UNBELIZABLE - San Pedro Chapter

It only seems right to also start this post out 

with the infamous 

Mick-D breakfast.

Great thing about this though...

is that this distinguished photo is of 

Ms. Duler's delicious airport breakfast. 

Great minds think alike. 

~

Oh... oops. I guess I gave away the surprise.... 

Kris is our "4th partner in crime"!!!!

YAY!!

Here are a couple shots that Kris took from

her flight to San Pedro

At last... we have arrived...

SAN PEDRO , BELIZE

With one Kristina Duler waiting inside.... 

One of the many super fun and unique attributes of San Pedro...

They only drive around on GOLF CARTS!!! 

Ha! Isn't that fantastic!? 

We zoomed through the streets, 

bouncing every which way on broken cobblestone, 

barely dodging oncoming traffic, pedestrians, and stray animals.

It was frightfully similar to a game of Mario Kart...

and much more fun!

The cart jumped straight onto the sand, 

and we stop right in front of this gorgeous, pink mini-mansion.

View from the top of the stairs was amazing!

We dropped off our stuff,

 fought over who gets which room,

and headed out for a beach stroll...

with our rediscovered hatred for humidity.

Here's to 2 weeks of sticky skin, shiny faces, sweaty backs, smudged eyeliner and frizzy hair. 

But it would all be worth it!

We stopped for lunch at this little Pupuseria that is known for their Pupusas.
That is what Derek wanted.
They told us that there would be this red building, and the one across from it would have the same name but it is a green building.
Go to the RED one! They told us.
So we did!

While walking around we discovered this sad, abandoned fairground behind bars.

While wandering, we put feelers out on which company we should use for our scuba trip tomorrow. 

After a nice walk around the town

it was time for a rest where we could 

de-humidify and have a cold one. 

Luckily we have a perfect balcony to just sit back and enjoy the insane atmosphere
that we have somehow obtained for next week. 

Only been here for a couple hours... and of course, Derek has managed to gain an extremely swollen foot!

We also had a rooftop balcony

Back inside the house.... 

Master Bedroom

Kris's room

Carl's room

Time for some dinner...

We headed over to Wet Willy's,

the closest restaurant to us.

While waiting for our food on the dock,

we made a friend...

I LOVE STING RAYS!!!

  Day 1

We decided to take it easy this morning

and have a simple breakfast 

of local fruits, yogurt, and pastries

Note to self: Starfruit is AWFUL!

Sticking to the relaxing morning plans, 

our afternoon would consist of taking advantage

of the beautiful sunny beach we had 

right in front of us.

Yay!! For BEACH days!!

I found a puppy!

This is pretty much what we were swimming in...

Not much to see...

Lots of clams....

There is a story to this photo.....
In short... there was a crab in that shell... !!!!

The one and only fish we really saw that day.... but it was a PUFFER!!!!

Salty, sandy and sun burnt.... 

we headed inside to clean up a little

and began the hunt for lunch!

We're dorks

And so is Carl....

Super sad whale...

Just in time...

a restaurant we were told to try...

Done!

Carl enjoyed a Funky Monkey ( or something like that) while we waited for an outside table. 

Super fun decor...

Carl so happy

This is the face of a man who underestimated Belizean heat... 

The photos below are merely showing our enthusiasm for foreign bills.

They're so pretty!

Farther into the trip...

Photos of Kris flaunting dolla bills

will hold much more meaning. 

Just wait for it...

Miss money bags... 

We decided to be domestic travelers 

and do a homemade dinner in our adorable little beach-villa for one of the nights.

And when I say we... I mean Carl. 

Many know that Mr. Carl Jensen is quite the chef. 

He planned to make us a delicious Bolognese after scuba tomorrow. 

All that needed be done, was find the ingredients... 

Easier said than done

This is basically what the grocery stores look like. Awesome for most produce needs, but small markets mean less choices, which makes for many compromises. 

Spelled  a little different, but I think we're on the same page. 

Back to the house we go...

With the constant breeze... the birds appear to float in the air. We loved watching them hover

While on the balcony... we witnessed an eruption...
not really... just a very cool, yet strange cloud... 

Strolling the streets after dark....

Blissfully Belizean

We happened upon a court 

where some kids were playing some basketball. 

Of course, Der challenges them. 

Him and Pablo had a really good game. 

Thanks to Derek we tend to make unlikely friends on most of our trips. 

Funny side story...

While we were waiting,

Kris and I decided we needed to use the restroom. 

