Check out how your goofy GypsyNesters are preparing for their journey! Starting June 1st, we’ll be live-blogging through Ecuador, Peru, The Galápagos Islands, Machu Picchu, Cusco and… CONTINUE READING >>
Most exciting! We’re the proud owners of underwater camera gear! We had the chance to snorkel (with turtles and penguins and sea lions!) in The Galapagos Islands. The video also shows how we tested the new gear.
While Belize is certainly geographically very Central American, its long history as a British colony gives it a feel that we found more similar to some Caribbean islands than its Latin neighbors.
While Belize is certainly geographically very Central American, its long history as a British colony gives it a feel that we found more similar to some Caribbean islands than its Latin neighbors.
The Creole tinged English was a familiar sound to our ears after the years we spent on St. Croix, but it would fit right in on any of the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Antigua, or Jamaica.
The history of Belize, known as British Honduras from 1862 until 1964, has a lot in common with those islands.
The main difference being that harvesting mahogany trees was the driving economic factor, as opposed to sugar cane.
Belize City sits right on the Caribbean coast, so looking out over the beautiful blue water definitely added to our perception of an island feel.
As we usually do, we tried to stay away from the overtly touristy spots and wade in to the town.
This required fighting our way through numerous barkers and hawkers near the harbor, around what is aptly named The Tourist Village.
The offers and invitations to braid hair, give a tour, or help us find whatever we may have been looking for continued for several blocks while we walked toward the famous Belize City Swing Bridge.
Brought over from Liverpool in 1922, the span swings open to let tall masted sailboats up Haulover Creek, and has to be cranked by four men.
As the oldest swing bridge in Central America and one of the last working manually operated ones in the world, it was worth a look. It’s also the best way to get across the river into the main part of the city.
Once we crossed over to The South Side the onslaught of “helpers” diminished and we could explore without constantly declining offers.
Their inquiries were never a problem, nothing more than a nuisance, and we can’t blame folks for trying to make a living, so no problem. Besides, we got some interesting stories out of several people.
As we came into the heart of the city, the first building that caught our eyes was a classic example of colonial Caribbean architecture, The High Court.
Home to the Belize Supreme Court, it was reconstructed after a fire, but kept the look of the 1880 original.
The court being in Belize City is a holdover from when it was the capital city of British Honduras. When the town was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Hattie in 1961, the capital was moved inland to Belmopan.
As we walked further into the heart of the city we were drawn to Albert Street and Battlefield Park by our noses.
The park has a long history as the meeting place for political gatherings and rallies, but on this day it was home to a bunch of booths serving up authentic local fare.
The women cooking at the first tent were so friendly and more than happy to show us the contents of their pots that we didn’t see the need to go any farther.
They offered us a sample of their Boil Up (pronounced bile up) a stew of eggs, fish, and a number of vegetables like cassava, green plantains, yams and sweet potatoes.
Good as it all looked, we went with some good ol’ rice and beans with the added Belize touch of pig tails accompanied by a habanero – onion relish and the local version of tamales (wrapped in banana leaves).
Parking it at a little folding table set up next to the outdoor kitchen, we proceeded to chow down, and chat up the ladies.
After our late afternoon face stuffing, we headed for the water.
Once we hit the shore we couldn’t miss the towering lighthouse off in the distance, so we went back over to The North Side to take a look. Officially called The Fort George Light, the red and white tower is best known to locals as the Baron Bliss Lighthouse.
When we arrived we found more of a monument than a navigation beacon.
It seems that Baron Henry Edward Ernest Victor Bliss, a great benefactor to Belize and a bit of an eccentric, had a final request to be buried in a tomb at the base of a lighthouse.
Got to admit he ended up with a pretty primo final resting spot, R. I. P. Baron.
All of our walking had worked up a mighty thirst but, before we knew it, there was another lighthouse was in our future.
We found a funky little bar right by the Swing Bridge, ordered a couple beers and got two Lighthouses.
Lighthouse Lager that is. Brewed right in Belize City by Belikin, which is self proclaimed as “The Beer of Belize.” It’s hard to dispute that claim, since Belikin is the only brand available in almost every establishment.
Just in case that didn’t seal the deal, their ads told us that Belikin is “The only beer worth drinking.” Considering the malt beverage monopoly they had, how could we argue?
Truth is it went down mighty fine after a day of walking in the tropical sun, definitely worth drinking.
