Up before the sun today – getting ready to catch the 7 am boat for Belize city.

Our first stop is the eye doctor on St Thomas St – Carole said if you go early in the morning you will be seen quickly. After that we go to the Canadian Consulate to turn in our applications for new passports – fingers crossed our pictures are the right size and everything goes quickly and easily when they send it to Guatemala for processing. Once we are done that we will take advantage of being in the city and do a bit of shopping before we head for home.

Sure glad I got stuff ready last night and miracle of miracles I finally got my ipod shuffle loaded with a basic play list.

Who is on my ipod at the moment…
Groove Armada, Superstylin – Lil Bow Wow and Snoop, Ludacris, pimpn all over the world – Coolio, Fantastic Voyage – Snoop Dog, Gin and Juice – Outkast, Hey Ya – Spice Girls, Holler – Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas, – Culture, Natty never get weary, International Herb – Van Morrison, Dancing in the moonlight – James Blunt, Your Beautiful – George Harrison, My Sweet Lord – Oasis, Champagne Supernova – Santana, Oye Commo Va – Gwen Stefani, Rich Girl – Sheryl Crow, All I want – Sting, Dessert Rose – Beach Boys, Catch a wave – Beatles & Ravi Shankar, Across the Universe – Weezer, Island in the Sun – Galliano, Prince of Peace – Everclear, wonderful – Remy Shand, Rock Steady, Take a Message – Ka’au Crater Boys, Surf – Steel drum band, Rum Cola – Buena Vista Social Club, Havana Club – Soweto, album Jive Soweto – World Chill album.

We were running a few minutes late to catch the boat this morning which ended up making us early for the eye doctor. How so you might be wondering? Well as we stepped out the door at 6:50 am discussing how we would not make the express boat as Caye Caulker water taxi leaves from Wet Willy’s Pier now I said to Paul we have just enough time to get to the airport and on the 7 am flight to Municipal airport which would put is right near the eye doctor.

Dr Valdez and all his staff were very nice. I highly recommend them. We were both happy to find out that Paul did not need a new prescription, we did inquire into prescription sunglasses for him but Dr Valdez said Paul would do just as well buying clips for his glasses and save money that way. I did not need regular glasses but could use +100 reading glasses if I felt the need – lately reading packaging is a bit difficult. He also prescribed drops for us and explained that we need to be especially vigilant about washing our eyes especially with all the dust here and said we could use baby shampoo as it is very mild and do warm compresses occasionally. Our visit cost us $220 bzd in total. $75 each for check ups – $15 for Pauls clip on sunglasses – $35 for 2 sets eye drops – $20 gst. DR. Victorian Valdez Ophthalmologist, Retinologist, Eye Physician and surgeon. Corner of St Thomas and Lizarraga Ave Belize City 223-5886

Our next destination was not far so we decided to walk. Th receptionist at the eye doctor gave us very good directions and pointed out exactly where we needed to go on my map. We found the Canadian Consulate very easily – rang the bell and Miss Pook answered right away and brought us into her office. She was very pleasant and we chatted and joked a bit while she helped us get our id photocopied and our papers ready to go to the Embassy in Guatemala. We opted to get 24 extra pages in our new passports and the cost for each of us was $212 bzd – it was $10 each for extra pages.

After finishing up at the consulate we decided to continue on our way by foot so we headed off for Save U supermarket. I was glad to find that things were not a lot cheaper there than in San Pedro – makes me feel like I am not missing so much – except a bit more selection – a proper produce section and giant avocados.

Next Stop Mirab – took us a while longer to walk there but we made it – lost count of the number of times we were offered cab rides. Paul said I could look around as long as I liked there because of the air conditioning. We did a once over and I ended up with a yellow metal lime squeezer, a glass jar to keep my cotton face pads in and a pack of cotton face pads.

One last stop at Brodies before we catch the boat. They had some ok stuff there but it smelled a bit funny which put me off. We did score cheap dish sponges jar coffee and a few other things. They even had a decent selection of magazines and the prices were not too bad when you converted to usd pricing but by that time we were both to tired to pick one.

Blue boarding passes to gate b

Boarding passes please

Canal by Fire Coral street

Landing in Caye Caulker

Municipal Airport

Walking from the airport to the eye doctor

Valdez eye doctor

Paul looking at frames

Waiting room

Getting my eyes checked

Paul getting his eyes checked

Birds nest

Canadian Consulate

Horse standing on the sidewalk

Crossing the road on foot bridge

Save U grocery store

Omg a real produce department – the guys are even wearing freezer jackets

Avocados as big as your head – well almost

Covered belikin beer wagon

Construction

Boats from swing bridge

Brodies store

Climbing on a truck

Boat full of boats

Waiting for Caye Caulker Water taxi

Boarding the boat

Lots of people

Doesn’t that make you want to go swimming?

Back in San pedro heading to Wet Willy’s dock

Boys watching the boat come in

People getting off the boat