Belize City, Belize 3-15-11

What did we see besides the jungle and beautiful river? Lots of poverty. Not nearly as poor as west Africa but right along there. There is one photo of a small steel container that someone obviously stole from a shipyard and put it up on blocks, cut out a door and put a padlock on it. That is a home. No windows, no bathrooms, no kitchen...got it? There are a lot of Squatters in Belize from other countries. The government allows it. The country only gained it's Independence in 1973. They have people from Honduras, India, Africa (the poorest parts)..all squatting on small pieces of land. Belize is about the same size as Massachusetts. It has the second largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere, second only to the great barrier reef. Belize is the only country in central america where English is the official language, Spanish is second. However, the locals speak a crazy kind of creole english that is not recognizable as english. This country only has about 250,000 people. They also have had many Chinese immigrants of late. This tiny country used to be part of Honduras, has a great Mayan civilization history, as well as pirates and slavery. Today it is and independent and democratic country. They have more trees than people that we found out for sure.
There is a photo of a cemetery. It makes you think that they bury their dead above ground. They do not. However, they only bury 3 feet deep and then put a concrete decorative vault on top of the grave, much like the people in Mexico.

We had a great guide in Belize, Ali. She knew everything there is to know about every tree in Belize! Very interesting. We had a jungle hike that took about 45 minutes, we were all carrying our inner tubes and wearing life jackets for the hike. When we reached the top, we all got in the river for our "float" through the caves and rapids. It was really interesting. Good news/bad news...no cameras! Ha! No great pictures of the four of us hiking/schelpping/trudging through the jungle! There were trees there that they call the "Tourist" trees. They have red bark, peel and then turn white! Ha! Sound like a sunburned tourist?? They have trees that you run to and chew on the bark if you happen to be bitten by one of their 9 poisonous snakes. Too bad we can't remember the name of the tree to run to!!
Did any of you know that termites have a minty taste?? Really? Minty, yes! We stopped along the path in the jungle, always on the lookout for jaguars and snakes so Ali, our wonderful guide, could crack open a termite mound and offer us a taste of those little wigglers!
Belize was last hit by a hurricane in 2006. Some of that damage is still in full view.
The river we floated down as cool and a welcome cool, as we were ready to cool off when we got to the top. We all had really nice headgear. Miner helmets fully loaded with halogen lighting so we could see formations in the caves and of course the bats!!














The catch phrase for the country is "Unbeliezeable"!! Very cute!






Welcome to Belize!

Key West, Florida March 13th, 2011

Cuban sandwiches for lunch!
Visiting with Mr. Knight. We hope to see Mr. Knight again very soon!
Mr. Knight keep doing your 30 minute a day workouts and traveling the world! You are welcome in Alabama always. Hope to see you again someplace wonderful soon. You are a delight and pleasure to be with. Thank you for loving our family! We love you too!








When Earnest Hemmingway found out that his favorite bar had lost it's lease he was there to buy some of the things the bar owner was ripping out of the walls. This is a lovely drinking fountain for the cats but the basin is actually the old urinal that came out of the bar. His wife tried desperately and with a lot of success to disguise it with tiles. She wanted him to get rid of it. He told her when she got rid of "her" pool, he'd get rid of "his"! Too funny!!
We tried to eat at Blue Heaven but there was a long wait. This photo is for our friends Sondra and Hank, we tried!
The all too funny, Floyd's barber shop. It is not Mayberry but funny!

The t-shirt photo was taken for Chuck.







This in ground pool cost $30,000 dollars back in the 1930's! When he and his wife at the time got a bid to have it put in their garden, he said no way, too much! When his wife at that time found out he was having an affair, as soon as he was off to Europe with his girlfriend, she had the pool installed. When he got back and saw the pool there he told her she was going to spend his last "red cent". In the concrete, she had a penny encased as to relish the fact that she did at least try to spend his last red cent!











Being a tree lover/hugger we had to snap a picture of the Banyan tree. It was right near the estate of Earnest Hemmingay. The corner shot of Earnest Hemmingway's house is exactly that, a corner of the block. His estate takes up the block. Can you imagine what this would sell for today (if the real estate market was good)??



The extra large chocolate chip cookies were tempting but we were on our way to what we were hoping would be a really special Key West type of lunch and Cuban atmosphere. The big reddish building is a dance center and the large statue was just too great to pass up a photo!




