Making Ourselves at Home

We got up crazy early to get first dibs on the 7:30 AM breakfast. My back was still bothering me, but not as badly as the day before. We furiously scratched our newly acquired crop of mosquito bites. Breakfast that morning was coffee, scrambled eggs, sausage, fresh bread, and fruit. The only other guest joined us around eight o'clock. This man was also in Belize for the Zamorano School's conference and was a coffee farmer from El Salvador. We had a nice long conversation about the industry and then parted ways for the day.

Charlie and I sat outside in the midmorning heat, writing, reading, and playing with frisky Smokey. Meanwhile, a smiley member of the staff cleaned our room to perfection. A green bug disguised as a leaf perched on the wall near our door for the better part of the day.

Leaf bug

Charlie and Smokey

Baby bananas

When our room was clean, we went in to get out of the heat for a bit. We prepared some ramen in the microwave and watched some TV. A downpour had started outside. Once it began to subside, we set out to run some errands. The air was fresh and cool from the recent rain, and the roadway and shoulder were punctuated by large reflective puddles that we did our best to avoid. Our first stop was another Chinese-owned convenience store where we wanted to buy bug spray. The vendor handed us an already used spray can of the stuff and then charged us an exorbitantly large sum of money for it. There was not enough common linguistic ground to complain or make any demands, so we accepted this and left. As we exited the store, a large dusty pickup truck pulled into the parking area. It was pulling a trailer that held several enormous steer. From the cab and truck bed emerged several Menonites dressed in slacks, button-up shirts, suspenders, and flat hats, and who may have been even dustier than their truck. From the looks of them, they had been working hard and had not bathed recently. They busily worked some ropes and tethers to secure and the other items they were hauling in the truck bed.

We walked to a nearby bank to withdraw some cash from the ATM and then returned to Twin Palms.

Smart gecko catching bugs in an outdoor light fixture

We didn't accomplish much for the rest of the day. We mostly just sat around and watched some TV, managing to catch Die Hard 2 and Jurassic Park. I hadn't seen Jurassic Park since I was a child and forgot just how scary it was. Right at the moment the tyrannosaurus rex was attacking the jeep, there was a loud bang outside that made us jump. Someone was setting off fireworks.

We ordered food from Adrian's Deli, which was run by Anna and Tim's son Adrian, who, we suspect, made sandwiches out of their home kitchen. He delivered the food to our door, we ate, and went to bed. We had to get up earlier than usual the next morning to go cave tubing (mainly so that we could sufficiently caffeinate and rid our bodies of poop before leaving the B&B).