Our friend Regina was in town for the weekend, so she joined us for our Sunday beach walk. We stopped at Queen Bean
Restaurant for lunch.
We shared some veggie nachos (pictured here) and some chicken nachos.
We stopped briefly at a few other bar/restaurants along the way, and made it all the way to "Hawaii", the local name for the
place where the lagoon from the wet grass savannah meets the sea.
Emma came on her motorcycle to meet us at Hawaii.
Hawaii is what the locals call the little beach that is formed as the fresh water lagoon and the savannah drain into the ocean. It is a very large area and has a large creek flowing out of it. The locals love to fish here.
Later that evening we went to the fun birthday/pre-opening party for Birgit and Birgit's Bottle Bar. Okay, we failed to get a
picture of Birgit that night, but here are Simonetta and Annett. In the background you can see one wall of the Bottle Bar, so
named because the walls are made of concrete and empty alcohol bottles. Pretty cool!
The family was all taking a "hopper" flight from Dangriga to the international airport in Belize City, and we had time to take
them to breakfast at Pelican Beach Resort before their flight. We all had stuffed fry jacks and loved them.
The setting is gorgeous there - perfect for family pictures! Here are Cheryl and Paul one last time.
The family still had some souvenir shopping they wanted to do, so we took them around to the local places in Hopkins. Our
first stop was Hopkins Kulcha Tours & Gift Shop.
Some nice things were also found at Seashell Arts by Alex.
We had not yet been to the newest (and biggest) gift shop, so we took them to Garimaya Musuem (which has Garifuna and
Mayan arts).
Kids were playing the drums outside the shop, so Nancy and Cheryl had to dance a little. Actually the boy playing is Pappy,
the naturally talented son of Jess Flores, our incredible musician friend who died last summer. Digna, standing in the
doorway, was Jess' wife.
The shop is enormous and impressive.
It is full of all kinds of beautiful local art, crafts, jewelry, clothing, and much more!
A little more drumming before we left...
We had a delicious lunch at Geckos Restaurant before returning "home".
Neighbor Dean had invited us to go kayaking, and Uncle Paul really wanted to try it, so we went out even though the waters
were just a little bit rough.
We paddled south around False Sittee Point and decided to go to Mangoes Beach Bar for a drink. (That's somewhere on the
shore in the distance, roughly in the middle of the photo.)
We arrived to find that Mangoes is closed on Mondays, which this was.
However, the owners live upstairs, and the daughter was kind enough to come down and sell us a few beers. We hung out on
their deck for a bit before heading back. The sea was rougher then, and Dean and Paul ended up flipping. Fortunately, the
water is warm, they easily got back in the boat, and we were on our way home to warm showers.
That evening we went to Innies Restaurant for dinner and their culture night, featuring Garifuna music and dancing. Everyone
loved it.
