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We almost didn’t make it to Belize, as a matter of fact.
Late on Friday the 12th, Kat called to tell me that our noon flight the next day had been canceled due to a possible impending winter storm in Dallas. The temperature was still well above freezing, and it wasn’t expected to drop below that point until late Saturday night, by which time we would have been in Belize already. I suspect that it was canceled, not because we’d have to fly through any icy weather to get to our destination, but instead because of OTHER flights from other northern places having to be rescheduled and the airport being one big clusterfuck of stranded travellers. I imagine that they cancelled a whole bunch of flights that weren’t full or that weren’t considered “essential.”
What are the odds of only the 2nd day of frozen precipitation that we have had in Dallas this season, happening on the same day that we are supposed to fly out on vacation? Pretty good odds, apparently.
American Airlines gave us the option of getting our money back, or rescheduling our flight for Sunday or Monday. Sunday and Monday’s forecast was looking to be about the same as Saturday, and we didn’t want to risk having to wait until Tuesday or later to get to Belize, especially since we’d already paid for our hotel, nonrefundable. (We found out later that the cold icy weather lasted all week long, culminating in a citywide shutdown on Wednesday.)
Kat and I talked until well after midnight via IM, trying to come up with a plan. We decided to get our money back from AA and to book a flight on Continental instead… out of Houston. Our flight time was 1:40 p.m., which meant that we’d have to start driving to Houston in the wee hours of the morning.
We finished packing and double-checking our luggage, travel documents, etc., then went to bed for a few short hours of sleep.
We were on the road by 5:30 a.m. Mom had graciously agreed to house-sit for us while we were gone. I thought it was kind of ironic that she’d flown in from Houston the previous day, and now we had to drive down there ourselves only a few hours later.
On the drive down, I was not feeling well and we kept having to stop every 30 minutes or so. I guess I was stressed out from the possibility of our vacation dissolving before our eyes. I have a sensitive tummy anyway, and the added stress of having to change our carefully crafted plans at the last minute made me a little sick.
We arrived at the airport, parked our car in a remote lot, found Kat & Brett, and made it in plenty of time to our plane. The flight itself was blessedly uneventful, and we landed in Belize City only 30 minutes before our connecting flight to Dangriga was scheduled to leave. We disembarked the plane directly onto the tarmac and waited in a crazy long line to get through immigration. All of us were convinced by this point that we were not going to make it to our next flight. Immigration went very smoothly, but it took forever for our luggage to come out on the conveyor belt (put there by a guy standing in an open doorway, hauling the suitcases off a cart that someone had driven up to the door). Then we had to go to the ticketing counters to get our new boarding passes, which didn’t really take that long, but every minute that ticked by was that much less of a chance that we’d make our flight. By the time we were done, it was ten minutes past departure time. Then we had to go through customs, which was another long line.
We hauled ass to the gate (one of only three at the airport!) and, beyond all odds, were told that the plane was still here waiting for us, and to have a seat for a few minutes until they were ready for us. Brett went to the bar and got us a very-much-needed fruity tropical drink that the we shared before being escorted across the tarmac to our 12-seater single-propeller plane.
I thought that I’d be kind of freaked out on the little plane, since the last time I was on one I had a panic attack, but it was actually kind of fun and rather soothing (this is very likely because I was so relieved that we were actually ON this plane instead of stuck overnight in Belize City!). We flew over shrimp farms, swamplands, tree-packed hills, and what must have been tens of thousands of orange trees, arranged neatly in little orchards. When the plane came down in Dangriga, that runway didn’t look nearly long enough and so I had a little fit of apprehension. Doc was taking photos out the window the whole flight, and Brett was giggling from excitement at the size of the runway, as well as the fact that if we overshot it, we’d end up in the Caribbean Ocean.
I guess that little planes don’t require too much, though, because the runway was just fine. The Dangriga airport consists of that one tiny runway and a tiny little building with a ticket counter, a few chairs, and a TV.
A driver from Hamanasi was waiting to take us to the resort, so we loaded all our luggage into the van and from there it was a very bumpy 30 minute drive down a rough highway, through the little village of Hopkins, and finally to the resort.
We were greeted at the door with glasses of fruit punch, and then shown to our rooms. Our room was extremely nice and very spacious, with a Spanish tile floor and solid wood furniture. We had a sofa, wardrobe, table and chairs, solid wood 4-poster bed with a shelf at the head of the bed, and a bathroom with beautiful deep green tiles and an open shower with a window opening up onto the tropical landscape. We unpacked our clothing into the wardrobe, took a few minutes to relax and freshen up, and then went downstairs to meet everyone for dinner.
All meals are served in the main house of the resort, and they require dinner reservations each night so that they can spread out all the guests over a 6:30 to 8:30 period so as not to overwhelm the kitchen. The main house also contains the gift shop, check in counter, bar, and lounge area. Meals are eaten on a large covered patio with tables and chairs. It was wonderful to eat outdoors with the cool ocean breeze and sound of the surf. They do a pretty good job of spraying for bugs, too; we weren’t bothered very much while eating.
This first night, I had a delicious bowl of creamy smoked tomato soup, grilled flounder with pesto and coconut rice, and key lime pie. I also had a local beer called Belikin, which tastes (to my unsophisticated palate) a lot like Shiner Bock.
After dinner, Kat & Brett, Doug & Nish, and Doc and I walked down to the beach and out onto the boat dock, where we laid and looked at the stars (oh my god! There are so many you can see from here!) and swung in hammocks for a while.