Real Life Recess - Page 2 of 8 - A blog for & about Aspiring Expats, Vacation Addicts, and Beach Bums

Carnival in Placencia

Sep 25 2019

September 21st– Belize’s Independence Day and a huge party in Placencia. I only realized this year that not every town in Belize does it up like we do for our parade and party. Most villages with have a small parade and some snacks on sale but they don’t have a Carnival celebration like we do- not even Belize City! Orange Walk and San Pedro have big celebrations but we are the three locations to visit for fancy costumes, loud music, excessive shaking and merriment. Our carnival seemed rather…

Sep 21 2019

Today is September 21st– Independence Day! Belize is 38 years old so to speak (younger than my husband, ha!). There are parades a-plenty all over the country; yesterday we kicked off the party weekend with the children’s School Uniform Parade. I almost didn’t send Mitch this year because last year’s parade was so rough for him. It was probably 1000 degrees and the little kids were stuck in a trailer with nothing to do but sweat and in Mitch’s case- cry. This year was much better- flags to…

Sep 19 2019

Did you know the water from a coconut is sterile? You can use it to wash your eyes, you can use it intravenously! Did you know you can treat a burn with the young flesh from a coconut? Coconuts aren’t just delicious and nutritious they’re an important apocalypse resource. #placenciaprotip Nothing says vacation better than enjoying a Crazy Coconut (coconut water, coconut rum) in a lounge chair at Barefoot Beach Bar. Hang with me as we finish our foraging walk around the village and let me tell you…

Sep 17 2019

Full on foraging! As I write this, I’m ACTUALLY drinking a Chanca Piedra tea for a daily preventative liver detox… at least I hope its Chanca Piedra. It tastes medicinal, herbally, so I think that’s good. It tastes like hot water with weeds in it if I’m being completely honest. I’m probably not doing it right but we’ll just continue on with what I learned during Kim Ringland’s natural remedies workshop; and this is just scratching the surface of the wonderful and wacky world of herbs. If you’re…

Sep 16 2019

Okay so I went down a Kindle Unlimited wormhole of apocalypse fiction last year and now the collapse is always in the back on my mind along with loosely formed reaction plans for pandemics, EMPs and of course zombies. I think Belize is probably a pretty good place to be in to try and ride out the end of the world; it’s the least populated country in Central America: the greatest advantage you can have when society is falling apart- whether the cause is massive wars, disease, rioting…

Sep 12 2019

Our little man, Mitch, wanted desperately to go zip lining for his 4th birthday. The adrenaline junky in him got his first taste of zip lining at Hopkins’ MangoFest where the guys from Mayflower Bocawina Park had a kids discover zip, two-line set up. The kids got geared up. How cute! And did their two runs down the zip lines. This is a highlight at MangoFest and a great way for beginners to experience zip lining for the first time. So, for his 4th birthday treat Mitch joined…

Sep 11 2019

If you liked the last post (free and cheap things to do on CC) then you’re going to love this post- free or cheap things to do in Placencia! There’s no shortage of awesome tour and activity options from Placencia that are kid friendly- snorkeling, zip lining, horseback riding, Monkey River, banana or spice farm, intro to scuba, river tubing… you get the idea. But these tours can begin to put an ache on your wallet. What would I recommend for cheap thrills around the village? Plenty! I’ve…

Sep 04 2019

We spent about a month living on Caye Caulker and covered, I think, every square inch of the island (not really much of a feat because it’s only about one and a half square miles). They do a great job of packing so much charm and beauty into such a small place; it reminds me alot of Placencia but on a caye instead of a peninsula. If you are a runner you will need to circle the whole island AND zig zag up and down every street to…

Sep 01 2019

Traveling with a little person in tow can be challenging… they want to DO stuff all the time. Sure I want to “do stuff” on vacation but you know what? I also want to “do nothing!” You can’t tell my little guy that what we’re “doing” today is laying around on the beach and reading a book; he will make a beautiful beach day miserable. So after you’ve shelled out big bucks for snorkeling tours and what not, what else do you do in San Pedro with kids?…

Aug 30 2019

The town of San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye, is undoubtedly the top tourist destination in Belize. There’re good reasons for this- it’s the top dive and snorkel locale being only minutes from the world’s second largest barrier reef, access to the famous Blue Hole, and world class fishing of all manner (deep sea, fly, even spear). And of course, it’s beautiful! With all that tourism comes loads of amenities. San Pedro felt like North America to us after spending so long in Placencia. It’s as if you can…