Belize Journey - The Arrival (Part 1)

[Latimeria]

There has been a 35+ year quest to go down and fish Belize since I was a kid.  Everything from Jaques Cousteau who initially got me hooked on the barrier reef to the later fishing shows while hunting the flats on the fly.  My two friends retired down there and that was my queue to get my butt down there, especially since the restrictions are lifting and that means it would just get more and more crowded as the weeks went on.... AND.... My passport expires in 2 months, so Perfect timing!

Holt Christ!  The flight to Houston was FULL to the brim!  Thankfully I got there 3 hours early at 5am, so there was little in the way of line, but it got crazy busy by the time we were boarding.  I picked my seats early because I knew I only had a really short layover and was going to run to have to get to my flight to Belize and the Houston airport is a real pain in the ass from what I could remember.
On the plane of course, some lady asked If I could switch seats with her husband.  I told her my situation, but asked what row... She said the last row and I chuckled with a smile and a "nope...." 
She followed it up with "We're attending the Jesus Convention" in town... and I said "ask the person in the back row to switch then since you don't have a connecting flight to get on in a very short period of time".  Common sense won out and she moved to the back and was replaced by an attractive blonde.  It also saved me elbow room since there was about a 150# difference and we both had an arm rest now instead of her taking up both of them.
Soon as I got to Houston, it was an adventure to  get to my connecting flight with 2 minutes to spare.  I bought a $25 Long Island Ice Tea, woofed it down and got boarded 15 minutes before take off.



The flight down was great!  Everyone had a 3 row section to themselves and it was glorious compared to the trip to Houston!  The trip was less than 3 hours and it was exciting coming down from elevation to land!  I did see fires burning everywhere and a lot of cleared land, so was a little curious.  I always expected the entire country to be jungle, but th landing at the airport didn't disappoint!



I haven't been to many places outside the country so a wheel up unloading was quite fun!



The line for COVID information moved quickly enough and I was off to get my suitcase filled with fishing gear.  They wanted to tax me on all my fishing gear for some reason thinking I was going to sell it down there, but literally grilled me and said I owe $500..... f@ck that, and thankfully they let me through.  Also, Belize is the only place I know that has a Duty Free liquor store on the "Arrival" side of things as well as the "Departing".  I picked up the 4 bottles of booze my hosts requested and went out to a sweltering 90 degree, 90% humidity wall of air!  Thankfully, there were my friends waiting for me when I got there as not to get swamped by all of the people trying to sell me stuff the minute I got outside.

The 2+ hour trip back to their place was eye opening.  Sugar cane fields everywhere...  trash everywhere, speed bumps on the 1 lane highway with vendors at each speed bump because they know you have to slow down, and armed military at 4 checkpoints grilling you and checking passports.  Quite the different Belize than I first envisioned.

Finally made it to Corozal which meant we were 15 minutes away!  The winds were HOWLING and Elliot explained it's been 15-25 mph winds for the last 4 months every day...  Ugh, this is going to be a tougher fishing trip than I figures since everything seemed to be sea wall and the water was a milky green.





Another thing I noticed is we only past 3 gas stations in 2-1/2 hours... This will become more pertinent by the end of my trip.



We arrived!  The Expat communities are really a welcome sight for a gringo like me, but are basically retired American/Canadian areas outside the local villages which are dotted in certain areas of the country.
Their main house was big, open and spacious!  I had the Casita in the back and there was a BBQ building also!  Great place to stay!  It was a little dark by now, so I had to wait until morning to get some outside pics.







The rods are rigged and ready for the morning!



Elliot mixed up some Godfather's (Whiskey and Disaronno on the rocks) and enjoyed an evening at catching up for the past year plus that he's been down here. 
I set my alarm and planned on getting up at the crack to get some fishing in!



I'll just leave this as Part 1 of the journey since I swear everyday was some type of crazy adventure and I want to at least write it all down here for posterity sake so I can look back at my trip down here.

[sasquatch]

Get to writing. We want more.

Already sounds like an adventure.

[Tim524]

Just like Netflix.....will there be a Season 2

[skrilla]

Off to a thrilling start. Could be the sugar cane fields burning. Harvest reasons.

[KogaHead]

Nice to see you cleaned up and got rid of your Taliban look!