and in the cabinets and drawers. Most of the kitchen towels and dish cloths are dirty or hard and crispy – like they’ve just been laid out to dry, not washed. The ones lying on and under the sink are sour smelling. Gotta wash em all.

Off to the bathroom. There was no toilet paper left here, thank gawd I brought some from Placencia. (Don’t you think they should warn you about the absence of certain essential items not being in a place before you get there? They did the same thing in Turks & Caicos when we rented a villa there! You think for $2500 for the week they could put 1 stinking role of toilet paper in the villa until we could get to the store? I digress again.) Anyway, the bathroom counter has old crud on it, not too awfully bad, but you know I’m cleaning it before I lay any of my stuff on it. And the shower? Yuck. You can see clean streaks, so you know it’s just built up dirt, mong and mold.  There is a spider making a home in the corner. I’m positive the shower curtain has never been cleaned.  It has rusty orange mold and mildew on it. There’s a cleaning project for sure. The towels are stained, and some look like they were used to clean an engine. But I don’t know if it’s from the water or not (more on that later) and I can’t tell by smelling them because everything in here smells musty, but I’m going to wash them anyway. 

And the best?  Ah, yes, the best is yet to come. Hang on to your hats.  Into the bedroom we go.

The drawers have dirt and hair in them, there is a button on the floor at the edge of the bed, so you know it hasn’t been swept good, there is a spider making a home by the big floor vase beside the dresser. Of course the closet stinks like mildew. The extra sheets and what appear to be blue Delta airline blankets, occupy 4 of the drawers in the dresser, along with one of the big louvers from the bedroom blinds. But the best ladies and gentlemen? The best is when I turned with big wide eyes to look at the bed.  Do I dare?  Of course I dare.  I have to sleep there! I pull back the coverlet and top sheet a little to inspect. And they look wrinkled. Not like a bad fold wrinkled, but wrinkled like someone had slept in them. I look at the pillow cases and they are the same. I smell them, and you can smell body odor.  Then I pull the top sheet down further…and yes, there in all its glory, proudly displaying itself to me, are stains. And not “these are old sheets” stains.  These were “the last couple that stayed here liked each other a lot, and had a REALLY REALLY GOOD TIME” stains.  I’m not lying.  I called Gerald to witness…and I took a picture. No one would believe this. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! OH MY GAWD! That is when I almost cried. And then I took the sheets off and saw the pillows. That is when I wanted to leave.  (I won't gross you out with the pictures...)

But, I realized nothing was going to be done about it, especially tonight.  And the owner already had my money. So we’re just screwed. Make the best of it.  

We start to clean up a little.  I didn’t want to unpack my things and put them on anything without washing it.  And we are getting hungry and so tired. So we decide we will go eat and then go get some cleaning supplies.

We leave to get dinner and then to the store down the street.  We eat at the restaurant here at Reef Village. Once we ran through the pouring rain, we were lucky to find a table that rain was not coming through the loosely woven palapa roof – actually we didn’t, but the rain stopped and we didn’t get any wetter. But, the food was yummy and they were very friendly.

We picked up some cleaning supplies and a big bottle of water at the store down the street. Then we come back and start washing dishes, sheets, blankets, towels etc. Gerald did a great job helping – no nap this time! =)

While we are cleaning we notice that the water is brown. I had asked a local in the restaurant about the water, and she said she drank bottled water.  She was young, and I didn’t know if it was just the generation, but now I understand. So all the laundry and dishes are getting washed with brown water.  This is worse than Mexico!

It’s pretty noisy here.  Our doors, while they face the east, the sunrise and the ocean, also face a main road. The drunks are a plentiful on this Saturday night and we can hear them whooping and hollering at The Cantina down the street. (and this is the quiet end)  But it stops at 9pm – and I’m thankful the restaurant is conscious of the time. Then we hear a big ruckus further down the road. Drunks of course.  Someone is screaming…loud…and the “F” word is prominent.  Great. After about 45 minutes the screaming dies down, and I can’t take any more cleaning. My legs, hips and back are killing me. But at least I have “clean” sheets now and I’ve put two layers of cases on the pillows.  That makes me feel a little better.  I take a quick shower and get ready to try to sleep.

