Day 15 Friday - Our last day on Caye Caulker :-( and its only a 1/2 day!
The plan today was to get up early and go snorkeling at the Split. This is something we just didn't make the time to do during this trip. The thought of having to pack wet clothes doesn't appeal to me, so in the end that's not how our morning went...and as always...what happened was exactly what should happen.
We woke up way too early - before 6. Finally Lincoln's mention of the possibility of getting one of Glenda's Caye Famous Cinnamon Rolls if we made it to her restaurant around opening time (7am) got me out of bed. At the beginning of our stay we got there at 8am and she was sold out. We found out today why. She supplies all the restaurants on the island. We saw people leavings with BAGS FULL of her cinnamon rolls. We stood in line for close to 15 minutes just to order our food, I was sure she was going to be sold out by the time we got to the counter...she wasn't (happy dance) so I ordered TWO. Linc got one wit his Eggs. They were VERY good!
Lincoln starts talking to a man and his 2 sons (from Sacramento and previously from SJ) so invites them to sit with us. While we are eating, John (Linc's dive Buddy and our new friend) rides up on his bike. He has his dry bag (for diving) so its easy to know where he's going. I say "Are you going diving", his response is "Its daylight isn't it?" LOL, gotta love it! I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not...instead of a Gym Membership, John has a Dive Membership, so he dives whenever he wants - pretty cool!!
John orders his food and sits down to eat so we get to talk to him some more. He is a really cool guy. An ex-CEO, very high powered man from the Newspaper industry. He once led a very stressful life and now the polar opposite. He has lots of cool stories Linc tells me.
Eventually its time for us all to leave. Linc needs to go back to the dive shop to get last night's dive signed off in his book, John is going out on the boat and I need to go back to the room and get cool. Its about 8:30 at this point. We have to check out at 11:30, taxi is coming at 12:15. Flight off Caye Caulker is at 1:10.
I work on my blog, it would be nice to be caught up BEFORE I leave the island...but that's not gonna happen. Though this way the time on the flight to Houston and maybe even SJC will pass quickly as I will be finishing it up then, at least the commentary. I'll add the photos from home and post from there which I'm sure will be much quicker.
Finally at about 10am I shower. Lincoln suggests I email Sara about this house we looked at but didn't get to see the inside of. It belongs to a local woman. We have a bit of spare time this morning. I get an email back saying sure, she'd love to show it to us and tells us where to meet her and that she'll hire a taxi to take us out to the home. So around 10:30 we move our suitcases downstairs for safekeeping until of airport taxi cart comes. We check out with Doris and pay our bill and walk to the Amor Y Cafe to meet Sara. We see her on her bike on Front St and wave at her. At about 11am the taxi arrives and drives us the 5-7 mins out to the home. It has 2 rooms (1 bedroom and an office) a bath and an open concept Kitchen, Dining Room & Living Room on the 2nd level. On the first level it has a "workshop" that could easily be turned into guest quarters. The rest of the underneath of the home could be enclosed. There are lots of possibilities. It has access to a pier and is on the leeward side of the island. Its one street over from where Barry & Lindsay live, basically one lot over from their backyard. We are really glad we were able to see the inside before we left today!
$98k
Great floors!
A Palm in the yard!
Just one of the views....
We get back to Tree Tops at 11:45, just as our Taxi driver rolls up. He must have misunderstood quarter PAST 12 with quarter TO 12. Oh well, we get to the airport REALLY early. We thought we might be able to get on the 12:10 flight but today there wasn't a flight because no one was booked on it. Thankfully they had a nice waiting room that was air conditioned so I plugged in the laptop and started typing the blog. I was happy to be cool!
This sign was on the road to the airport. I told the Taxi driver they should put it on Front St (the main drag) for the tourists who drive too fast, he said they don't want to scare the tourists, LOL! That it was directed at the locals (probably the taxi drivers) because when this stretch of road is dry people tend to drive too fast.
Right on time they have the 3 of us that are waiting, a almost full plane...it had 3 empty seats...so now the plane was full. The co-pilot seat was a passenger. Before we physically got on the plane we watched as they fought with our biggest bag...trying to stuff it in the compartment under this small plane. They tried every direction and I thought it might have to go inside with us, but eventually they squeezed it in.
Notice it has ONE prop!
I don't get to sit with my honey, but we both get window seats!
The flight was really cool. I video taped most of it. It was smooth and quick. The sights were amazing. I'm glad we went from Belize City to Caye Caulker via Water Taxi and I'm equally happy we left via plane. Both experiences were really cool!
The flight was about 15 minutes. The landing was smooth and though it was warm, it wasn't as hot as I expected as we walked across the tarmac. Our experience at "International", as this airport is called, was uneventful.
Belize City - International Airport
Our flight was late taking off, due to the plane arriving late, but that's ok. When we get to Houston (late) the line for Customs is LONG and takes us 40 minutes to get through it. Then we still have to get our bags, go through another quick Customs Bag check, then re-check our bags with TSA and stand in a fairly long queue for another TSA check (like we've been anywhere but within control of Customs). This takes another 20 minutes, it takes us 10 minutes to get to our next gate which gets us there at exactly 9:15, when our flight was supposed to take off...fortunately this flight is 1 hr 45 mins late so we didn't miss it :-) Its all good!
We land in San Jose at 12:40, get our bags, grab a taxi to take us to the truck which is safely parked at Lincoln's office on base. We arrive home at about 2:20am. Pull in the 'carry on', orient ourselves, freshen up and climb into bed.
Vacation is officially over. We had a GREAT time in Belize and most of all on Caye Caulker. We made some fantastic friends and we can't wait to go back and we will!!!!!!!!!!
I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog as much as I have writing it. I know I was rarely "up to date" but hey, I was on holiday so I did the best I could! I will be uploading a bunch of photos my husband took when he went out diving and maybe a page with just random other photos that I didn't put in my posts. Maybe people will want to see them...who knows. Anyway, thanks for reading! Take care and be happy. Remember YOLO, you only live once so make it count!
PEACE!
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