July 2014 - Real Life Recess

North of town- coolness continues

Jul 31 2014

After our somewhat disappointing exploration south of town we decided to explore north of town, which is a lot more exciting. Over the bridge you will find a movie theater, yoga retreats, restaurants, bars, a freakin casino, and housing developments of modest condominiums to downright palatial mansions. The island extends for some 20 miles north and the road is rough! We made it all the way up to the large casino (we didn’t bother going in to check it out though, we live 15 minutes from Atlantic City…

Jul 29 2014

One of the things we really liked about San Pedro and Ambergris Caye in general is that you can get most places on a bicycle if you’re in relatively good shape and are quasi-coordinated. San Pedro town has paved roads with a lot of golf cart traffic (in high season) but few cars so getting around the small town is easy and pretty comfortable. North or South of the town the roads are dirt and riddled with potholes and rocks. We rented a couple of beach cruisers for…

Jul 28 2014

There is no shortage of things to do on your vacation in San Pedro and you’ll have your choice of tour operators to choose from. We love to snorkel so we knew we’d want to see the Belize Barrier Reef that lies less than a mile off the shores of Ambergris Caye. It’s the second largest reef in the world and Hol Chan Marine Reserve is a few minutes by boat from the docks along San Pedro’s beaches. We took a half-day sailing tour to snorkel the reef…

Jul 24 2014

San Pedro town, on the island of Ambergris Caye, is Belize’s version of Cancun. Ambergris Caye was voted Trip Advisor’s Traveler’s Choice “Best Island” the past two years in a row. This is THE hotspot for tourists and has numerous resorts, ranging from budget to luxury and everything in between. If you’re looking for nightlife, you will find it in San Pedro! We flew from Placencia to the Caye and it took us less than 40 minutes. We took a super short taxi ride to Pedro’s Hotel and…

Jul 23 2014

If you can pull yourself away from the beaches and bars for a day you might want to take an excursion up the peninsula because there are some beautiful sights to see on the mainland. We took a horseback riding and waterfall excursion one day with a Canadian couple and a guide who had spent half his life living in California but had returned home to Belize a few years ago. We took a short van ride inland (maybe 45 minutes) to a private ranch owned by relatives…

Jul 21 2014

Placencia! The beach, the beach bars, the shops, the restaurants… we love this town. We also love coconuts and they’re abundantly available for the picking all along the beach. We tracked down a local guy known as The Coconut Man to get a lesson on the delicious staple. He’s easy to find; look for him on the beach in the morning harvesting coconuts and fronds or around the bars in the afternoon selling his nifty woven hats, baskets and beer koozies. I learned how to select coconuts from the…

Jul 17 2014

So I’ve covered that Placencia has first-rate drinking water and superb beach bars, but there are also plenty of other amenities that residents and visitors can enjoy and that’s what I’ll be outlining in this post. Lots of grocery options! Firstly, for anyone looking to stay somewhere longish-term, you’re going to want to know about the grocery store situation. I wasn’t sure what to except. We had been to a little town in Costa Rica a few years ago that didn’t have a market within walking on biking…

Jul 17 2014

A cool surprise we discovered while wandering aimlessly around the residential streets: an actual Atlantic City Jitney! Why is this Jitney here? I was seriously tempted to knock on the front door and demand an explanation. I didn’t of course. I like to think that the owners are New Jersey natives and they bought the old jitney on the cheap when the Jitney association switched from the iconic powder blue minibuses to the new “green” and white ones that run on compressed natural gas in 2010. Having bought…

Jul 16 2014

So Placencia is cool, I mean really cool, and it’s pretty damn easy to get to if you want to shell out the cash for a Tropic Air flight from Belize City to the little air strip just north of town… which is exactly what we did. It was about a 20 minute flight on a little 14 passenger Cessna- the type where they distribute the passengers in the seats based on their eye-ball assessment of your weight. FUN! If you know me, or have had the distinct…

View of Tri Tan beach cabanas Placencia- Real Life Recess

Jul 16 2014

In February we went to Belize for a 9 day vacation/ reconnaissance mission. We were scouting potential towns that we might end up moving to. You can learn PLENTY about the Belizean towns that draw tourists and ex-pats by simply searching the web. There are tons of reviews on sites like Trip Advisor and tour operators have tidy little descriptions of different areas on their websites plus you can find at least one ex-pat blog for whichever district you’re interested in. Phil and I did loads of internet…