Just so happens we were talking to this really friendly (American) guy who offered to walk us to his house. 

Carl ran after us to make sure we were safe. 

This guy had his "famous" chicken, (insert something strange and sketchy sounding) soup cooking inside,

and he had been raving about it the whole night. 

So he brought it out for us to try. 

It was actually really good!
Yes, we tried some strangers soup straight out of his kitchen,
from a fairly sketchy neighborhood.

You only live once right?!

I think Der won. 

But I can't remember for sure. 

Poor dude... just a little sun burnt. 

Most nights in the Beach-villa went something like this:

All four of us lay in bed with beverage and snacks...

Watch whatever movie or show gets the most "ooh stop" remarks, while scrolling the channels...

Derek passes out within 10 minutes and doesn't move or hear a thing for the rest of the night...

Carl dozes off about an hour after that...

And Kris and I finish out the night with whichever FRIENDS or HIMYM marathon is on that night.

Midnight snacks in hand...

We could have repeated that for months and been happy  :)

~

Day 2

Today is a big day. 

All of those long nights in the pool,

treading water, choking on water, pruning under water, 

floating, sinking, floating, wading, signaling, testing, logging...

and then eating horribly, wonderful Crown Burger at 10pm on weekdays,

was finally going to pay off. 

We are going SCUBA DIVING!!!!!

Carl found some cats.

Carl always finds cats.

Carl may be the cat whisperer...

Our Scuba planning dude picked us up bright and early,

in his adorable, little golf cart. 

We stopped at the bank,

and I found this little dude in the middle of the street. 

I put him in a planter. 

I saved him. 

I love him. 

#puravida

At the Ambergris Divers scuba shop,

preparing for the boat to deport

That vest is quite uncomfortable. 

It is really heavy. 

I have a hard time standing up once it's on. 

Walking feels nearly impossible. 

As usual on our trips, Carl had to endure numerous, vomit inducing, boat rides.
But never did he give in....
Carl laughs in the face of MOTION
1 point for Carl. (We will have to ask him how many points "motion" has racked up over the years)

Once you are in the water... the tank basically disappears. 

You barely notice you have anything on.
Except for the serious nuisance of attempting this little thing we call...
neutral buoyancy !! 

That means OKAY. 

We're so cool... we now speak Scuba ;)

In about 2 seconds.... I was not going to be okay...

Funny story...
My goggles are prescription.

So they have a divider in the middle where my nose is, that others do not have.

Well, unfortunately, that middle strip hits right in the middle of my eyebrows and starts to hurt really bad. 

But if I try to lift it or move it... they leak. 

Needless to say, I was having goggle leakage and fogging problems the entire time.

When I first dropped in... 

It took me a minute to realize... I couldn't see ANYTHING!

So I was wandering around like a weirdo... and just about on the verge of panic. 

It was our first time, and it's kind of easy to panic over nothing

because you are not supposed to surface unless absolutely necessary 

and basically you kind of just aren't sure how things are supposed to be 

when you are in an actual foreign ocean,
breathing underwater. 

Luckily, Carl noticed I was being weird... and came over. 

He later described our mini convo with much amusement. 

Unaware of the fact that others could tell I was nearly blind, 

I was traumatically pointing at my goggles, being completely filled with water at this point,

and Carl was like, "Yes, I can see... you're vision is clearly impaired... " Ha! 

He helped me...and the rest of the experience was great!

Our first stop on the tour 

was Hol Chan

Adjusting those damn goggles

He looks so fast

I'm so graceful under water  #froglegs

Carl's favorite shot

Their was a really long awkward situation where this man tried to show me this weird stick fish poking out of this rock... and I was just completely confused as to why we were spending so much time poking at a rock 

Just plucking up some dinner

Snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley

I LOVE STING RAYS

There were so many sharks. 

It was an incredible experience!

Remember all that talk about vomit inducing boat rides??

Well lets just say...

1 point boat, 0 points Kristina

Poor girl stayed on the boat 

while we snorkeled with the sharkies.

The first stop did her in. 

At least she got the whole front of the boat to herself... and a tan.

And now for the aforementioned famous Bolognese dinner!

We all desalted our pruney bodies and got to cooking. 

Daytime picture of the living room

Look at those funky noodles.. ha!

After dinner, 

we got dressed up and went out on the town.

These little dudes are everywhere

Still so strange

We ended up wandering over to the other side of the island

where we hadn't stepped foot yet.

This is where the only resort on the island lies.

