When we got back to our room after diving, the maintenance man was sitting outside of our door with the air conditioner motor in pieces. Fortunately it didn’t take to long after that for him to finish and soon cold air was pumping into our condo.

We took the water taxi into town for dinner at Caliente. Nick ordered some delicious nachos for an appetizer, and I ate chicken fajitas for dinner. They had a delicious citrus sauce that seemed to go with everything. The highlight of the evening was definitely Ted wearing a sombrero and riding a fake donkey.

After dinner we got ice cream from Manelly’s. No pistachio this time, but the coconut was delicious. No creepy mechanical Santa either, and the fish tank was clean. Both pluses!

Today, Kristen and I decided to opt out of diving. After being here for two days, we decided we needed and deserved a day of doing nothing. Yesterday, Eli told us that the power in our unit would be out from 8 am–1 pm because they were hooking up a generator in case of future power outages, so we planned for a relaxing day by the pool.

Kristen rented a bicycle in the morning and ventured to the closest market to find a band-aid. They didn’t have any. They didn’t have eggs, either, but while she was shopping, they went and got her a dozen. Gotta love this place.

The power went out around 9 am. I computed until Kristen came back, then lubed up with sunscreen. Kristen took the bike out one more time while I headed down to the pool with our stuff. One key and all . . .

Damn, it was a scorcher.

Kristen wasn’t gone long, and she came back all sweaty. We set up a lounging station by the pool with two chairs and two umbrellas and immersed ourselves in our readers. Amir dropped by every 15 minutes or so to make sure we had enough to drink and to remind us to put sunscreen on. He also informed us the temp was 101. Even in the shade, I felt like I was in the sun, and the burn I acquired yesterday was very displeased.

After a few drinks, Kristen switched to virgins. Then we ordered lunch—conch ceviche and a club sandwich to share. The divers came back not long after, and everyone enjoyed lunch and drinks poolside. I took a nap. Cindy and Kristen were kind enough to keep me shaded while I slept.

When I got back in the room, it was hot. Not a fun day for the A/C to be off. Again. It was worse than the first day. The power returned around 4 pm. A loud whooshing noise woke me from my almost-sleep as the fans, fridge, and other devices kicked on.

Curtis delivered sad news. Amir was told he wasn’t needed anymore and he wouldn’t be returning tomorrow. Kristen and I were very disappointed to hear this, and I was bummed that I would have had the chance to say goodbye if I stayed at the pool a tad bit longer.

After the power had been on a bit, Kristen noticed the place wasn’t cooling. We called the front desk, and they sent up their all-purpose repair man.

The seven of us congretated in our hot condo and ordered pizza. None of us really felt like going out at all, and we didn’t want to eat at Foot Prints again. Or I didn’t, anyway. That and I was a little bitter about no more Amir. Sure it was his trial week, but he was supposed to work through Sunday. I have to imagine they just don’t have enough guests right now to support more staff at the restaurant, and that it didn’t have anything to do with him personally. I hope he finds work quickly.

Some time later, someone came up with a key to the unit below us. He told us we could sleep there and they would fix the A/C again tomorrow. Kristen, Cindy, Ellie, and I went downstairs to check it out. It’s a much ritzier version of our unit.

We ate pizza and watched some show about SNL on VH1 before heading down to the cold condo for bed.

We woke up early after getting a good night’s sleep. Thank you, air conditioning! Kristen made oatmeal for breakfast, and I felt right at home Blog Cabin. We moseyed on down to the pier at 8:30 to be picked up by the dive shop.

After we dove, we took a dip in the pool. Ted, Ellie, Nick and I took full advantage of the swim-up bar. Ted and I ordered a banana daquiris, Ellie got a piña colada, and Nick ordered a club sandwich. Kristen didn’t want to get in (wimp), so I ordered her a margarita and swam it to her.