It also struck us as kind of cool that Belikin incorporated some of the country’s Mayan history into their brand.
The name means “Road to the East” in the Mayan language, and the label features a picture of the Temple of the Masonry Altars at the Altun Ha ruins.
So we hung around for a while and struck up some conversations with the patrons, who all fit right in with everybody we met in Belize, incredibly welcoming, friendly and cordial, many inviting us to come back and offering to open their homes.
A recent advice column I read was just plain disturbing.
It involved a mother who is a newly retired homeowner with an outstanding mortgage. Unless she was the CEO of a major publicly traded corporation, this lady is on a whopper of a fixed income.
Now get this – she has two sons, aged 22 and 24, living in her home and she has asked them to pitch in and pay $30 a week.
“Stressed-Out Mom” says that they are now “ranting and raving and calling her a bad… CONTINUE READING >>
I’m an advice column junkie. I can’t help it. I kick off my morning with a cup of coffee, my iPhone and a heavy dose of the Dear crew.
When I’m lucky, I can persuade David to play along with a game of What would Abby do? If he’s is in a particularly sporting mood, we can delve far beneath the layers of the written word.
What if the husband, Chip, is really in need of Viagra, and is not, in fact, having an affair as Horny in Hoboken thinks?
What if the meddling mother-in-law, Madge, has a point – maybe Good Mommy in Leavenworth is, indeed, a bad mommy?
Normally, I can convince myself that it is a game of good clean fun. The anonymity of Chip, Madge and Horny are fascinating and comforting – these semi-fictitious characters have problems too.
But a recent column was just plain disturbing. It involved a mother who is a newly retired homeowner with an outstanding mortgage. Unless she was the CEO of a major publicly traded corporation, this lady is on a whopper of a fixed income.
Now get this – she has two grown sons, aged 22 and 24, living in her home and she has asked them to pitch in and pay $30 a week.
Stressed-Out Mom says that they are now ranting and raving and calling her a bad mother. She goes on to ask if she is being unreasonable. What?
How can you even ask if you are being unreasonable?
It’s time for you to grow a pair and live the life that you have worked your butt off for. They are able-bodied men who are completely taking advantage of your enabling ways.
Are you going to raise their kids, too? Because sooner or later, one of them will actually get a date with a girl who doesn’t care that she’s seeing a guy who lives with his mommy. Then you are going to have quite the zoo on your hands.
I’m so tired of hearing about Boomerang “Kids” and how hard it is for them to make it on their own in the big, bad world. Granted, our generation tended to be more involved with our children’s education, nurtured their every talent, made sure they were safe from balloon-related latex allergies (and I’m the biggest recovering helicopter mom there is!)- but the helicoptering MUST stop at some point.
The longer we wait, the bigger and badder the world will seem to our offspring.
Stressed-Out should have started her sons along a different path a long time ago. Isn’t part of the job to teach your kids to care for themselves? I didn’t raise my son and daughters to be good kids, I raised them to be self-sufficient adults.
That means once they are of age – they are on their own. They began hearing about this early and often. As they headed off to college, they didn’t expect to hear, Honey, come back any time things get hard.–Watch out for the screen door, was a bit closer to the mark.
My Spawn know I love them. Enough to want them to have lives they are proud of.
Our youngest, The Boy, graduated from college on Saturday. He’s somehow managed to graduate with honors, all while holding down two jobs. We can’t imagine having that much energy. As parents, we couldn’t be prouder.
In addition to the pride we feel for our son’s accomplishments, we have found other reasons to celebrate. This is the last year we’ll ever make a tuition payment, have an offspring on our medical insurance, or… CONTINUE READING >>
Our youngest, The Boy, graduated from college on Saturday. He’s somehow managed to graduate with honors, all while holding down two jobs.
We can’t imagine having that much energy. As parents, we couldn’t be prouder.
In addition to the pride we feel for our son’s accomplishments, we have found other reasons to celebrate. This is the last year we’ll ever make a tuition payment, have an offspring on our medical insurance, or get to claim a dependent on our taxes. I guess we had better break out the 2022 W4 calculator to see what changes to expect.
Stick a fork in us, we’re done.
This doesn’t mean we’re finished being parents, not by any means. But it’s different now, we are the parents of three adults. We will no longer have day-to-day responsibility in their lives.
We haven’t with our two oldest, The Piglet and Decibel, for years, they are adults, and as such are responsible for themselves. With the exception of a few heavy learning experiences along the way, our girls are doing well in the big, bad world.
