I want to apologize to all of you who were concerned about not hearing that I’d gotten back safely. I’ve even forced 2 of you to write to Tricia to see if I was still alive. To tell you the truth I’ve been lazy since I got back… Sorry!
Since I’ve been home from Orlando for 10 days now I thought it best that I find my way to the internet to assure you all that I was actually home and not put in jail when I entered Belize again. You would have heard of any catastrophic airline event when I traveled home so jail was my next thought. No such luck so the rest of this may be pretty boring…
I flew back to Hopkins on Wednesday Aug 10th and my trip through the Customs and Immigration queues was a non-event. I still wasn’t sure whether or not I would be snagged to pay the US$1000 fine that I had been told I would have to pay but I was quickly stamped through Immigration with a new 1 month visa. I brought 100 pounds of food and fishing equipment in 2 suitcases but passed through the “nothing to declare” lane after answering a few questions about what I was bringing into the country. I did tell a white lie about the number of cigars I brought with me though. You are only allowed to bring in 25 and I brought in 50. But hey, I’m going to be here a while and cigars are very hard to come by. I had a 50 minute wait for my 15 minute flight to Dangriga. That sure beats a 3 hour car ride. Before I checked in for my Maya Island flight I opened my 2 food/fishing suitcases and found that the luggage gorillas had had a lot of fun with my can goods. Almost every can was dented, some badly, but nothing ruptured. Steve, a long time resident of Kismet, met me at the airport and helped me get my ton of luggage into his pick up. I paid for my ride by buying dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. He had shrimp egg foo yung and I had a pretty good curry shrimp dish and fried rice. Steve was pretty well wasted when he picked me up so I did the driving. We reached Kismet about 7pm and Tricia was already sleeping. My trailer welcomed me home with the smell of mildew. I’d forgotten to leave a fan running to keep the air moving when I left. I got everything inside and in 30 minutes, with a bunch of Lysol Antiseptic wipe, my problem was taken care of. I left my suitcases packed and headed for bed because I was wiped out. I’d been up since 5am eastern and the stress of the trip had beaten me up. I mean I wasn’t sure what would happen in Immigration so I was pretty wound up. My kids are taking my being out of the country harder than they let on and I’m finding that hard to deal with. Plus, the worst case scenario I was imagining was having to pay the visa fine and having to spend another night in jail if the Treasury office wasn’t open again so I could pay it. I did bring the thousand with me just in case though. But anyway… It was a bit of a hot night. The temp was still over 90 and I found that I had lost my former non-air conditioned mind set. Rich keeps his apartment at 77 degrees at night and I’d gotten used to it, which made my fan not quite cool enough. I know I’ll be back to “normal” in a few days though. I spent Thursday morning unpacking and stowing my food and piling up my dirty clothes for the laundry. Around 10:30 I heard Tricia talking so I went up and said hello. She was glad to see me back and I was glad to see her too. We caught each other up on the last 2 weeks and then back to unpacking for me. Peter stopped by early (2pm) and said the fishing has been iffy. That’s the one thing that I really missed while being in Orlando. Peter said fishing was better earlier in the day now because of the tide. I wasn’t ready to go though because I hadn’t unpacked my new fishing reels nor put new line on them. So I spent the day watching videos and resting up. My 1st meal back was chicken and Stove Top Stuffing at 4pm followed by coconut cookies for desert. I’m drinking a lot of water to get myself hydrated again because I can feel the effects of not drinking during my traveling. Tomorrow (Friday) I’ll get back to my normal daily “retired” routine after a trip to the local food store and veggie market to refill my fridge.
Friday evening (8/13) was my 1st fishing trip to the lagoon since I returned was hopefully a harbinger of fishing to come! In the hour I spent there I caught a small barracuda, a nice black snapper, and a nice snook plus lost a few fish as well. Peter did pretty well netting snook too so we both went home happy. Net fishing is so-so and rod/reel is the pits the last 2 times out. So I guess the lagoon was just saying hello welcome back. Oh well you can’t catch fish every time out. That’s what makes it interesting.
The picture is of a 5-3/4 pound snapper that I caught this morning and which Tricia will be cooking for our dinner tonight. I also got a smaller one plus a small snook and decent size catfish last night.
Steve’s “rich American” persona has gotten the best of him again. About a month ago a local named Kenny got mad at him because he didn’t have whatever he, Kenny, came begging for so he broke Steve’s passenger side window with a Guinness bottle. Kenny is jail now awaiting trial. He can’t pay the bail so there he’ll sit until then. The penalty for damaging private property is 5 years in the Ladysville prison so we won’t be seeing him for a while. Anyway, because EVERYONE in Hopkins and Dangriga knows that Steve is rich they prey on him. Friday night while he was drinking in a Dangriga bar someone broke his driver’s side window and stole his laptop. Me, I’ve left my laptop unlocked in my car or Ron’s van many a day in Hopkins and Dangriga and never had a problem. Everyone knows I’m poor and I don’t flash a lot of money or personal effects around where people can see like Steve. The good thing though is that the Dangriga police found his laptop, probably because Steve’s laptop security is his finger print and they couldn’t bypass it (even the “PC techs” here are pretty unskilled). But, needless to say, Steve brings a lot, if not all, his misfortune on himself because of the way people see him. He’s always handing out BZ$50 bills, alcohol, and/or drugs to everyone he meets. I just wish he’d hand some of the money to me! LOL
As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!