Ramon's Village is pretty spectacular

Loved the tile in the bathroom

Der creeped in on me snapping the bathroom sink  #awkward

We hung out at Ramon's for a while,

just soaking in the first class lifestyle for a bit,

before we head back to our humble abode on the North side of the island.

These crabs get so aggressive... it is pretty funny. His pinchers are ready to attack right now. 

I forgot to mention that we got pretty lost for a while

trying to find this place called Pedro's that we were told to visit. 

We finally found it 

but it wasn't quite what we were expecting. 

So we left. 

But it's always nice to have a little unexpected adventure

that raises a little travelers fear. 

It wouldn't be a Jensen trip without it. 

On our walk back 

we found a little street market... my FAVE thing in the world!

So clearly we stopped 

and checked it out. 

The boys just waited patiently for us.

Good boys ;) 

Do you wanna take a selfie?

Believe it or not... I had never heard that song before. 

Kris informed me on this devastating bit of pop culture I had managed to evade.

We ended the night with Good Ol' Pirate Pizza. 

We had walked by a few times in the last couple days, 

and figured we'd better try it. 

Guess who we ran into!?!?

Pablo!

He works at Pirate Pizza. 

Him and Der had a nice little reunion. 

It's possible that this very pizza was the culprit for some pretty unexpected and very unwelcome bathroom visits over the next few days... for all of us.
Except Kris... she got lucky. 

Tasted like a good idea at the time though...

Day 3 

The next morning, feeling slightly under the weather, 

we headed out in search of something to settle our stomachs.

Derek stayed behind, 

he was feeling a bit worse than us. 

Makes sense, Derek doesn't mess around when it comes to pizza. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that there was a Lobster Fest going on that week. Unfortunately, we missed most of it.
But everywhere you turn you could get a lobster infused meal of some sort.

Note to self: Don't do crepes in Belize. Their idea of Nutella and strawberries... is jam and chocolate syrup.
Kris was pretty sad.

It was decided that today would be a good beach day 

because I am not sure we could handle much more. 

We just hung out on this dock right near our place

and soaked up some sun. 

Did a little snorkeling... 

Not much to see right by the shore. 

Except the occasional sting ray. 

They had these little cement domes down there 

that keep the fish around.
They are like little underwater playgrounds for fishy's :)

Poor Kris cut her foot on the barnacles 

that cling to the under side of the pier.
Ouch.

So Carl and I stayed for a while and searched for more creatures. 

We found this crazy guy!

He is like a giant sea spider. 

Eek!

After swimming and snorkeling, we headed back to the house 

to clean up and get ready for dinner. 

Unfortunately, Derek started to feel a little more sick.

Actually, I wasn't feeling super well either. 

It was one of those come and go kind of feelings. 

One minute you are great, 

and the next you are running for the bathroom. 

Not fun!

We ate at Fidos, 

one of the nicer, more popular restaurants on the shore. 

This was our last night here, so we saved the best for last. 

Sort of hard to enjoy 

being that some of us were a little under the weather. 

Not this girl though.... 

It was super windy out on the deck, so we went inside when a table opened up. 

Kris and I got the stuffed lobster to share.

We had to get lobster in honor of the annual

LOBSTERFEST,

which we neglected to celebrate the whole trip...
Accidentally, of course.

After dinner,we headed over to the weekly game of ....

Chicken Drop!!

This is a hilarious... but mostly just absurd game,

in which you bet on the number you think the 

dizzy chicken will drop his next doodie on.

It can be entertaining for a moment... 

but I was pretty much done after watching 

some super intoxicated, blonde, attention whore 

squeeze, twirl, and spin this terrified chicken around in circles. 

Kind of made me sick to my stomach. 

YES, I know... his brother was probably my lunch that day!

But it's a little different when it's torturing for entertainment

versus killing for food. 

Needless to say... 

We left early, and didn't wait to see the chicken drop. 

Derek was feeling pretty sick anyway... 

Look at that Derek face... pitiful. 

Day 4- Leaving San Pedro

Good Morning Belize...

We woke with the bittersweet disposition 

of having finished the first leg of our ever so anticipated 

summer adventure.

Moving onto your next destination is just barely exciting enough 

to overpower the sting that comes from concluding your first destination. 

Live in the moment!.. they say... 

Easier said than done. 

Goodbye Boca-Del-Rio... 

You will be missed. 

Our last ride in a golf cart

We hopped on a boat 

ready for our next adventure!

Belize City here we come!