After I finished my drink, I went back to the room to make a sandwich of my own. I didn’t feel like putting on sunscreen before going back to the pool (it was after 2 pm), so I didn’t. Ted was kind enough to position an umbrella over my chair. The shade didn’t cover the whole thing, so I had to curl up in a little ball. I started feeling toasty after about an hour, so I headed back to the room. Yep, I was burnt. The damage had already been done. My tan lines were from the swimmer I wore diving. Since I don’t typically apply sunscreen before diving, I have to assume I got over sunned on the surface interval. I was in the shade, but I was on the dock. Next time I’ll bring sunscreen for in between or I’ll find a shady spot on the beach to sit.

After being in the sun, I lay down for a nap and crashed hard. When I woke up, I had just enough time to shower before dinner. We took the water taxi into town. The 15 minute straight-shot was much faster than renting a golf cart would be (vehicles aren’t permitted past the north bridge, so taking a cab from the resort isn’t an option).

We only had to walk about five blocks to get to El Patio, the restaurant I raved about in one of my prior posts. Of course that was all the distance Kristen needed to stub her toe on a hidden shell and gush blood all over her foot. A man selling his reggae CD started pitching a sale to us and Kristen asked him if he had any band-aids. He rushed her into a store. Cindy followed, not wanting poor Kristen to be alone. Apparently the reggae guy asked the store owner if he had a band-aid, to which he replied, “No man, I sell weed.” Kristen eventually got a band-aid and purchased the CD from the reggae guy for $5.

We made it to El Patio otherwise unscathed. I ordered the same meal I had last time—spicy coconut snapper fillet with coconut rice and garden salad with ranch dressing—and was slightly disappointed. Not that it was bad by any means, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Maybe my memory was just wrong. The meal was great, but what was bad was the ranch dressing. In my prior post, I said it was the best ranch dressing I’ve ever tasted ever in the whole entire world’s history of ranch dressing . . . or something along those lines. This time it was probably the worst ranch dressing I’ve ever tasted ever in the whole entire world’s history of bad ranch dressing. It was thick, super thick like the consistency of mayo, and didn’t have much flavor. And it was room tempurature. Blech. Oh well, I probably would have still picked the same side items if I didn’t have a preconceived notion of what was good.

After dinner we stopped at The Salty Dog souvenir store. I bought a new sachel purse ’cause I left mine at home. I’m really excited to use it when we go on a tour of the ruins. Nick got a t-shirt and a bell for Grandma, and we also bought some chocolate. After that we hurried back to the Coastal Xpress water taxi station and went home hotel.

Without air conditioning, I woke up in a pool of sweat. The temps inside the condo had made their way into the 80’s. My phone said it was 6:22 am. I felt awake (that’s what happens when you go to bed at 10, apparently) but went back to sleep anyway. Nick woke me up at 7. Curtis and Kristen had abandoned us. From our window, I could see them sitting poolside, so we crashed their party and joined them for breakfast.

The only ones eating were the four of us. It was nice and peaceful. This was the first week the bar served breakfast, so everything is still pretty new. While we were waiting for our food, Kristen went to the front office with a list of our demands. Apparently this was the first time our condo had been rented (suspiciously enough, there was a used razor and a bottle of baby oil in our bathroom).

After breakfast, K and I went back to the room so she could put a swimmer on. The maintenance guy was waiting for us there with a wireless router (woo-hoo!). Getting the interweb connection working was a simple task. The A/C, on the other hand, took a bit longer. Kristen went down to the pool while I stayed in the room so the guy could have access.

I started to get a bit of cabin fever, especially with the heat. I read my 2007 Belize posts, put on some music (iPod docking stations everywhere FTMFW), paced a bit, thought about reading but decided it would be miserable because I’d have to think and it was too hot, put on sunscreen, and made promises I had no intention of keeping to any god who would listen for a bit of cold air. I also snooped around the kitchen a bit. There’s a box of Dream Whip. It must be a hot commodity. There’s also a folder labeled “unit activity” which included the cleaning records. There were two pages of cleaning history. They sure cleaned this place a lot seeing it’s never been rented . . .

