Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:11:31 -0600
Reply-To: Michael Sullivan <sandwichhead@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Michael Sullivan <sandwichhead@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Belize Trip Report
In-Reply-To: <1439083016.1554533.1295365432354.JavaMail.root@sz0073a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net>
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And you can live on pennies per month, is what I here. Nice place to retire
and no federales confiscating your property. Have fun.
Michael in San Antonio---working my tail off so I can take a day and go
fishing, or hit the Great NW on a road trip(yeah right).
91GL Weekender AT 2.1L 'Gringo'
On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@comcast.net> wrote:
> John asked me a few days ago if I was having any fun on this trip or just
> spending my time trying to repair a cranky Vanagon. Well we have been having
> lots of fun too and exploring and seeing many cool things.
>
> We are staying at a place called The Placencia resort and residences. We
> are actually staying in one of the residences which is a large mansion. Here
> is the website for the resort so you can see some pictures. If you click on
> residences we are staying in the large house with the boat parked in front
> of it in the pictures.
> http://www.theplacencia.com/
>
> At the resort we have a private beach and the largest swimming pool in
> Belize (haven't actually taken a swim in it yet though). There is also a
> very nice restaurant in the hotel and another place to eat at the end of a
> dock which is where we have been eating several times in the evening. It is
> buffet style and they have prime rib, shrimp, snapper, chicken, etc. I
> usually wind up taking one of each. It costs $30 a person but the food is
> worth it.
>
> From here it is about a 20 minute ride down to the actual village of
> Placencia. In between there is a small village of Seine Bight which is
> nothing special. There are also beaches, beaches and more beaches. The whole
> coast line is one long beach and even though people build houses up to the
> beach and cordon off a section for themselves technically the beach is all
> public from the shore to about 60 foot in land. So you can just walk for
> several miles along the beach if you wish. We found a nice section that
> hasn't been developed yet and just sat there on the beach for most of a day
> on Sunday. It was awesome to have our own private beach and not have to
> worry about other folks and what they were doing.
>
> In Placencia they have what once was the world's narrowest street (Guiness
> book of world records). Not sure if it still has this record but there is a
> long stretch of what is just a two person wide sidewalk that runs through
> the village for a few miles. Along this you have restaurants, small hotels,
> hostels, bars, tour shops, and souvenir shops. We found this one place at
> the very end of the side walk that is called "The Shak" to be a great place
> to eat, very reasonable, and they have the best fruit smoothies I have ever
> had in my life! They have these boxes of fruit sitting there and when you
> order a smoothy, the guy just walks out, picks up some fruit from a small
> box, and walks in the back to turn it into a smoothie. Awesome!
>
> We rented a Suzuki Jimny which Chris correctly stated is basically a
> Samurai, a little newer than what we have in the states. I have been pretty
> happy with it on the trip. It has 4wd if we needed it, but so far we have
> not. Driving in Belize is not that bad. There are only a few main highways.
> The Nothern Highway, Western Highway, Hummingbird Highway, Manatee Highway,
> and Southern Highway. Each of these highways are more like secondary roads
> here in the states. Two lane, with some minor potholes here and there but
> for the most part in good shape except for the Manatee Highway which is
> reported to be just dirt and very bad shape. It looks like a short cut from
> Belize City to where we are, but because it is in bad shape it is best to
> not use it. We have avoided it. Driving here is like in the states. Speed
> limit is around 55 mph in places and you drive on the right side like in the
> states. Gas is about $4 a gallon and our Jimny gets about 30 mpg so it
> hasn't been too terrible traveling around this way. The only thing that
> takes getting used to are the speed humps or pedestrian walkways that are at
> every little village along the Highways. These things are so big that you
> have to slow down to about 12 mph to creep over them or just will trash your
> suspension and give yourself whiplash. After you deal with them for a few
> days you get used to them. You have to be careful because most of the time
> they are well marked, but occasionally they aren't or they are hard to see
> because of a shadow on the road, etc. We have driven the width of Belize
> three time so far and it takes about 2.5 hours each way from the west most
> point to the eastern shore where we are. Not too bad.
>
> We used our vehicle to check out some of the Mayan ruins here in Belize. We
> went to Nim Li Punit first and it was not very impressive. I was expecting
> large pyramids but here there were only some large steele and a few ball
> courts. Then we went to Lubaantun . That was much more impressive with large
> structures. Any of these ruins has a small visitor center with information
> about the site and also a curator. The cost is only $5 a person to visit and
> they have nice bathrooms so it is worth it just for the bathrooms. The
> curator at Lubaantun was a great guy who spend a bunch of time with us,
> explaining the site and talking about the local plants, etc. He was actually
> a worker on the last scientific study of the site back in the 70s and it was
> awesome to talk to him. This is the place where the supposed "Crystal Skull"
> from the latest Indiana Jones movie was discovered back around the turn of
> the century. We spent some time talking about that as well and of course it
> if very controversial, with most folks today believing the whole thing to be
> a hoax. Even the curator was skeptical, although he wished that they would
> return the skull to the people of Belize.
>
> We took a snorkeling trip yesterday. At the resort they charge $120 a
> person to take you on a day long snorkeling trip. We ran into a place in
> Placencia called the Placencia Dive Shop which would take us on the same
> tour for $63 a person! We took them up on their offer and the tour was
> great. It was just us and one other couple and our guide. We took a boat
> ride out to a place called Laughing Bird Caye (pronounced Key). This is a
> small island made up of coral and shells and a thin layer of sand and some
> palm trees. It did have bathrooms though, which was cool and some picnic
> tables. Our guide took time to stop and talk about each fish that we
> encountered and I got to hold a sea cucumber! It was sweet! The water was
> pretty clear and we got to see lobsters, fish, and lots of coral. You also
> got lunch and entrance fee to the park included with the price. It was a
> great day and on the way back the guide stopped at a small caye so my wife
> could collect sea shells. You can't do it at the Park because they don't let
> you take anything away with you but pictures.
>
> So we have been having a lot of fun and relaxation. I even got to work on a
> Vanagon while I was here but I find relaxing as long as I am not under the
> gun with a customer breathing down my neck. The guy that was working with me
> is named Thorsten Kahl. He is a young German guy that came over here a
> couple of years ago. He seems like a knowledgeable guy and he was nice
> enough to help me work on the van for a whole day without charging me
> anything. I am going to try to get him an AC charging kit sent down to him
> since he doesn't have one as a thank you present.
>
> I guess that is it for the moment. We are taking a rest day today after the
> busy day of snorkeling yesterday. If I can think of anything else cool that
> we have done, I will write it later. Hope you are all having a great day!
>
> From Belize,
> Ken Wilford
> John 3:16
> www.vanagain.com
>
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