Now it’s time for The Boy to take flight and follow his sisters’ path. Hopefully we have provided the tools to make that possible, but only he can make it happen for himself.
We helped our kids make college affordable, but all of our kids had to have jobs while in college to pay for their books, bills and living expenses. In high school, if they wanted spending cash they had to find a way to earn it themselves.
All three worked in restaurants during college, and the girls worked at eateries as second jobs while slaving at entry level wages in their chosen fields. Restaurant work is hard, but they quickly learned people skills, something that will benefit them greatly in any workplace.
Nothing is harder to deal with than hungry people before they get their food.
We feel strongly that having a strong work ethic has greatly benefited each of them in this tough economy. Recent studies show that about half of this year’s graduates are unemployed or “under-employed, a daunting statisic for our young adults.
So far our offspring’s solution to the toxic job market has been to find any work they can get. If it sucks, all the more motivation to look harder for a job they like.
Is there really any question as to which job applicant has the better chance scoring one of the rare available positions if an employer is choosing between one who is currently employed, even if it is “under-employed,” or one that is unemployed back at home in his old bedroom with the luxury to whine about the economy?
That’s why we’re not worried about our college educated, certified commercial pilot son who went back to his job at the pizza place the day after he graduated.
Gator Park had something that we’d been wanting to try for years, airboats. We, like most folks I suppose, were more interested in careening through the swamp at insanely… CONTINUE READING >>
Gator Park had something that we’d been wanting to try for years, airboats. Here’s a fun fact: Back in 1905, nearly twenty years after his “Watson come here” moment, Alexander Graham Bell, that’s right, the inventor of the telephone, led a team up in Nova Scotia that built the world’s first airboat, the Ugly Duckling.
As incredibly groovy as that little tidbit of information might be, we, like most folks I suppose, were more interested in careening through the swamp at insanely high speeds. We got our fill of that, but the ride included much more.
As the boat proceeded into Everglades National Park, we got to see an amazing array of wildlife up close, while we drifted slowly and quietly through the glades. We were within a few feet of all sorts of water fowl and reptiles, including little baby gators. This got us wanting to go exploring in the non-tourist areas of the glades, so we headed off to see what we could find. Oh, and by the way, even alligators are cute when they’re babies.
Skunked in our efforts to spot a Skunk Ape, Florida’s Bigfoot cousin, we chose to make the most of our location and take in some of the more tangible attractions that the Everglades had to offer.
Amazing wildlife can be found in the state and national parks, or in captivity at any of the many tourist traps that dot the highway.
These roadside shows have a long history down here, so we figured we’d start with some of them. They usually feature all sorts of snakes, mostly of the unbelievably huge variety, talking birds, and always the star attraction, alligators.
Often the opportunity to touch, or even hold, an alligator is included. Making tourists heft a gator seems to be a kind of comedy bit in these parts, as we learned when we took in the show at the aptly named Gator Park.
We were seated in a theater-like grandstand overlooking a sand pit where a giant alligator was waiting for showtime. Little did we know we were about to be treated to some good old fashioned gator wrestlin’.
Salvator, the human challenger for the day, explained the proper technique for sneak attacking huge carnivorous reptiles, then leaped on the monster’s back and clamped shut its jaws with his bare hands.
Even though there are a couple tricks that give the human an advantage, don’t try this at home kids!
First, it is very important that the alligator is approached from behind, where it can’t see.
Second, gators can bite with incredible force, but they have very little jaw strength for opening their mouths, so it is imperative that the jaw be clamped shut before it ever gets opened.
See how simple that is? Other than the pesky problem that one slight slip may cost an arm or a leg, there’s really nothing to it.
After successfully winning his match, Salvator asked for volunteers to give it a try. With no takers, he chose Veronica to be the next challenger.
He gave her just enough instructions to have us all questioning how crazy this guy really was, before relenting and handing her a smaller specimen to hold.
After contemplating crawling into the ring with an eight foot long monster, this little four footer seemed rather harmless. Oh, and the park had the good sense to tape the little guy’s mouth shut.
Gator Park also had something that we’d been wanting to try for years, airboats.
Here’s a fun fact: Back in 1905, nearly twenty years after his “Watson come here” moment, Alexander Graham Bell, that’s right, the inventor of the telephone, led a team up in Nova Scotia that built the world’s first airboat, the Ugly Duckling.
