White Castle Comes to San Pedro and Other Craziness

Event planning and editing pictures delayed my start on writing this post. I am over the top excited to announce that this year’s San Pedro Lighted Boat Parade was saved by Aqua Vista Beachfront Suites, Crazy Canucks Beach Bar, Sandbar San Pedro and Wayo’s Bar with part sponsorship by 5 others on the current flyer at the end of this post. Brittney from Sandbar messaged me asking if we were in and letting me know there will be a “best charity” cash prize – heck yeah! One of the first things I asked was if they were providing our ride and thankfully her answer was yes and that we get a Cadillac. Our boat is the Ecologic Divers Catamaran Impromptu – a favorite boat to all my decorating crew 😉

The second thing I am planning is whether to take the 8:00 am or 9:00 am Tropic flight to this year’s Volunteer awards ceremony at the Radisson in Belize City tomorrow. If I go early I can get a Spoonaz cafe breakfast on the way to the hotel.

This marks my 3rd year of ceremony attendance and the Governor General of Belize Sir Colville Young will be attending as he did for the first one. I loved his silver chopsticks parable to encourage us to help one another get ahead instead of being petty and self-serving. When I shook his hand and watched his face as he presented my volunteer of the year award, I could feel he genuinely cared and his sincerity matched his story.

Seeing the island kids reactions to their first taste of Belizean Countryside was also a highlight that trip. Imagine living on an island and never traveling further than your bike will take you, then get to enjoy a boat and bus ride. At the end of the trip, you get to hang out with horses, a Brahma bull, and fireflies. I have experienced all that at different times before and it was still amazing to me so I can only imagine the pure wanderlust they felt. To get an idea click through on my post: From Camping to Couture, the YWAM Roaring Creek Belize Experience.

To this day I sometimes take myself back to those moments and remind myself of the importance to stick with the cause in spite of the challenges. I know the community rewards will be great in the end.

Back to the Cadillac Catamaran 😀 Here are 3 colorful pictures that describe the ride on either of the Ecologic Cats. First: I have not met one person that did not love their aquatic adventure. Second: (also portrayed in the featured image above) – Everyone loves the freedom of kicking back on the water and enjoying nature on the Caribbean Sea as the sun sets. Third: setting sail makes it a special time. It gives you the same feeling you feel inside as when you watch a really good movie… only better because this time you are living it.

Onto the title of my post – White Castle comes to San Pedro and other craziness. Recently, I was having lunch with a traveler friend who is looking for a change in life and was here to gain more insight into marine practices in the Caribbean – specifically Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker this trip.

Inspired by one of our conversations over lunch on the high prices of snack food, I decided to see what kind of crazy food items I could find walking home. Anyone who has been grocery shopping here knows what I mean. You can find the weirdest things on the shelves.

I knew Island City (the old Island Supermarket) across from Island Academy and Mermaid store were the perfect places to play around with some artistic food photojournalism. The picture story portrays adjectives both locals and tourists often use to describe Ambergris Caye by crazy through things I found at the two supermarkets.

Colorful and Fun

If you only knew how hard I searched high and low for this first item and could not find any for our Vampire Blood Drive commercial? And here it was a hot sunny day in December a year and a couple months later and what do I find a big @ss bag of cheap plastic Vampire teeth and candy on the shelf for a mere $9.95. I threw in the Ju Ju fish cause not only are they colorful like the island, they are a good cost of living example. In the States, those candies would have been priced at 2 for $1.50 or 89 cents a pack. Here they are straight up $3.95 Belize dollars, almost $2 USD.

Sometimes Expensive 

The $49.95 3lb bag of miniature assortments chocolates, extra strong ginger candies for $81.95 (complete with 4 fake ingredients and no real ones) and the $19.95 10 fl oz coco mango sauce all in Belize currency and all qualify high on the scale for crazy pricing.

Highly Entertaining and Sometimes Strange

The cartoon ninja chocolate covered rice definitely qualify for entertaining. They had a strawberry flavored bicycling rice themed one too. The bottom right burger box pic, if you have ever partied in San Pedro you have had your own Belizean version of a Harold and Kumar go to White Castle moment. A crazy series of events including too many Belikin beers or getting rum punched; followed by the grand finale of people longing for street meat in the park and a few lucky stray dogs. The top right picture of Wasabi peas with gummy hamburgers and a package of “Dried Potato Strips” definitely qualifies for strange which is just like the unique mix of people that end up here. haha.

Some other interesting stuff around town. If you have been following Ambergris Caye News, you will know that the San Pedro Town Council is revamping Centra Park and have started the process of moving the souvenir vendors. Closer to the sea for now then long-range plan is the west side of town. The bottom pics show some of the changes going on in the park. The top two bike shots I added for fun, I liked that the first guy was carrying his ride – I am sure he was feeling a little bah humbug.

And of course, since I started with Christmas news it is fitting to finish with a Christmas collage. A well-known dynamic duo decked their cart. Kelly and Mukul Kanabar (owners of Red Ginger and Blue Water Grill restaurants) made their cart a little festive and added a touch candylicious. Followed by a few more Christmas themed pictures as decorations start going up around town.