Coco Beach Resort San Pedro

... there was a dog barking incessently outside, and a bird.... There was a bird talking. At first I thought it was like a myna bird or something, but after I went out on the balcany off the hallway (my room has none) I saw that it was in fact a caged parrot just outside my room, one floor down. That made more sense. I had to wonder who'd been teaching it to speak, though... his vocabulary runs from meowing (quite convincingly) like a cat, yelling obsenities like ...

... marche pas! trop de vent pour notre spot de plongee donc on peut pas! GRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr. on a passe la journee a relaxer sur la beach (qui nest pas vraiment une beach mais bon). on a jouer aux cartes avec un autre ami francais/anglais quon sest fait. bref ca ete une mini journee assez vedge! mardi: on est vraiment sense alle faire notre plongee. on est tout enerve. on arrive la: plonge pas!!! trop de courant!!! ah bin la maudit!! en plus y faisait beau soleil!! fack on ...

... chill! After eating and checking on the internet to see if Sasha was in labour yet / exchange emergency numbers we explored the island which took about an hour, such is the size of the place. A few sandy lanes grid themselves throughout, with bright coloured shacks amongst a limited white beach and many jetty's plus a few hundred stray dogs and locals whizzing round on golf carts for transport! That afternoon was spent lying on an old ...

... for her again. I finally looked all the way up to the surface and saw her floating up there. Erinn had learned a scary lesson when she lost track of her depth, got too high in the water, and ended up going through an out-of-control ascent to the surface as the air in her BC began expanding without being vented quickly enough. Luckily, it was a very short out-of-control ascent and she was alright. She was much better with her buoyancy control for the ...

¡Buenas! Charlotte here: Although Caye Caulker was a bit of a tropical heaven the travels had to go on...and what better way to do it than spending three days on a sailboat with rum, reggae and rasta-farians (http://www.raggamuffintours.com/overni ght.asp)! We wanted to head South in Belize to experience the golden sands of Placencia, and to continue our trip onwards to Honduras. Instead of spending two sweaty days in a bus we went for the boat option...and boy are ...

... evening, so it's not like we didn't know what was going on. San Pedro's Carnaval tradition is to paint everyone with (thankfully) water-based paint. At Central Park, roving gangs of teens were frolicking in the sand, squirting water bottles full of paint onto each other. It was quite a spectacle, but we were happy to stand on the sidelines and observe. We managed to escape the onslaught this time, unlike several stray dogs we saw. We then ...

... way to leave our car was to let one of their people watch it. For $15 US per day. Yeah, that wasn't happening. Jared and Colby found a nice place to park, a guarded parking facitlity that was only 7BZ per night. After my encounter with a street artist and 10 bucks later (he did a decent job, didn't smell too good though), we boarded the water taxi and we were off to Caye Caulker. Upon arriving at Caye Caulker, there ...

... breathing. The fear is gone and what is left is amazement. This is alien. Like walking in a forest, where huge trees hang upside down, in the dawn and creators, not from this world, surround you. My diving computer is beeping: it is set to warn at 40 meters (I scampered off once to 48 meters, before I had a diving computer). At 44 meters, with my hand in Tony's, visiting this amazing world, I look at him and see the excitement in his eyes ...

Day 3 - Tues, Belize City to Amergris Caye ride with Duke to water taxi 10:20 water taxi to Caye Caulker, boat to San Pedro taxi to Banyan $5 eat @ Rico's, get room, nap walk to twon, shops, eat @ Caramba's (free ceviche) walk back to Banyan, jacuzzi tub Day 4 - Wed, Ambergris Caye plan snorkeling/diving 2pm - go out on ...

... one of the volunteers who is stationed here talked to her landlord who happened to have an extra vacant apartment which we were able to "rent" for two nights and divide among 5 people to make it very resonable. So we ended up with a much better deal than the people who did make reservations! We have hot and cold water and a kitchen! There's so much more to write and so many more stories, but for now, this will have to do.