A Jeanne in the Kitchen

This picture is actually from a tree, and not a flower. It is a Kapok tree. The buds open up to little “cotton balls”. My friend’s yard used to have a whole bunch of these when we were growing up. I always loved those beautiful trees. They looked so gorgeous when the whole trees popped with cotton balls. This brings back fond memories from my childhood. 🙂

There were so many brightly colored flowers all over the place in Belize. Some are very familiar to me while others are very different and exotic. They were all beautiful though. I loved seeing each and every one.

I have no idea what these flowers are, but I fell in love with them all the same. they were right in “our own backyard too” at our hotel.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I LOVE flowers. They always brighten my day.

Another delicious restaurant we “discovered” was down on the southern part of the island, known as Someplace South. It was actually recommended to us by the owner of PATZ, Belize Eats – 1. It was a very tasty, good find indeed.

It was a beautiful garden restaurant with a flair for romance, especially with all the garden seating and soft lights all around.

If the garden is not for you, a place by the bar would be just fine too.

Because we live in Colorado, where beef, pork and wild game are the culinary specialties, when we go to any place by the water, we always order a lot of fresh seafood dishes. We did that at Someplace South as well. Larry ordered the pasta del mar.

And I chose curried lobster.

Both were delicious, and tasted every bit as good as they looked. They were both loaded with plenty of fresh seafood. We were very full, but very satisfied. Someplace South is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which many other places are not. Some are only open for breakfast, others are only open for lunch, while others still are only open for dinner. But no matter what meal you choose, I promise you are going to love it at Someplace South.

There are plenty of good eats in Belize. There is no way we could sample everything in one trip. Oh darn! I guess we just have to go back again soon. 🙂

The beaches of San Pedro. There are plenty of beaches on the island, but most of the public beaches, at least the ones that are most accessible, are relatively small. Beach front property is prime real estate on the island, so most of the good beaches have been snatched up by the bigger resorts. But if you are willing to take a leisurely drive along the bumpy roads, you can still see plenty of beautiful beaches that are open to everyone.

These lovely ladies, an aunt and her niece, were planting a garden of hearts at their new restaurant they are opening up soon, located right on the beach. These ladies were on the southern part of the island.

Secret Beach, or as it is also known as Not-So Secret Beach, is all the way up on the northern part of the island. It is a big party area.

These are the main activities at Secret Beach.

Even the dogs have adopted this way of life.

Two mermaids on the beach.

Beach on Everyone, beach on.

When we are on vacation, I absolutely refuse to cook. For one, I cook all the time at home and I like a little break. But mainly, I want to sample as much of the local cuisine as I can. Experiencing as many new and different experiences as I can is part of why I love to travel so much. I LOVE TO LEARN new things, see new things and go to new places.

PATZ Delicatessen was a little place owned by an American ex-pat who now makes Belize home. Everything was fresh and made to order and very good. We stopped in for lunch, while out on one of our island expeditions.

Larry and I decided to split a meal since we knew we would be going out for dinner later. We do this a lot when we travel so we don’t eat to much. We split a chicken salad sandwich and a salad with a side of fries, which made for a very delicious light lunch.

PATZ, like so many of the fun places we stopped at, is an open air restaurant filled with plenty of personality and local art.

It is so much fun to look at the world through the eyes of a tourist. You see things in a whole new light, with a new perspective.

These little colorful flowers are all over the island, and the tropics. They come in all colors, but I mostly saw them in purple this trip.

On the island of San Pedro, the sea is a way of life. It is even said the name Belize comes from the word belikin, which means land facing the sea. Life In Belize – Part 1. The residents depend on the sea for food and the rich marine life is one of the main reasons for so much of the tourism industry, which is the main industry to the island, and Belize in general. When we were leaving to go to Belize, there were a lot of sport fishermen with their fishing poles in hand who were on our plane. And then there are the divers. We told all the fishermen to leave some fish for us to see too. 🙂

This is the marina in Belize City that we left out of en route to San Pedro.

Our ferry. We weren’t quite sure if we were even going to make it over to San Pedro. We experienced some engine trouble about half way to the island. One engine completely blew out. But our captain pushed through and we did eventually make it to San Pedro safely. !Muchas gracias Capitan!

Larry and a friend on the bridge in Belize City before we got onto the ferry. This gentleman was security for the ferry company. I guess they have a lot of problems with the locals.

We’re on our way. San Pedro, here we come.

