Pork Tail BBQ in Belize City

Sunday, November 22, 2009 09:23 AM

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After visiting Costa Maya, which for all intensive purposes is a ghost town, we were excited to see actual habitation – city life if you will!  Somewhere with more than overpriced tequila and snorkeling available.  And we found that in Belize.  Immediately upon disembarking from the ship, we hit the gauntlet of locals trying to sell us everything we never knew we needed or even wanted.  Ladies offering to braid my hair – seriously, what is there to braid?  I almost took one lady up on the offer just to see what she could do.  We walked out of the tourist trap and into downtown, which is where I met this gentleman.  Seriously, is his hair not the most A-mazing spectacle you've ever seen?

Moving along, we headed to the grocery store. I like to check out grocery stores when I go to a new country – it gives me a good idea of the exchange rate and I like to see how their food offerings differ from what I’m used to eating – not to mention beer is always cheapest at the grocery store – that is IF THEY SOLD BEER.  Ugh, apparently only hard liquor and wine are available – major fail.  But, I quickly forgave Belize when we found a little corner restaurant that was willing to serve us beer at local’s prices at 10:30 in the morning.  (It was after noon San Francisco time – so count it!).  I felt safe for the most part, despite the fact that our friend Candice (seen below hanging with Charlie and I on our balcony) seemed to be quite the prized catch. 

We had one guy follow us for literally 7 blocks trying to talk to her.  It’s amusing at first – and then we got over it.  On the way back to the ship I started hearing more and more people make comments like “Are you a boy or a girl? What are you?”  Normally, this doesn’t bother me at all and my response is usually along the lines of “whatever the situation calls for, sweetheart.”  But, in a foreign country where we know not everyone is thrilled about the queers invading their country and I can’t determine the connotation of the question – it puts me on edge.  Just as I was starting to feel uneasy about my safety, along came Carol. 

Carol stops us and finds out that we’re from San Francisco.  Turns out she used to live in Marin, which is just north of the city.  I immediately envision some sort crazy Belizean adventure with my newfound friend and take an avid interest.  Throwing all Virgo logic aside, I roll on my intuition and decide that getting into a van with Carol, her friend Deon, and 5 other cruise goers bound for Belize’s ghetto is an AWESOME idea.   Now, I should mention that I was stationed in St. Lucia for several months while I was in the military and spent most of my time there hanging out in areas, I’ll probably never be able to set foot in again as a normal tourist.  So, I jumped at the idea of spending time with local Belizeans in their neighborhood, without much consideration for the security ramifications – in this case, if I disappeared, there would be no military contingent to come find me. Luckily this never even remotely became an issue, as Carol and Deon were amazing hosts and I honestly didn’t even think about the prospect of our entire van full of lesbians disappearing until talking to others about their experience in Belize upon my return to the ship.  Anyways, back to reality . . .
We started off by heading to Deon’s house to meet his daughter Malia (named after Obama’s daughter) and hang out with their friends who were in the middle of a pork tail BBQ.  (I didn’t even realize you could eat the tails – I’m vegetarian though.)

  (Meet Shana, Jack,  and Sabrina from OurScene TV)

After meeting their families, we headed to the public beach (hey, we're balling on a budget here).  Deon, reminded us that because its a public beach its not as well kept as the privatized ones, we found it beautiful, nonetheless.

(Deon at the beach)

The water was completely still, like a lagoon.  You can see a woman here in the background out in the water waste deep.

After our jaunt to the beach, our hosts took us to Bird's Isle Restaurant. 

Where we found these amusing signs posted on the way into the restaurant.

(It says "Solve the world's problems keep your religion & sex-life in the bedroom")

True to the restaurant's name there were all sorts of birds hanging out and the view was pretty spectacular.

Not to mention, the food was amazing . . .

This was probably my favorite meal of the trip - beans, rice and chicken (which is the local meal - but of course I had veggies instead fo chicken).  I can't wait to go back to Belize . . . hopefully we'll be there again in April!

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