Paget's Belize Journal

The Preliminary Trip - It Begins - First days - A tourist trip - Flying, sand crabs - San Pedro 1 - San Pedro 2 - Braids, snakes, dogs - Leaving Dangriga The Actual Stay - Help for library - Books; departure - Arrival; weather - Sensations, housing - Security, more housing - Security, snorkeling - Dock activities - Day-to-day life 1 - Day-to-day life 2 - The Quadrille - The apartment! - Cleaning and culture - Hurricane Irene - Too much reality - Hopkins Village 1 - Hopkins Village 2 - Weather - Minimum wage - Transportation - Food Experiments - The Brits; furniture - Meeting and greeting - Night noise, Settlement Day - Dragonflies! - More noise - A good 19th - Wrapping up the 19th - Traveling to Mexico - Thanksgiving in Mexico - Cockscomb Basin - A Belizean week-end - Tobacco Caye - Is it really Christmas? - This is the life - Christmas wishes - Headwear - Christmas Experiences - Lottery - Caye Caulker haircut - Caye Caulker 2 - Geckos - Red Bank - The last few days		Jun 20, 1999 Some More About San Pedro Well, yesterday I forgot to tell you one of the most important things about San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. It bills itself as a barefoot town and it appears that many people rarely wear shoes. (Here are a few shots http://www.travelbelize.org/guide/di/di06.html). The new convention center where we met (http://www.belizeyachtclub.com/conference.html) has a sand dance floor and a sand meeting room floor. That is, there is tile around the edges and the sand isn't very deep, but it's sand none-the-less. Which makes for some interesting problems when you put your papers under your chair, for example. Or put down your water glass. Actually it's when you *pick up* your water glass because then you get sand all over your skirt (or slacks or whatever). It only seems like this would work if everyone at the meeting were wearing a bathing suit. And even Belizeans don't go to a national tourism conference in their bathing suits. But I went to the dinner-dance barefoot. The meeting was pretty typical -- a small flurry of excitement when someone challenged the chosen nominee for the presidency, a scandal when we were served the banquet leftovers for lunch, a long boring speech by a representative of some pan-American eco-tourism organization, a huge debate (this was not an official part of the program) about whether it was legit to feed the rays and sharks so they would come around to thrill the sea-diving tourists. Interestingly, the issue of how much ignorant abuse a shark would take before it bit someone was glossed over -- perhaps for my benefit. Nurse sharks are said to be non-violent, but I'm not sure I believe it. They get hungry, too, right? Then the trip home in those island-hopping planes. We had to overfly the runway once because the crab-catchers wouldn't be scared off the runway so we could land. The pilot was *not* happy and I'm pretty sure someone's father got called. A laid back day today, I can't believe it's almost time to come home. I'm getting Carribean braids today to try to extend the feeling. Betsy, tell Ozzie so he won't be too shocked if I decide to keep them for your meeting. Bye. Next