Relief came in the form of going to town with Kristen and Cindy. We rented a golf cart. The journey was long and arduous. The potholes threatened to swallow us whole, and the day was a scorcher, amplified by the inability to escape the heat. The market was pretty slim pickin’s, but we made due. Kristen was hell bent on buying oatmeal (we later found an open container of Quaker in our room, which hasn’t been rented). We also stopped at a liquor store called Liquor Box (lolollllllll). We were going to go to the far south end of the island to get a case of Belikin but it was noon, and because we had to be ready to dive at 1:30, we decided the boys could go get it themselves.

We ate a quick lunch at the resort. I had conche ceviche. Mmmmm. They were out of Coke, so I ordered an orange Fanta instead. After that, we went diving!

When we returned from diving the A/C was working. Cold air and interwebs, what more do we need? After computing in the room for a tad, we went back to the restaurant, which is named Foot Prints, btw, and had Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, stuffing, rice, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, and cranberries. Nick ordered an orange Fanta, but sometime between lunch and now, the entire soda machine broke down. For those of you who don’t know, it’s been over a year since Nick has last drunk pop. Kristen and I had Panty Rippers, an island drink of coconut rum and pineapple juice. I topped that off with a Dirty Banana which is a banana daquiri with chocolate syrup drizzles around the glass. They were both good, but I think the piña coladas from the night before were much better.

Dessert was included with the meal as well. There are five or six desserts listed on the menu along with a note to ask the server which two are available on the particular night. The choices were cheesecake or lemon pie. But there was only one piece of cheesecake left. Ha ha ha. Ellie got the cheesecake, the rest of us had the pie. It was the consistency of a lemon cheesecake, though, so I was happy. Foot Prints has been a delicious, fun, and convenient experience, but I’m more than ready to venture into town for dinner. Especially after reading about how fantastic all our meals were last time.

It’s 9:10 now and I’m getting pretty sleepy. I’m going to hit the hay and be well rested for our dives in the AM.

After sitting in the Houston airport for what felt like hours, we finally arrived in Belize City. Immigrations and Customs went smoothly. We only had to wait about an hour for our flight to Ambergris Caye. The Stress God from our trip 3 years is still waiting in the terminal.

2007:

2010:

The plane we took to San Pedro was double the size that it was last time we were here. This one sat 14 passengers. A man from our resort, Grand Caribe, met us at the airport once we arrived. We hauled our luggage across the street and down the beach and took a water taxi to the resort.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I forgot to pack a beach bag and my sachel purse. Fortunately BRK had an extra bag I can use.

The resort is very nice. There were flower petals sprinkled all over the place, and I counted 24 throw pillows. Impressive. Unfortunately the wireless interwebs aren’t working at the moment, so I’m tethered to the wall by a 5′ cable. Also one of our keys doesn’t work. Also the A/C isn’t A/Cing. Hopefully all will be resolved tomorrow.

We ate dinner at the restaurant here, which is actually the inside of the swim up bar (woo-hoo! swim up bar!). I had the special—chicken dijonnaise with potatoes au gratin and steamed vegetables—which was delicious. Then, to our pleasant surprise, our bartender is none other than Amir, our main waiter at Banyon Bay in 2007:

When we got back to Banyan Bay Kristen and I went poolside and there I ordered a banana daiquiri to quench my banana craving. Amir (who I haven’t mentioned prior to this point because I didn’t know his name), our waiter for about 70% of our Rico visits, was now on poolside duty (first time all week someone has served poolside). He said he will be manning the swim up bar when it opens in a couple of weeks, but it’s not busy enough now. Nick came to join us at the pool while Curtis napped in the room.

http://www.jillapalooza.com/2007/12/belize-friday-1214

He was still at Banyon Bay up until two days ago and this is kind of his trial week at Grand Caribe. What perfect timing! It was meant to be. Between him, Eli (who worked at Bottom Time Dive in 2007 and now works at Grand Caribe), and Rudy (who also worked at Bottom Time and has now branched off on his own) there will be plenty of familiar, friendly faces over the next 11 days.

For more photos, visit the gallery.