The chartreuse house on the corner

Greetings and salutations!

We now live in Punta Gorda, Belize!

We’ve been residents of southern Belize for a couple weeks now...  Where does the time go?!  We are getting more and more settled into our life down here and it’s been an interesting transition so far.

I borrowed this picture of the sign from the internet because I haven’t yet taken one myself, but this sign is only a few minutes from our house.

We arrived on Wednesday, August 20th.  James, Tim, and Gordon crossed the border from Mexico into Belize that morning and drove the van and trailer to the main airport just outside of Belize City to pick me and Juliette up.  I walked out of the airport and - voila! - there they were.  We all took a moment to celebrate the success of our semi-elaborate plan, because so many things could have gone wrong with it but didn’t.  In fact, James didn’t even have a way to contact me if they ran into some kind of trouble at the border or along the way with the van, so I was just really hoping that I would see them when I arrived.  But they made it and see them I did!

Daddy reunited with his little girl after a week apart.  :)

It was kind of surreal to actually be in Belize after so much time spent thinking about and planning for it.  I was definitely a bit travel-dazed but I still took a few moments, especially as the plane was landing, to quietly revel in arriving to a new, special, and exciting chapter of our life.  I am sure that this year will be a significant portion of the foundation for our future plans and it’s neat to see it unfold.

Anyway, after the guys picked us up, the five of us started the last leg of a journey that had begun in New Hampshire two weeks earlier.  Punta Gorda, or PG, is the southernmost town of substance in Belize.  There may be a few more small villages between Punta Gorda and the border with Guatemala, but for most people, PG is the end of the road.

Being at the end of the road, it’s a rather long drive from Belize City to PG - about 4 hours - and despite only a brief stop on the way down, it was quite dark by the time we arrived.  It was really neat to see the scenery for the first part of the drive, but it was so dark by the time we arrived that we couldn’t really tell what we were driving into.  We eventually ended up on a road that ran alongside the ocean, though, and saw a huge crab scuttling across the road in the glow of our headlights.  We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore!  :)

Upon arriving, we called Dan, who is the Stateside Director of Hillside Clinic, but who is spending a few weeks down here in Belize to help the new volunteers transition.  He graciously stayed up late to greet us and hand us the keys to our house, not to mention showing us where our house is!  We probably would not have found it otherwise, as Belizeans are not too big on addresses down here.  In fact, I have yet to figure out what our address is or even which street we live on!  Our GPS wouldn’t have been much help without an address to find.  We are simply living in the chartreuse house on the corner and that’s that.

We had seen pictures of this house as we tried to decide which house to rent for our year of living in Belize and now we could finally see it in person.  Here’s our first family portrait with our house.

Welcome home!  :)

The house is cute and small and came with some initial residents, only one of whom was ushered out.  I’ll let you guess which one.

Nice guy, but I didn’t want to cuddle with him.

'I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy.'

Despite the late hour, the guys set about unloading the trailer.  Fortunately, I got a shot of it before the incredibly tightly packed contents came out.  As promised in the first post, here are pictures of both of the trailer doors with the packing mastermind and his chubette.

I don’t really understand how he got it all in there.

You can see the generator we brought down to the clinic.

We all got to bed as soon as possible, but not before James, Tim, and Gordon toasted to their safe arrival with some Belikin beer.

Cheers!

The next morning we walked up to a small bakery we had been told about and got breakfast.  That first day was a hot, windy day and after breakfast, we walked into the downtown along the oceanfront road, taking in all the sights and scenery we had missed in the dark the night before.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures, as I was too busy taking it all in myself, but there will be plenty of time to share what our new hometown looks like in future posts.  

I should probably clarify that we don’t actually live in Punta Gorda proper, but rather in a small neighborhood just north of PG called Hopeville.  It’s a 10-15 minute walk to the downtown area of PG with all its little shops and restaurants, but Hopeville has its own small grocery store and a few restaurants.  One of them is called Waluco’s and overlooks the ocean from under its thatched roof.  We went there for dinner on that first evening to enjoy the atmosphere and the chance to take a deep breath of Belizean air and drink the restaurant’s specialty beverage, a “panty ripper.”  (Oh, my! ;) )

The next morning Tim and Gordon had to fly out to go home and to work and back to normal life.  We found the airport, which is a one-room building (well, two if you count the small bathroom) on a little airstrip surrounded by a chain link fence, and bid them adieu.  We thanked them very much for providing James with support, company, navigation, and camaraderie during the long drive through Mexico.  It was too bad they didn’t have more time to spend in Belize, but we know they’ll be back to visit!

