In part one, I neglected to mention one detail of our golf cart ride up the road to the Costa Blu resort. After three miles or so heading north, the road becomes a very hard packed dirt/gravel surface. We were cruising along when Donna suddenly yelled, “Snake!” I hit the brakes and discovered the golf cart brakes are on the rear axle only – we skidded to a stop about a foot short of a large, dark snake in the road. It was six or seven feet long and thick bodied. I got a good look at it before it slithered off the road into the scrub. We didn’t think much else about it and I didn’t identify it as we stayed off the Internet while we were on vacation.

I asked a few locals about it and they all seemed surprised to hear we had seen a snake in the road. One bartender insisted it had to be a boa constrictor, but I knew it wasn’t. The color and markings weren’t boa. Last night, I did some research. There’s no doubt in my or Donna’s mind – we both had a good look at the snake – it was a fer-de-lance. A fer-de-lance is a viper found in Central America and is responsible for more than half of the deaths attributed to venomous snake bites. Yikes! That was the only snake we saw on the trip.

We sat at the poolside bar on the first night and met a few people. One of the locals we met was named Justin. He was prospecting for couples to sign up for a tour of the Wyndam condos and to sit through a no-obligation fractional ownership presentation. He offered a free breakfast at Coco Beach Resort and a selection of gifts. Donna and I talked it over and thought “Why not?” We didn’t have a plan for the morning and the tour might be a good way to learn more about the area and local economic situation. For a couple of hours of our time, we would get a nice breakfast and also a free snorkeling trip worth $110. We signed up.

So on Thursday morning, we drove the golf cart down to the Wyndam. We had arranged to meet Justin across the street by the lagoon. I parked by the lagoon between two shacks – we later found out these were occupied residences. The area by the lagoon seemed a bit trashy – many areas of Ambergris Caye have litter problems. About forty feet away from us, we saw three large crocodiles. These were American crocodiles that live in the salt water lagoon. We saw a total of seven crocodiles on land and in the water. Most of them were 10 to 12 feet long. These crocodiles commonly grow to 17 feet and specimens as large have 21 feet have been reported.

Justin showed up in a golf cart with another couple he’d signed up for the tour. We went to Coco Beach and were introduced to Fernando. Fernando had breakfast with us – it was a nice full breakfast – then he took us on a tour of the Wyndam Venezia del Caribe Resort and Spa. Donna and I knew we weren’t signing up for anything, but the tour was educational. Fernando was from Mexico and he spent several years in Cancun selling time-shares. He had a lot of facts and figures about tourism in Belize and things to do.

The Venezia del Caribe is under construction. The scaffolding on the outside of the five-story structure was a little scary. It was made from locally sourced wood and I don’t think it would meet OSHA approval.

Fernando was a nice guy and we made it clear we weren’t about to sign on the dotted line for anything. He thanked us for our time and excused himself. Then they sent in the closer. This guy started spewing figures that made my head spin and wanted us to understand we were about to miss the opportunity of a lifetime. I shut him down – I didn’t appreciate his hard-sell approach at all. We walked away with a voucher for a snorkeling trip to Hol Chan Marine Reserve set for Friday.

After the tour, we drove into San Pedro – we were halfway there already. I was looking for the Havana Cigar shop – I wanted to check the prices on Cuban cigars there. We stopped and asked a guy standing by the road where it was – he started to give us directions, then he just hopped on the back of the cart and said he would show us the way. He directed me to two shops then we dropped him off near where we found him and parked the cart. He worked at a beach bar/cafe called Gill-E’s Pour House. Later we stopped there for lunch and it was good with a great view of the sea.

The eastern shoreline of Ambergris Caye is just that – shoreline. Although there are sandy beach areas, mostly it’s not the type of beach where you can walk out into the water. The shore is built up with sea walls to stop flooding and erosion. The trade winds blow from the east-northeast and can push the sea water over the beaches – thus the sea walls found here.

In the afternoon, I went to the Tuff-E-Nuff dive shop on the dock at Costa Blu. We made our arrangements to go snorkeling and met the guy that runs the place, Hatcher. Hatcher was born and raised here, but he spent 13 years in the U.S. He returned to Belize a little over a year ago. His American English was accent-free and he had a wealth of knowledge about Belize and Ambergris Caye. He told us about a place we should try for lunch on the west side called Aurora’s.

Friday morning we were picked up at the Costa Blu dock for a boat ride down to the main Tuff-E-Nuff shop near the Wyndham. Rafael piloted the boat and dropped us off.

At the dive shop, we were joined by three other couples and a family of four making a total of 12 of us taking the Hol Chan – Shark/Ray Alley snorkeling tour. We had two guides – Sherri and the boat captain called Candy Man.

We cruised out near the reef to a National Preserve area called Hol Chan. Hol Chan is a Mayan phrase referring to the natural channel through the reef there. This area is protected and nothing can be removed from the ocean here – that includes fish. We checked in with the park ranger at a floating cabana and were issued wrist bands. There’s a $10 fee for park access that was included in each person’s ticket.

You cannot anchor in the preserve – it would damage the corals there. Instead, there were a number of buoy balls secured to underwater concrete blocks that we tied up to. Several tour boats were in the area, but all of the guides were cooperative and stayed out of each other’s way.

I started snorkeling when I was five years old. My family lived in Guam then and snorkeling the coral reefs was what we did on most weekends. So I really feel like I’m in my element with a mask and fins in the ocean. Donna is a strong swimmer and we’ve snorkeled together many times in Hawaii, so there were no issues.

The marine life was incredible at Hol Chan. We found a large moray eel – the largest I’ve ever seen. I also found two large Atlantic barracuda. Schools of colorful reef fish were everywhere. We saw a large spotted eagle ray – it appeared to be flying majestically under water.

Later we moved to Shark/Ray Alley. After we got in the water, the guides started feeding the nurse sharks and sting rays. They went crazy thrashing about the boat. The nurse shark skin is very rough – I touched one under water and it felt like 40 grit sand paper.

Friday afternoon we headed over to the west side of the island to Secret Beach. Secret Beach is a white sand area with a gently sloping sandy bottom making a nice, shallow area to enjoy the water. Hatcher told us about it and recommended eating at Aurora’s. Aurora is the one that brought tourism to Secret Beach five years ago. She set up a food truck – a trailer actually and started serving lunch and drinks. Before then, Secret Beach was a place only the locals went to and it involved hiking several miles of trail to get there. Today there’s a road and several bars and cafes there. At Pirates Bar, they call it Not-So-Secret beach.

We had barbecued fish with seasoned veggies and coconut rice at Aurora’s and it was excellent. They feature several picnic type tables with palm leaf covers or umbrellas on the sandy beach and a few that are in two feet of water off the beach!

After lunch at Aurora’s, we walked a few hundred feet away to Pirates for a cold one.

At Pirates, they served pina coladas in whole pineapples. They cut the top off the pineapple, hollow it out then re-fasten the top with toothpicks. Because we happened to be sitting at the bar watching as those drinks were made, Donna was the beneficiary of some excess pina colada which she said was the best she’d ever had.

We were back at Costa Blu by 5pm. We had the conch specials for dinner at the poolside bar – I had conch fritters and Donna had the conch soup. It was tasty.

Conch is a sea mollusk – basically it’s a sea snail with a large spiral shell. The meat is a Caribbean delicacy and lucky for us, it was in season. We headed back to our suite around 8pm and were worn out by the day’s activities and time in the sun. We soon learned that most of the guests at Costa Blu were done-in by 9pm. No wonder they close the bar early.

To be continued…