Pro Dive, the company we dived with. The whole staff was FANTASTIC. They were all so friendly and knowledgeable. Their name says it all. They were all definitely PROS! Belize offers some great diving. It is on the same reef as Cozumel (our absolute favorite place to dive) and Roatan, Honduras. We see a lot of the same marine life in all three places, and yes, we have dived all three places, and many, many more places too. The underwater topography is different, but the marine life is the same.

The Ladies behind the scenes and in the office.

Hernacio hard at work on the other side of the office.

Our boat for the week, the Lady “R” .

Carlos, one of our great dive masters for the week.

Thank you all for a fantastic week of diving. 🙂 You know we will be back again, as soon as we can make it.

Bougainvillea are beautiful and brightly colored flowering trees. They come in all colors, and were all over Belize. They are found any place that has warm tropical weather. They always remind me of home. We had a bougainvillea plant in our backyard too. It was this bright fuschia color.

I love to brighten all my days with flowers.

Belize is a Central American country that borders both Mexico and Guatemala. It also has about 300+ islands or atolls that lie in the Caribbean Seas around the Gulf of Mexico. The culture is very diverse, with strong Mayan influences, as well as influences from England, Jamaica, Africa, Spain, and other parts of South and Central America. Up until about 41 years ago, Belize was part of the British Empire, but then it was granted its independence. It is still a British Provence, like Canada or Australia though. Today, Belize is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The structure of government is based on the British parliamentary system, and the legal system is modelled on the common law of England. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title Queen of Belize. The Queen lives in the United Kingdom, and is represented in Belize by the governor-general.  Both English and Spanish are spoken, though English is considered the official language.

The name “Belize” is said to have originated either from the Mayan word belix, meaning muddy water, or from the word belikin, which means the land facing the sea. Belikin is also the name of their local beer.

Belize is a very poor country, but they are making efforts to change that. Currently, the main industries are tourism, logging, fishing and agriculture. Most of the people barely graduate from high school, and fewer still go on to college. The current minimum wage is $1.65 per hour. They are pushing to raise that to $5.00 per hour. But just like anywhere, those who work hard succeed, and those who don’t, well … they don’t succeed. Despite the rampant poverty though, the Belizians seem to be very happy, content people.

On the island of San Pedro, the most popular means of transportation is by golf cart. There are very few private vehicles other than golf carts, motorcycles or bicycles. We too had our golf cart that took us all over the island. San Pedro is about 25 miles or 40 km from north to south and only about 1 mile or 1.6 km wide. We covered the whole island a few times.

For whatever reason, we got the expanded version of the golf cart. Even though it was just the two of us, they gave us a six-seater. If we knew the island better, we might have opened it up as a taxi service. 🙂

Home for the week was a real cute, very well-maintained hotel called Belize Budget Suites. It isn’t fancy, but it is very clean and very comfortable. We were very happy there indeed.

I felt like we were sleeping in the “jungle room”.

During our rest intervals from diving, we enjoyed dining al fresco in the garden for our lunches.

Jose, the manager, and his wife Mirian, take a lot of pride in keeping the hotel looking spectacular. They were so friendly and so helpful. There was a domestic violence incident that occurred in the room adjacent to ours, and Jose handled it very professionally. Unfortunately, the police were called in to help as well.

We went out and experienced as much of the local cuisine as we could for our dinners. Our first dinner on the island was a little Jamaican shack called Robin’s Kitchen. Robin is the nickname of the owner/operator John. He was very friendly and cooked a mean Jamaican jerk chicken. It was so tender and so flavorful.

John is cooking the chicken to perfection.

Here he is preparing all the side dishes.

And voila! Dinner is served. We had Jamaican jerk chicken, coconut rice, coleslaw and hush puppies. Everything was delicious.

We make friends wherever we go. This is Mitch, a local boy who was good friends with John. He too was very friendly and very enjoyable. We learned a lot about the island from Mitch.

We couldn’t leave without leaving our mark on the walls, like all those who came before us.

Larry scribbled our names into the walls. We are now a part of the fixtures.

This is the first of quite a few in my Life in Belize series. I hope you all enjoy it.

Belize and Mexico are very similar in many ways. Their climates and temperatures are among their similarities. Because of this, there a lot of the same tropical flowers found in both places. Most of them are very bright and add little splashes of color all around. I will share my Belizian flowers with you, as well as all of other experiences too. 🙂

Hibiscus were all around, in all colors and many different varieties.

Color your world with flowers everyday.