Tomorrow is another day Scarlet.     

BONUS:  I’ve decided to have a contest. It’s the “What did Tina Find” contest.  The winner will receive…well…some wonderful locally handmade (from Taiwan) item with San Pedro, Belize written on it. Who can tell me what this item is that I found in the bedroom while cleaning:

This I did NOT pack! Can’t wait to hear from you on this one!

Some views from the condo:

Friday, November 19, 2010 – Preparing to Leave Placencia.

Friday, November 19, 2010 – Preparing to Leave Placencia.

Today is the day I prepare and repack all our stuff to leave and head to San Pedro tomorrow. =(

I’m doing the laundry and reorganizing all the stuff…ugh!

It’s raining still – off and on heavy.  And no internet since last night! They were working on it today, but still nothing – not even by the pool. (how did we ever survive before the internet?!) Hope this clears before we leave tomorrow!

I hear several of the condo owners are coming in and they are preparing the units. (Wish they would have prepared this one a little better.)

I’m pretty much done shifting and weighing the suitcases. Gerald helped me again. ; ) Instead of sleepwalking, he sleeppacks! He thinks it’s a miracle – he goes to sleep and when he wakes up everything is packed!

I have to get gelato one more time from TuttiFrutti so we get ready and head to town. We stop off at Paradise and return the fishing pole they let us borrow.  Then Shelton comes by and we hitch a ride.  We decide to go to the Pickled Parrot and get a pizza to go, then cruise on by the TuttiFrutti for our last gelato and eat it on the way home.

Most of the food products we are leaving for Francisco.  They’re still good and I hate that they might go to waste, and he says he is happy to take them. We clean out the fridge and cabinets and take the boxes of stuff to Francisco. They are going home to San Ignacio tomorrow morning for the holiday weekend (Garafuna Independence Day) so we need to get it to him tonight.  Kenney comes and helps with the boxes, he’s such a good kid. 

Gerald is washing the dishes that were in the refrigerator and we are eating pizza as we get everything together. The last of the laundry is done. I’ll get the clothes we are wearing now washed up in the morning.  We don’t leave till 11. 

We spend our last evening with Patti, Jane, Linda, Lucy and Glen. We exchange our e-mail address and discuss meeting up sometime at the Lake of the Ozarks, since they go there several times a year. Patti used to work at the Ozark Bar-B-Que when she was a teenager. (small world huh?)

It’s a bummer to leave.  We are just getting used to the place and getting to know everyone.  But on the other hand, there is excitement for the new adventures and friends to make.

Thursday - November 18, 2010

Thursday, November 18, 2010.

Not much happening today.  It’s cloudy and rainy due to that system that has been coming in from over Honduras. Just in time for us to leave.  Mostly worked on the posting. Internet is intermittent (and when I say intermittent, I really mean non-existent) when the weather is bad, so I’m hoping I get to post this before we leave.

Gerald committed to play music tonight at Paradise, so we have to get ready for that.  We spend a little time at Patty’s playing Sousand and staving off the vicious attack dog Lucy. I didn’t realize what she was actually saying when she barked was “Pick me up, I’m a princes and my feet are not supposed to touch the ground!”  So she was perfectly content on my lap, that is until her mommy and daddy got out of her sight, then she had to go look for them.

 (I think she is a true woman...giving me the evil eye for taking her picture!)

It’s drizzling and Francisco has given Gerald a big plastic bag to put his guitar in so it won’t get wet. We head off to Paradise and Patty stops by to give us a ride. 6 adults and a little bitty dog in her vehicle - felt like when 6 of us got in a VW in Acapulco! But we made it, dry, and that’s what counts!

He has a backup singer … she was 5 sheets to the wind already and belting it out! Wish I would have had my video going when she was helping Gerald sing Dang Me! She was making up her own versus. It was funny!

Gerald serenades another couple on vacation!

The evening is over and we go home. I try to upload video, but it’s not happening. I’ll have to try to post it later (so keep watching).  The rain starts and it’s been pouring since about 11:30 and blowing things around outside – sounds worse than what Richard did! I give up on trying to up load the video at 2. The internet is out, and there is no use.