As incredibly groovy as that little tidbit of information might be, we, like most folks I suppose, were more interested in careening through the swamp at insanely high speeds. We got our fill of that, but the ride included much more.
As the boat proceeded into Everglades National Park, we got to see an amazing array of wildlife up close, while we drifted slowly and quietly through the glades.
We were within a few feet of all sorts of water fowl and reptiles, including little baby gators. This got us wanting to go exploring in the non-tourist areas of the glades, so we headed off to see what we could find. Oh, and by the way, even alligators are cute when they’re babies.
Undeniably less adorable are the full grown variety, especially when encountered in the wild. We had one such run in while riding our bikes along a dirt road in The Big Cyprus National Preserve.
The ridiculously large lizard was sunning himself right on the edge of the road and by the time we noticed him we were right up on him. What followed was a study in just how fast a bicycle can change course.
We stumbled upon some more alligator action when walking the Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk at Fakahatchee Preserve State Park.
After an easy walk of just over half a mile, the trail ends at an algae filled pond patrolled by several big gators.
We happened to be just in time to see the rarely observed sight of a gator chowing down his prey. If that doesn’t keep people from straying off the boardwalk, nothing will.
But this walkway into the everglades is about a lot more than just alligators. Markers along the way pointed out all kinds of plant life and we even got to see baby bald eagles.
They were several hundred yards away from the trail, but a ranger had set up a telescope for an amazing view every time the eaglets popped their heads up over the side of their nest.
Caught photographically unprepared for such a Wild Kingdom situation, we had to improvise and managed to get a shot of the birds through the telescope eyepiece.
While the pictures won’t be winning any wildlife photography awards, it did capture the moment.
Just a few miles east of the boardwalk on the Tamiami Trail we stopped off at the smallest post office in the United States, Ochopee, Florida 34141.
The tiny structure was a farm shed until 1953 when a fire destroyed the town’s previous Post Office. With only a few dozen folks to serve, the little building seemed to do the job, so it has remained in service ever since.
It didn’t strike us as even remotely out of place in this sparsely inhabited area. The people of the everglades have a long history of getting by on the basics.
First the Calusa and the Tequesta peoples lived off of this secluded marsh land, later the Seminole came to escape being forced onto reservations in Oklahoma.
The strangler fig is a vine-like tree that often kills its host.
The first road wasn’t built until 1928. Unfortunately that Tampa to Miami (hence the name Tamiami Trail) highway contributed greatly to the destruction of this fragile ecosystem.
While the glades may look like a stagnant swamp, it is actually a running river.
Fresh water from Lake Okeechobee flows slowly southward to the sea, and the highway acted as a dam.
Culverts and bridges were placed to help resume the flow but, between the road and the many intentional drainage projects around Miami as the city grew, the glades have been badly damaged and water levels severely lowered.
Doesn’t this one look like the sculpture in Beetlejuice?
Projects to reverse the destruction began in the 1980s, and in 2000 congress passed The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, but the outcome of the clash between environmental concerns with the politics of development and economic expansion is far from settled.
While politicians perform that delicate balancing act, the fate of the Everglades hangs in the balance.
Our guide asked for volunteers to give it a try. With no takers, he chose Veronica to be the next challenger. He gave her just enough instructions to have us all questioning how crazy… CONTINUE READING >>
Talk about fear conquering!
We were seated in a theater-like grandstand overlooking a sand pit where a giant alligator was waiting for showtime. Little did we know we were about to be treated to some good old fashioned gator wrestlin’. Salvator, the human challenger for the day, explained the proper technique for sneak attacking huge carnivorous reptiles, then leaped on the monster’s back and clamped shut its jaws with his bare hands.
Even though there are a couple tricks that give the human an advantage, don’t try this at home kids! First, it is very important that the alligator is approached from behind, where it can’t see. Second, gators can bite with incredible force, but they have very little jaw strength for opening their mouths, so it is imperative that the jaw be clamped shut before it ever gets opened. See how simple that is? Other than the pesky problem that one slight slip may cost an arm or a leg, there’s really nothing to it.
After successfully winning his match, Salvator asked for volunteers to give it a try. With no takers, he chose Veronica to be the next challenger. He gave her just enough instructions to have us all questioning how crazy this guy really was, before relenting and handing her a smaller specimen to hold. After contemplating crawling into the ring with an eight foot long monster, this little four footer seemed rather harmless. Oh, and the park had the good sense to tape the little guy’s mouth shut.