Key West is certainly and interesting place!
The two big attractions were to see the homes of two famous people. One person you have heard of, or 99% of you have, Earnest Hemmingway. He is dead and gone. The other, Mr. Edward Knight. About 75% of you may know of him. He is alive and well, living on his island in Key West at the age of 94! What a wonderful man. Full of stories about Key West back in the 30's, what World War II was like in Key West, knowing Earnest Hemmingway, knowing President Truman, all the musicians that sat and played the same piano that he invited Kathleen to play in his home. Seems that Xavier Cugat was a regular there. His influence of Cuban music in Key West still exists today. Mr. Knight made many trips to Cuba and speaks of those days very fondly. We had a wonderful history lesson and really think the wold of Mr. Knight.
Our tour into Earnest Hemmingway's home was made really great by our tour guide. Stan from Ohio! He was great. Although Earnest Hemminway did not live in this home very long, he did most of his writing in a small guest house behind the house. This is where he wrote his classics, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. What we did learn was he was a very young man when he lived here. He was only 31 years old and did not resemble those grey haired pictures you see of him all the time. He was a dark haired nice looking man. Maybe that is why he was such a ladies man! He had 4 wives and many girlfriends. His love of cats still lives on. There are about 20 cats that still live on the property there. A special species of cats with six toes no less. One cat, named Frances, was on his king sized bed and never stirred while we looked through his bedroom. Almost looked stuffed but opened one eye and gave us a look!
The house is built on the highest point in Key West which is 16 feet above sea level. Very smart on his past. He got cross windsthat kept the house cool and he even had a basement in this house which is unheard of in Key West! He kept his favorite wine there, as it was very cool in the basement.

Spring Break 2011

We are off to Key West, Belize, Guatemala and Cozumel.

Made it home May 12, 2010

For anyone who kept up with our travels this past trip, you probably noticed that our trip "ended" before we made it back. It didn't. I was just not up to speed physically. That "parasite" I got in Tanzania was a souvenir that hung on for 2 weeks and really took me down. We had about 3 weeks of travel left the day I got sick, so the entire west coast of Africa was seen not at 100% for sure. The "crossing" was nothing spectacular, except some people reported that they had seen a "green flash". We have never seen one, so we watched many a sunset on the way home hoping to see one, never did! That means we will have to make another trip to the middle of the ocean again one day and hope for a severe clear sunset that produces a "green flash".

To end the story for 2010, it was one if not the most remote we have ever travelled. Some of the places we saw were take your breathe away beautiful and some were so poverty and disease ridden that it was hard to look at it. No matter where you go, you can always find beauty, even if it is not the kind of beauty you see in travel books or magazines. Sometimes beauty can be smiles and waves from people who have absolutely nothing, but are very happy you came to see their country. This trip left us with eyes wide open. Is Western Africa a place most people will travel, no. Should they if given the opportunity, definitely. It is the poorest part of the world. However, they smile and wave like they are living in luxury. That is beautiful.

I am hoping to post some of our favorites that you have not yet seen. If we get a lesson or 10 we might can do video as well.

There may be a "green flash" in our future. Stay tuned. We are considering a trip in the spring of 2011.

Cape Verde, Sunday May 2nd, 2010

Arriving early on a Sunday morning, the Catholic family decided to take in mass on the island. Although they speak Portuguese here, all Catholics know that the parts of the mass are the same and you can fully participate, although the homily is hard to follow! We started out a little bit on the wrong road. We were given information from a gal that came onto the ship as a city representative that the Sunday mass would be at 10:00a.m. Knowing this we wanted to go early because we had no idea where it was and needed to take a cab or shuttle into the town and find it. After making only a few wrong turns on these very beautiful cobblestone streets, I stopped a man and he in broken English pointed out where to find the church. We got there. 40 minutes early!! Mass did not start until 10:30a.m. We walked around the church area for a while and then took our pew. You would have thought that we all had bananas on our heads! People were staring at us like we had certainly made a big mistake but when we did not leave during the almost 2 hour mass...they figured out that we were probably the family from Alabama that they had heard about on the Internet! Two hours of swatting flies and enjoying the really great music provided by their youth choir. It was great. However, the man across the aisle from us must have had bacon in his pocket because at one point there were about 25 flies on his pocket! fter mass we looked for a lunch spot. That wasn't too easy. he roads are not marked well and nobody really speaks English. We found two policemen and one of them spoke Spanish! Yippee! Communication at last! If you are considering learning a foreign language, don't just consider it anymore. Do it. Might we suggest Spanish or Mandarin. These are the two languages that seem to be taking over the world.
Found the lunch spot and had a great meal and watched the local life. We found a few small shops open. Not much was open because it was Sunday. It turned out to be one of our favorite tours and we had no idea what we were doing. We just got lucky and ran into some nice people.
Because of this islands' remote location it is different than any other part of Africa. It is also richer, better educated and healthier than any other country in Africa. They are well known for having HUGE Mardi Gras celebrations and it feels like you are in Rio here more than you are in Africa. They speak Portuguese like in Brazil, they dance like they do in Brazil and the people are beautiful like they are in Brazil. Although it is hard to get to, this would be a place we would tell you to highlight and make a trip. It is enchanting.