It has been a week and we are starting to like San Pedro. It is super laid back, barefoot in most establishments, like restaurants, bars and shops, is the norm. Dogs wander the island, most well fed and happy, and they wander the establishments looking for extra treats here and there. The local children take advantage of the great beaches and there are always local families in the late afternoon/early evening spending time playing on the beaches. The other night we went to the Wednesday night 'Chicken Drop' sponsored by a local beach bar. People gather at about 6:30pm around the bar. There is a band playing and they serve the local beer Belkin, plus other fruity tropical delights. At the bar they sell tickets, $5 US minimum bet, for the chicken drop. Once they have collected enough funds and the crowd is getting more jovial they point to a huge plywood board that is laid flat on the beach with a fence surrounding it. The board has a huge grid of squares painted on it, and each square is numbered. The tickets you buy each have a number on it. After much cheering and taunting a chicken is brought out ceremoniously in a basket, a lucky volunteer from the audience takes the chicken out of the basket, holds it over the board, spins it three times clockwise, spins it three times counter-clockwise, blows on its ass for good luck and throws it into the pen. The chicken walks around a little stunned as drunk onlookers yell out their numbers. Eventually the chicken, who has been well fed before the show, will shit on one of the squares. Who ever has the number that the chicken shits on will win $100 US. The only down side to winning the $100 is, when the chicken shits on your number you have to clean it up!
We have tried the local fare. Pig-tail stew with rice and plantains, Pusapas, (I think thats the spelling, I take artistic license) a corn tortilla that has been stuffed with cheese, beans, chicken or pork and cooked on a griddle, and we tried vengado, which is venison,(delicious) apparently they have deer on the mainland. The Belizean people are amazing in that they are multi-lingual so it is not odd to hear them switch back and forth between English, Spanish and Mayan or Creole. It seems that all Belizeans speak English so it has been very easy for us to navigate the town. We have also found that most people are super friendly and eager to help the hapless gringo, which has also made the town easy to learn.
We went out on a paid snorkeling trip this morning. Although we went to a popular spot where many other touristas were, the coral and the fish life was quite amazing. We really saw everything, nurse shark, southern sting ray, moray eels, huge lobster, all types of snappers, lots of various grouper, colorful reef fish, trigger fish, hog fish, angel fish, parrot fish .....and the list goes on. We were in a protected marine reserve and certainly we could tell, there were so many fish. A lot of the other spots in Mexico that we went snorkeling are not protected, so although the corals were lovely, the fish were minimal and small. No grouper at all, no lobster and few snapper. We are planning on being in San Pedro for the rest of the week while we wait for two tropical waves to pass us by and then we will be heading to Cay Caulker. Apparently, a much smaller town, with not much going on, but a lovely protected anchorage.
No comments:
Post a Comment