Never What You Expect: My Life in Belize

A while ago I wrote a post called 15 Things No One Told You About Living in Belize – and then I updated it again a year or so later.  It’s a list of ideas that keep growing.

Because the thing that I didn’t really GET when I moved down here in 2007 – just to TRY IT for one year to see if it would work – is that I was moving to a different country – in a different part of the world – where everyone has grown up differently than me.  A different culture.  Different.

All I was focused on at the time was how comfortable I was in San Pedro – how great everyone I had met was…

And that’s not a bad thing…I loved how I felt in Belize.  I wanted to make that permanent.  But my life is different from what it was before – in NYC – in ways that I never imagined…never even considered.

One of the BIGGEST changes is that my days are NEVER as I plan.  In New York my alarm starting blaring at 4:45am each morning.  I got up in the dark put on my suit and heels and headed to work.  My job was challenging and crazy and varied but…I don’t know.  My life was predictable to some degree and I didn’t even realize it.  Comfortably predictable in ways I just took for granted.

My Whole Foods always had the brown rice salmon sushi I liked, my Starbucks was always open at 6am…the subway always arrived between 5:20 and 5:27am…my DVR (Tivo at the time) always recorded the shows I requested and bonus: made suggestions for ones I might like.  The internet always worked, the power was always on…cooking gas ran into our building, my dry cleaning was always ready – it was just automatic.

I never thought about it.

A big part of my life in Belize is that my days are SOOOOO different.  Something ALWAYS changes or goes wrong or…if you notice it…goes unexpectedly great.  Often in small ways.

What does this have to do with today’s pictures?  Not too much – other than the VARIETY of my week.  But it’s been something I’ve been thinking about…

Changeability, unpredictability…unforseeable circumstances are the name of the game around here.  And it can be great or it can really wear you down.

It does both to me…but the GREAT outweighs the “wear down”.   And for some, it’s the other way around.  I get it.

Anyway…Here’s some of my week – the last one of November.  And the ramp up to BUSY SEASON IN BELIZE!

On Tuesday, I had a lunch meeting at the BEYOND GORGEOUS MataChica Resort.

And then I headed up way north to Sapphire Beach Resort where a friend of mine had salvaged a BEAUTIFUL dug out canoe that washed up on the beach.

My plan was to bring it to our camp – to turn it into a gorgeous flower bed just like this one I spotted at Las Terrazas Resort.

But I WAY underestimated how heavy this thing is!!!

We got it back to our house and…here it sits.

Same afternoon, I headed across the Cayo Frances lagoon to Cayo Frances Farm & Fly (aka “our camp”)

The rest of the photos are from there…over the last few days.

Back in the lagoon late afternoon.

An eagle ray doing his best to get away from us!

Wednesday was a total RAIN OUT – we haven’t had many this year.

Rainy day crafting with my Belize City bicycle licenses.  Check out my last post for information on how you can get them in San Pedro.

Frannie testing the new hammock…

And then headed out into town…returning home.