Home Sweet Home

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! We've had a wonderful holiday break so far. Before Christmas we asked our kids where they wanted to travel to in Belize over break and we received a unanimous answer, the Belize Zoo. Since the zoo is only about 45 minutes from Belize City we decided to make a getaway of it and traveled there from Thursday to Saturday. Belize City is one of only two cities in Belize and by far the largest with over 25% of the nation's population residing there. Of course that goes without saying that it also has the highest murder and violence rates as well. Needless to say, we'd never really been there and so were eager to make the trek for a mini-getaway. There were definitely many things we liked about our visit to Belize City, but there were also many things we did not like. So, we've decided to list them for your reading pleasure.

Things We Liked About Belize City:

1. Feeling like a regular American Tourist around other American tourists (it's nice to look like we fit in for once, even if we don't really).
2. Getting the Belizean resident discount at nearly every place we visited (usually 50% but as much as 75%).
3. A real stop light. (picture to right is one of only a few in town).
4. The Museum of Belize--had a cool insect exhibit which helped us ID some of the creatures we've found on our porch.
5. Restaurants that don't serve Belizean food (we enjoyed both Indian and Lebanese during our stay).
6. Soap in every bathroom and many with paper towel dispensers.
7. A real grocery store with real checkout lanes, a real meat department, and everything--there are only two of it's kind in Belize. (pic to the right is Brodies Supermarket--ain't she grand).
8. Bowling and arcade--we solemnly promise not to ever take our bowling alleys in the U.S. for granted ever again.
9. Old Belize--a lovely tourist spot with a man made beach, rope swing and best of all, a water slide. (We also liked that, except for our son Adam, we were the tannest Caucasians there.)

Things We Did Not Like About Belize City:

1. Feeling like an American tourist when in fact, we are not really tourists. Sorry vendors we don't want $30 braids, or $10 jewelry.
2. Narrow potholed streets laid out indiscriminately in what seemed to be one sketchy neighborhood after another. Never before in our lives have we had such a difficult time navigating with a map.
3. Stop lights--good concept but really traffic is more of an "every man for himself" mentality.
4. More cars than bikes but just enough cyclists to make driving in the city very difficult.
5. Paying U.S. prices at many restaurants--we've grown nicely accustomed to paying $3-$6 for a good dinner.
6. Great non-Belizean restaurants that serve great non-Belizean food yet are out of about 75% of the items on their menu.
7. Pollution--you don't notice until you pretty much live without it for 6 months.

And last but certainly not least of things which we dislike about Belize City,

8. Driving by what appeared to be an ongoing crime scene/dead body recovery.

Overall, we had a good time on our getaway. However, we all quickly realized how much we did not care for Belize's "big city" and we were so happy to get back to our home sweet home in Punta Gorda. We really enjoy PG's quietness, safety, and simplicity. We were glad to check Belize City off our list but we also do not plan to go back there anytime soon.

And by the way, the Belize Zoo was wonderful and yes, we would recommend it to anyone.