Belize 2007 (Fall)

The dust has settled and life is returning to life after our vacation. In my business, one works twice as hard in the week before a vacation and twice as hard in the week after a vacation, so what is the point in going?

This sunrise off our balcony in Belize is the point...........

..........this is the remaining one block of the main street that is yet to be paved in the whole town. It is next to our place. It is also right at the controversial "temporary construction landing" that has been there for years........

.........It is very handy for contractors, being located near town. It is bad for tourism, being noisy and causing traffic congestion. It has been scheduled to be closed for as long as we can remember. Now they say they will close it when the last block of road is done..........

....consequently, these guys are very busy laying one block in the morning and one block each afternoon. There's a lot of local politics involved and money changing hands under the table. It is fun to watch these people run this little town and deal with all the growth and logistical problems with little or no government experience. Sort of like an old video game my kids had years ago called SimCity, where you built and ran a "virtual" city. Still, though they stumble along like this, they do a remarkable job and are very entertaining to watch.........

........The Packer Game proved interesting. It was a Thursday night game, first of the season. It was also only on NFL network, again a first for the Packers and many other teams. Therefore, no one in Belize saw the problem coming. We started asking bars and restaurants if they would have the game on Tuesday when we got off the plane. No one really knew. Our fallback was Captain Morgans, a nice resort owned by Cheeseheads and with a few Packer fans on the staff. We knew they would have it. We got there about 2 PM Thursday, still having not scored a place to watch. We talked to Ernie, the nephew of the owner that manages the place. He told us, to our dismay, that he was flying to the mainland to watch because no one on the island had it.We talked to Jim, manager at Belizean Shores and he went right to work on the cable company. Within two hours, he had it for our restaurant and for every bar on the island. We received several thank-yous from bar managers/owners the rest of the week who had heard that our frequent inquiries had paid off and the bars were all busy on Thursday night for the game. Just like in any small town anywhere, news like this travels fast.

In this shot, we see Wendy watching the kickoff in full Packer regalia including an electric jester's hat with flashing lights on it!!....

...........the closing shot is off the balcony at Belizean Shores, and the little leaning figure at the swim up bar is Wendy. I hope to write a blog entry on our side trip to Caye Caulker as Rex has developed a fixation on that little island.....

.....OK, one more. The entire town faces east and we never get to see a decent sunset. We have to settle for the sunrise instead......

Hans