We slept in and got up to have breakfast on our cute little private balcony. Yesterday we had bought some fresh yogurt, granola, cantelope and bread from a local grocery store, so we had a nice little meal facing the already risen sun east over the ocean. The light is so beautiful here in the morning that after breakfast I dragged Gavin out to some sea grape and palm trees in front of our cabana to do some cliche "yoga-in-the-tropics" pictures. Then we walked into downtown to rent a couple bikes and bike around the Caye a bit.
We rented from Joe's Bikes - a little local business where the husband takes care of the bikes and his wife does the paperwork while nursing her 1 year old baby. Gavin got a bright blue one, and, being a girl, I got stuck with hot pink. :) It didn't take me long to discover that these Belizean bikes lacked a few, shall we say, "amenities" that I am used to on a bike. I got on the bike and rode 20 feet to the busy intersection and realized there were no brakes on my handle bars! As I got nearer to the intersection I yelled in alarm to Gavin, "I can't stop! There are no brakes!" He responded that to brake I had to back pedal, like a little kid's bike! That definitely took some getting used to. The bikes also were only one gear, which didn't matter that much since the island is pretty flat. But despite being old and definitely well-used, the bikes rode REALLY well - it is obvious that they were really well cared for, as all the riding through the sandy roads, streets and the beach definitely has to take its toll on them!
We rode north from downtown to get to the north end of the island - crossing the steep little toll bridge between the north and south of the caye I was definitely missing lower gears on my bike. The north end of the island seems to be all larger resorts and houses, and mostly deserted. There was a little sandy path along the beach where we dodged palm trees and the occasional garden worker as we rode along the ocean. There were no shops, businesses or restaurants, just really ritzy looking housing until we saw a large thatched roof structure suspended out over the water, and in its thatched roof was carved the word "BAR." We were thirsty from biking in the heat, so we biked out on the pier to it. Upstairs in the bar I ordered a watermelon juice and we split nachos while listening to a group of 40-something women gossip loudly over a couple too many beers. When we were done with our drinks, we went back down onto the peer below the bar to unlock our bikes and continue on. As I was getting out the keys for our bike locks, I noticed that the slats of wood that formed the pier were wide enough for the keys to fall through if I dropped them. I moved to the other side where the slats were closer together, while telling Gavin that it would be just my lock to drop the key through the slats into the ocean. I handed Gavin his key, and before he even got his bike unlocked HE dropped the key through the slats! We realized we couldn't just pay for a new lock because his bike was still locked and he had no way to get it loose! I went back up to the bar to see if anybody had a snorkeling mask so Gavin could look underwater for the key. One of the bartenders happened to have a mask, so Gavin jumped in and found the key pretty quickly. Tragedy averted. :)
Since Gavin thought the water felt so nice, he wanted to stay and swim for a while, so I jumped in with him and we swam under the dock to the other side of the bar where they had tied several inner tubes. As we sat and floated in the tubes, we read the abundance of graffiti all over the underside of the dock, including such gems as, "I did pee where you float," "Only bar where you can pee and drink at the same time," and "A woman let me put my penis inside of her RIGHT HERE" with an arrow. I hadn't seen anyone drinking in the water, but then some other people came into the tubing area and the bartender lowered a bucket full of beer two stories down to the tubes for them! How convenient! Too bad I hate beer, and there is no, say, bucket 'o margaritas.
After crawling out of the water at Palapa (the name of the bar), we biked back into downtown and farther south than we had been on the island before. We saw a HUGE resort called Ramon's Village - complete with a private beach, spa, beautiful gardens, etc. Gavin wanted to eat there for dinner, so we biked back to our cabana (stopping for more custard on the way...) to shower and get ready for dinner.
Ramon's village restaurant was decent, but a little cheesy. The waiter kept saying "No problemo" even though nobody else says that here. They were all wearing cheesy green hawaiian shirts. When I ordered the Pineapple Boat for dinner, the waiter said "You'll be the captain of that boat!" Gavin and I think he says that to EVERYONE who orders that particular dish... :) It had some fancy description on the menu, but it was really just shrimp fried rice in a hollowed out pineapple. :)
Gavin started to feel like he was getting sick, so we headed back to our cabana, stopping at Fido again along the way to grab a drink and listen to a pretty good band. After that, we took the nice moonlit bike ride back to go to bed.
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