January 30 – February 5, 2007

It hasn’t been a very eventful week. We looked at some more properties, which were in the Stann Creek district rather than the Cayo district, all on the Hummingbird Highway. The Hummingbird Highway is probably the most beautiful road in Belize, so although it took us almost two hours to get to the farthest property, it was worth the drive. We passed Hershey’s cacao plant and plantation, and the real estate agent told us that we were probably looking at these properties about a week too early, because by the end of the coming week the Madre de Cacao trees will be covered in beautiful yellow blooms. Blooms or not, the area is beautiful, and all of the properties we looked at were very nice and provided us with plenty to think about over the weekend.

We have now looked at most of the properties in this area that fit both our requirements and our price range. We have a lot to consider because there are a number of them that we like, some of which are near the top of our price range but which could be open for business in a matter of weeks, and some are a little less expensive, but it will require more time, effort, and money to get them up and running. We figure that we will start with the ones that we just plain like the best, and make what we think are reasonable offers, and stop when one of the offers is accepted. This is the part that Tom and I are both dreading. Selling our house and packing to go was stressful but felt good. The trip to get to Belize was like a long vacation, and lots of fun. Looking at properties for the past two weeks has been a lot of fun as we’ve been dreaming and planning and imagining what we could do with each of the places that we like. Now we’re down to the nitty gritty, where we have to make an offer on what we want and hope that it’s low enough that we won’t be spending money we don’t need to spend, but not so low as to insult the seller enough that we won’t even get a counter offer – which we’re told does happen around here. We’re hoping that by this time next week we’ll have an accepted offer, and then we’ll just have to wait to close so we can get to work, whether that work will be opening a B&B for business, or working on a property to get it ready to open.

Not much else has been happening. We found a self-serve laundromat in Belmopan, so we drove three loads of laundry out there one day, and while it was a little cheaper than the full service laundry in San Ignacio, we figured that by the time we paid for fuel to get there it wasn’t any cheaper, and it took a three or four hour chunk out of our day. The plan for this week is to wait for a nice day, and have our laundry washed and spun, and we’ll hang it out to dry. I’m still resisting learning to use the washboard!

We also found burritos that put Selena’s burritos to shame. The real estate agent who showed us the Hummingbird Highway properties told us about a place on one of the back streets in San Ignacio, and instructed us to ask for “wet burritos.” We did, the owner laughed and said he could always tell who was recommended to his place by Donna (the real estate agent), and then brought out delicious, juicy, foot-long burritos – for $5BZ each, which is $2.50USD! And the place serves margaritas and every rum drink imaginable. It’s almost a shame that we found this place when we’ve only been in the country for a little less than two weeks, because now we’ll have to force ourselves to try other places.

Other than that, we’re both fine, the dogs are all fine, and we’re really enjoying staying at the campground – and despite the close quarters of the camper, we’re not trying to kill each other. The campground owner has been moving his WiFi repeater around, so the internet connection is getting a little more stable for us, although it still sometimes just goes from an excellent signal to no signal at all, and then we’re done. The rain has stopped and the past few days have been gorgeous, although we’ll probably put an end to that tomorrow because we’re planning to drive down to Hopkins, which is about 2 to 2.5 hours from here, to play in the sea and let the dogs have a romp on the beach. The BTL SIM chips did not arrive as promised this week, and now they’re saying that they’ll be in this coming Wednesday, so maybe we’ll get a phone by then. We’ve talked to a few people with Skype, and the only one we were able to have a relatively normal conversation with on Skype was my brother Matt, who got used to a much longer satellite delay when he would call family from Iraq last year. So, we’re really looking forward to getting a phone so we can talk to a few people more normally. Other than that, just another day in paradise!