Chiquibul Park Visitors' Center

As promised, here are a few pictures of the new Chiquibul Park Visitors' Center, one of the outside, and two of exhibits in the building, including a tapir skeleton.  If you would like to visit let us know, and we will contact a guide for you.

Chalillo Dam

We have lived here for 7 years, been to Caracol countless times, and never bothered to take the turn to get a look at the Chalillo Dam.  

Today, we went to the opening of the Chiquibul Park Visitors' Center, and took the 15 minute detour to drive to a parking area overlooking the dam.  It was smaller than we expected.

Pictures to follow of the new Chiquibul Park Visitors' Center, which is a great addition to the area.  It's on the road to Caracol and Las Cuevas, and provides a great meeting and information point to make the Chiquibul Park more accessible.

Please be patient...

A few times in the past month or so, we have answered inquiries from potential guests, and have exchanged emails to the point where the potential guests want to become future guests, and request an invoice with payment instructions to secure their reservations.  We make sure we get all the information correct, send out the invoice...and never hear from them again.

A few times over the past five-plus years of being in business, we have had guests contact us after we have sent out the reservation invoice to tell us that their plans have changed and they won't be able to stay with us after all.  We completely understand that...something comes up at work, you realize that plane tickets are three times what you expected, a family member gets sick, or whatever.  But lately, the potential/future guests just disappear, and I find it hard to believe that we are suddenly encountering flocks of rude people; instead, I suspect that our emails are not getting through for some reason - probably spam filters - and the potential guests think that we have neglected to respond.

So, if you are trying to book a room with us and this happens to you, please send us another email.  As anybody who has stayed with us can tell you, we always respond within 24 hours, and usually in much less time than that.  We do want to share the Moonracer Farm experience with you and help you plan your vacation in Belize!

While I am on the topic of reservations, please allow me to explain why we have our reservation policy, since we have had a number of people lately decide not to stay with us because they don't understand why we require a reservation deposit.  We are a two-room lodge in the jungle, off grid, 45 minutes from town.  This means that we can't store large quantities of a variety of foods, waiting for people to show up, simply because we don't have the refrigeration capacity.  Plus, a lot of what our guests like about us is that we correspond prior to your visit to find out what you want to do, and get everything set up for you in advance.  We will accept drive-ups if we have the room and enough suitable food, but we can't guarantee it, and we certainly can't guarantee that we will be able to set up tours at the last minute.  And, we require the room charge as a reservation deposit (but not food, tours, or transfers) because we only have two rooms, so if people say they are going to come and then change their minds at the last minute, chances are we have turned away other guests and have just lost a significant amount of income, and we still have to pay the staff and have still purchased food.  And, if we have arranged any tours, we have already paid for the tours out of our pockets in advance.  We have a lot to lose if somebody has us reserve a room for them and then doesn't show, where future guests have nothing to lose if they intend to stay with us anyway since presumably they plan to pay us.  If you would like to discuss this, please feel free to contact us, although we cannot afford to waive this reservation policy.

Cortes Tree 2014

Every year we take pictures if this beautiful Cortes tree, which blooms for about 3 days and then spreads its beautiful yellow flowers over the cabin and the yard.  This year, we are in Florida, so Julio gets the photo credits.

Bush bridge building pictures

Here are some pictures of Tom and the guys building a bush bridge.  This is the kind if thing we are doing now that we are not full time at Moonracer Farm. The only non-jungle material they used was some old zinc that had been pulled off of one of the roofs because it was full of holes.  I think the pictures are pretty self explanatory, but let us know if you have any questions.

El Progresso Graduation 2013

Another thing Tom did during our blog hiatus was speak at the El Progresso/7 Miles Primary School graduation in June 2013.  We have been involved with the school for a number of years, helping however we can, but Tom was nonetheless hugely honored when Mr. Cano, the principal, contacted him in the beginning of June and asked if he would be the graduation speaker.  Tom of course said yes, and immediately started thinking about his speech, which was on the graduating class theme of “Education is the tool that empowers us to be successful in life.”  Since we truly believe this, it wasn’t a difficult topic to address, but Tom gave himself the added challenge of speaking in both English and Spanish.

 

Although English is Belize’s official language, 7 Miles is a town made up of mainly Central American immigrants, and even though school is supposed to be taught in English, many of the parents of the students speak only Spanish.  Since the graduation is for the families as well as the students, Tom felt that it would be respectful to speak so the families could understand the message.  And, Tom’s Spanish is good enough that he felt like he could do it.

 

The effort was appreciated by everyone, and one of our mainly Spanish speaking friends who had a daughter in the graduating class said that if Tom had been in Spanish class, he would have earned a solid “B.”  It wasn’t perfect, but it was perfectly understandable, and even the representative from the Ministry of Education remarked it was quite well done.  Of course for the next few days Tom would randomly blurt out, “I should have said … this way instead of that,” but overall even Tom was happy with the delivery, and especially with the reception of his effort.

TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Winner Again!

We just found out that we are a TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice winner for 2014, which makes this our third year in a row!  We are #3 in the top 10 B&Bs in all of Belize.  

We owe a big thank you to Julio and Janeth for keeping our level of service so high, and an even bigger thank you to all of our guests who have posted great TripAdvisor reviews for us.  We are delighted to do business with all of you!

Here is the link to the award listing:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Hotels-cInnsBB-g291959#3

Brrr....

We are supposed to have guests at Moonracer Farm right now, but we don't because they couldn't make their flights with all the travel disruptions due to the weather right now.  So, they are stuck in Atlanta, where it's pretty chilly, but at least they can be inside.

But, that might be a good thing, since it's also pretty chilly here, especially when we can't really close windows and get cozy.  They were supposed to go to ATM today, but it is closed due to flooding, so they are rescheduled for Thursday when, with any luck, they will be here and ATM will be open.  And maybe it will be a little warmer.

Things always work out for the best in Belize!