Slow tourist season = Vacation time

Since this is the slow season for us, Marge and I decided it was a good time to take some vacation. Julio has a brother, Poncho, that works down in Placencia, so Julio’s family and I went down for a visit.

Julio’s wife, Janeth, had never been to Placencia and the kids had never really played in the ocean so this was a big adventure. Traveling down in our little Isuzu DMax was a little tight but we managed to get Julio, Janeth, their five kids, and I all inside for the ride down and back. Janeth got to ride shotgun for the entire trip and Julio and I took turns sitting in the back with 4 of the 5 kids, Melvor being one of them – he was small enough to sit on someone’s lap most of the way.

We got two rooms at a local hotel, one for Julio, Janeth and Melvor, and one room for Eric and me. The other two boys stayed with Pancho’s son and Odaly stayed with a cousin.

The first evening I wanted Julio and Janeth to have a nice quiet dinner with no kids since this was the first time they had ever had a chance to eat alone since Eric was born over 14 years ago.

I ventured out with the five kids plus two extras from Pancho’s family to Wendy’s, a nice family restaurant right in Placencia. We had plans to go bowling up in Maya Beach after dinner; however, BWEL was late in filling the butane tanks at the restaurant so dinner took almost 2 hours and we got out too late to bowl.

After dinner we all went back to the hotel to play some dominoes and such, then Pancho took all but Eric, Melvor and I back to his place. The three of us then prepared to go for a night walk on the beach when Julio and Janeth returned. We chatted with them and found out that they couldn’t get dinner at the restaurant that I suggested due to an electrical outage in the middle of the town so they walked all the way north on the sidewalk, then back to the southern point, before finding a nice quiet little place for dinner. So, for all the plans I had in my head for the first night, I had to just chalk it all up to a “Belizean night” – change plans as needed and be flexible! Eric, Melvor and I went for our walk and enjoyed the lapping waves on the shore; and I got to practice talking with Melvor (four years old) in Spanish the entire way.

Eric and I settled in for the night in our room and Eric was happy to be sleeping with A/C (for the first time, I think). He set it to full cold and around 2am I had to turn it down a bit since the two of us were freezing.

The next day we spent doing a bit of fishing, both for the boys

and the girls.

Melvor was fascinated with the starfish he found and actually brought it into the house to show us!

We then spent a couple of hours in the pool, me playing with Melvor in the shallow end, and also hiding coins in the pool for the boys to find.

Our second night we all went out to dinner together, happy and tired after a long day playing in the water and in the sun.

On our way out of town, we made a mandatory stop at Tutti Fruttis just in time, the day before they closed for their own one month vacation! Almost everyone had two cones since the ice cream there is just so good.