James, Juliette, and I spent our first weekend doing some exploring of the area (especially of restaurants!) and getting to know some of the other new volunteers.  On Saturday we went to the market downtown and were very excited to see all the fresh fruits and vegetables for sale.  There are lots of little stands where the local Mayan families sell the produce they grow.  We were very good customers!

Mmm...  Lots of good stuff to eat!

On Sunday, Dan took our family and another new family of volunteers - Loretta, a nurse practitioner, and her two children, Deirdre and Brennan - on a little outing to see some of the area’s attractions.  We drove for an hour or two to a really neat spot called Rio Blanco, but first we stopped at a beautiful church tucked up in some lush green hills.  

Here is our little family looking around the church.

As we walked around to enjoy the view, I noticed that a tiny beautiful hummingbird had somehow gotten trapped inside a wire screen on one of the big windows of the church.

“Please let me out!”

The poor little guy was trapped and desperate, throwing himself against the mesh in a futile attempt to escape, so we mounted a rescue operation and James finally got him out of his accidental cage.  He was very slow and shaky when James released him, but he took off and went away to recover from his ordeal.  I was very glad that we were able to help!

We continued on our way and made it to Rio Blanco.  Rio Blanco is a beautiful little jungle park with a broad shallow river tipping into a large waterfall that spills into a deep pool.

What a view!

We spent the day swimming, sunning, chatting, eating the lunch we brought with us, watching the Belizean rap artist filming his music video at the waterfall, and relaxing.  One of those things is not like the other.  ;)  The musician’s name is T.R. and his idea of a fitting music video was him lounging in shallow water, singing his song, and watching swimsuited ladies dance along to the music while everyone drank beer.  Very classy, as you can tell.  But it was interesting to watch the process and one of the entourage even handed our group a couple of beers.  

Here’s T.R. and his crew, living it up.  

The gifted beer on its jungle pedestal.

It was a really fun day and, after T.R. and his gang left, most of us decided to take the plunge off of the rock cliff into the pool below for a little adrenaline rush... woohoo!

Here’s me launching myself off the rocks.  It always looks higher when you’re about to jump!

It was a lot of fun and gave us a beautiful look at some of the beauty deeper into the Belizean jungle.  We drove towards home and topped off the outing with drinks at the beautiful Belcampo Lodge, which is not too far from PG.  Belcampo is a luxury resort perched on top of a steep hill and it is really lovely.  Given its steep height, it’s got some pretty dramatic views of the surrounding area.  

An overlook from Belcampo.

We enjoyed wandering around and being deafened by the howler monkeys that were hiding in a patch of trees very close to us and then relaxing on the deck for a little while.  It was a very fun weekend of exploration!

I don’t need to give you the blow-by-blow of how we spent each day of the next week, but I can give you a bit of an overview.  Honestly, though, there were a few days where there was really not much to tell you about.  The Belizean heat and humidity can be very intense and, especially in the first few days, all I did was try not to sweat any more than I had to.  :)  Apparently my New England blood is pretty thick, but James revels in the (sometimes oppressive) heat of the tropics.  He started his volunteer work for Hillside a few days after we arrived and was doing manual labor right off the bat, working to replace a ceiling.  One day I rode my bike, with Juliette in her baby seat, to where he was working and saw his shirt dripping.  I thought he must have dumped water over himself to cool off, but he hadn’t.  That steady ‘drip, drip, drip’ was straight-up sweat.  Phew!  I don’t know how he does it!

While he was working, I did some house organizing and took care of Juliette.  One day we took the long ride up to Belize City with a few other people for some Hillside errands, both official and personal, and that made for a very full day, as it is an 8-hour round trip.  We did some more exploring over the weekend of August 30-31 in Placencia, which I’ll tell you about soon.  

Actually, I have lots more to tell you about PG, our neighborhood in Hopeville, Hillside clinic, James’s volunteering, and life in Belize in general, but I think it’s time to wrap up this post.  It’s been a long time coming, as I got sidetracked by flying back to the States on September 2nd to visit my beautiful new nephew, Grant.  I missed his birth because of moving to Belize, but I came back as soon as I could and have been enjoying time with my family here in Kansas.  Juliette and I go back to Belize on Sunday and I will try to update shortly after we get home...  home to Belize!  That’s kind of a wild thought.  :)  

The Finneys at Belcampo.

Talk to you soon!  Thanks for reading!