A Weekend To (Mostly) Chill - Literally!

Outside of my whirlwind, Monday-through-Friday visit in October of 2022 to set up the villa, we haven't been in Belize for the "winter" months - October through March. October can be very rainy; we welcome the free water for our plants and after living in the desert, the rains are a nice change of pace. Imagine our delight when it was CHILLY this weekend!

To be fair: "Chilly" might be a stretch. It was in the high 70s/low 80s, but relative to Phoenix (still entrenched in triple-digit temps), this felt cold to us! Add in a northerly wind and overcast/rainy weather, and a drastic drop in humidity, and our weekend was better than last week was for us.

I do have a little more venting to do about our plumbing issues, though. 

We rented this villa as a vacation rental for about 20 months. Our property manager has laminated signs in both bathrooms instructing renters not to flush ANYTHING other than organic waste.

It is RIGHT NEXT TO the paper roll. You cannot miss it.

When Jose and Vandam dug out our septic pump, it was encased in - you guessed it - baby wipes, feminine products, paper, A FOIL BALL...like, what the actual hell, people...?! These same signs are all over the island and mainland. Septic systems here cannot handle anything beyond human waste. How incredibly disrespectful and defiant to ignore these valid requests. It costs the homeowner (not a big corporation, the person that owns the home) to repair or replace their system, on the low end, $800U.S. because you were too entitled to toss toilet paper in the bin, rather than the bowl. This expense for us was entirely avoidable if not for some disrespectful guests in our home. 

If you are going on vacation in a developing country, please be aware of the customs and ecological impact. If you aren't comfortable with how they do things, don't visit.

Saturday morning Nathan completed some yard work, and then we headed to town to get him a haircut. We stopped in at Aquarius Hair Salon to see Ms. Kim - she's been on the island as a stylist/book reseller since the 1980s! She was busy with a client but asked us to come back at 11:30, so we were off to brunch to kill some time.

We returned to Cool Beans Cafe (home of the 2-for-1 margaritas on the weekends!) and watched the storm clouds. Even without margaritas, we both had an excellent breakfast sandwich while enjoying the views.

Back at Aquarius, Kim cleaned up Nathan's forming mullet and was so friendly and warm...and didn't gouge us! $20BZ/$10U.S. for a men's haircut. We need more people like Kim in our life!

The day continued to be cloudy with strong, cool winds, so we decided not to go out to Secret Beach - it's not a fun place to be when an aggressive storm rolls in. We tried to hang our market lights on our back pergola, but "Sharon Math" fooled us again and my layout plan didn't work. We'll revisit that later.

Nathan donned waders and went under our home to remove a bush stick from our dock extension that had been plaguing us since our arrival - it had floated loose and would bang against the home's foundation with the tide if there were waves in the lagoon, night and day. Absolutely maddening.

I was craving something different for dinner than the usual slog of dishes 90% of the restaurants offer, and Tropical Island Restaurant and Bar had great reviews! We journeyed north and ordered the Shrimp Toast appetizer (meh, needs more hot sauce but had a great presentation!), Nathan had the Chicken Red Curry which was excellent! I ordered the Pad Thai - reviews mentioned it was the most authentic they had had outside of Thailand, a tomato-based sauce. I've only had the Americanized version, and this was different but still really flavorful and delicious! Their prices are higher than you might expect ($48BZ for Pad Thai) but my dish was huge and had both shrimp and chicken.

Sunday morning we again woke to overcast skies, threatening to rain, but we were determined to get out and make a day of it!

We started at one of our favorites, Sammy's Smoked Meat and Deli. The second-floor balcony gave us a fabulous breeze, and an excellent vantage point for the influx of dragonflies the island has seen this week! Andrea, the owner, again was delightful - when she heard we had started a garden, she offered to give us cuttings of any of her plants. One of the genuinely nice people we have met here!

Skies were dark on the reef side, but we rolled the dice and packed up for Secret Beach, hitting a few light sprinkles on the road north, but then, just some clouds, no further rain. The sun even peeked out a few times!

We entered the water at Sunset Palace and walked to our property, fearing with all the rain that the mosquitoes would be intolerable. I don't know if it was the cooler temps, or the stronger northern wind, but for the first time ever, we experienced NO mosquitoes on our land, even walking back into the forested parts! It has been two years since I ventured into that portion; normally, it's a bloodbath. This was encouraging for two reasons:
1. Hopefully when we clear out the underbrush and create strong breezeways, the mosquito population will drop;
2. I was starting to reconsider if we'd EVER open our windows in our new home - would it always be too hot and humid outside that we wouldn't want a cross-breeze..? All of my floor plan designs have had our bedrooms exposed to three sides for maximum crosswinds. I was delighted to have the cooler temps and breeze, it was really refreshing - literally and figuratively.

On the disappointing end, we have lost about 60' of beachfront on our northern property boundary - a combination of the "Sand Pirates" that stole a considerable amount of sand from our lot, and the rising waters. We continue to hope that the water is seasonal and not permanent, but the way lagoons and waterways are being filled and sold as "lots" here is certainly concerning. 

View from our lot - that post was high and dry two years ago, and May of 2023, was barely in the water.

Fortunately, our southern lot marker is back from the water a good 15-20'; it's a rocky base so it's not going anywhere fast.

In the center of this photo, you can see a vertical concrete brick, that's our front, southern property corner.

Here is a video if you would like to see more detail, and a lot of waves at Secret Beach!: Lot surveyed at Secret Beach, San Pedro, Belize

I'm grateful the weather held out long enough for us to go to the beach; we both needed a "good" day on the island. The water being choppy also made it chilly! As cold as I can remember it. It was quite refreshing!

Today, the weather is back to very humid, and now, raining. We're keeping an eye on the potential development of a tropical storm to the south of us, crossing fingers and toes that it either doesn't develop or heads away from Belize...