Most Mornings, There's Lots to See

Most mornings, of course while conducting "walkies" with the girls, there's always a lot going on. I managed to stop and shoot several bits along the way. This is a compilation over two or three days of what we see most of the time while walking.

On the way into town, along the Northern Highway, which becomes Seventh Street while in town, there's a new piece of artwork being installed. I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's an ear of corn in a sugar pot. Anyway, an interesting piece to see being assembled. I suppose I could have asked the artist as he was assembling the installation, but that would have been too easy.

New Artwork in Town

Next along our usual route, we follow the waterfront into town. We marvel each morning at the view we are privileged to be able to see. We usually see at least a couple boats in various stages of being worked on.

The Corozal Boatyard

With the boats on the hard above, I just liked the way everything came together, the colors, lighting, etc. The boat on the left,  I had tried to get a shot of it under sail, but by the time Twyla and I got back to the waterfront from the market, they had lost wind and so motored in to the pier. That's the way it goes sometimes.

At least a couple of mornings each week, we come by just as the local fishermen are offloading their catch. This was one of those mornings. The long pole is used with the scale to weigh bags of fish. I couldn't catch them using the scale on this particular morning, and we couldn't wait forever. The girls do get a bit impatient if they sense that we're taking too long on non-pack business.

Unloading the Catch

More Unloading the Catch

After winding our way past the fishermen, and through the town square, where we always say hello to the ladies, who clean the park benches and walks each weekday morning, we come to the market. It's undergoing some major improvements, with the addition of this central stall structure going length-wise through the middle of the market. It'll be quite an improvement when it's done.

Here, workers are just finishing a new sidewalk on one side of the stalls. This should mark quite an improvement for the Corozal Market. We've always remarked at the markets at Orange Walk and San Ignacio as being very nice. This is definitely a step in the right direction.

New Sidewalk at the Market

On the way back from town, it was hard to miss them, but we managed to spot a group of vultures, fulfilling their mandate for roadside cleanup. They are so beautiful when in the air, hardly moving a muscle as they glide along the edge of the bay all day long. They're ugly as can be on ground.

For as big as they are, they're amazingly timid. It's very hard to get close enough to them for a decent photo.

The Road Crew At Work

Then, just when we were done shooting them, and turned onto Almond Drive from the highway, we noticed a bunch more of their compatriots, patiently awaiting their turn at the feast.

Waiting to Be Seated At the Roadside Diner

There had to have ben about thirteen or fourteen in the tree, with more in the trees across the highway, all waiting their turn to eat.

As Doug said - more or less, "Anytime you see a few vultures circling overhead, that's probably just a few of the whole number of vultures interested in the find."

And there you have it. We get home, usually drenched in sweat, just in time to have our own breakfast, and then get the day's activities started.

It's A Miracle!

Surely it is. Before I took my Motorola RAZR cell phone in for an attempted repair, I was positive it was actually a lost cause.

About three weeks ago, I had dropped it from my workbench's work surface (about 3'6" from the ceramic tiled floor). When that happened, it still worked as a phone and as a camera - yes, it did both of those things routinely prior to my dropping it on the floor.

What it no longer was able to do after dropping it was to connect via USB cable to my laptop. So, even though it could still take pictures, there wasn't jack that I could do with them. And the same thing applied to entering new phone numbers or editing existing ones. I was faced with having to do it all manually. At least the SIM card still contained all the phone info.

I lived with the phone in that situation for a couple of weeks, fully intending to take the phone to Technicell, located at White Saphire, to see if there was any way possible to repair it. I didn't have high hopes of anything bringing it back to one-hundred percent.

That is, until I decided to take this particular phone for a swim (http://winjama.blogspot.com/search/label/Cell%20Phones). Well, after that, it was either take it into the shop or resign myself to not having the capability to take photos no matter where I was and whether I had remembered my camera or not.

I took it in to Technicell on the 18th (last Friday). I mentioned that I had taken it for a swim. I did forget to mention the problems stemming from dropping the danged thing. They told me to come in next Tuesday afternoon as it wouldn't be ready till then.

"Yeah right". All that will happen is I'll come in on Tuesday and they'll tell me the bad news - "I'm sorry Mr Dave, your phone is terminal. You might as well through it away."

Well, that was what I thought anyway. I forgot go in Tuesday to check on it (which may have influenced the outcome in some weird karmic sort of way). I did manage to get in to Technicell this morning as I also had to make a run to the airport to FedEx some papers up to the states.

Marketplace Update and More

Construction continues at a feverish pace. I mean, my God... Just look at the progress here, will ya?

Footing holes already dug for half of the new bodegas in the marketplace. Construction speed that is simply unheard of - well, at least here in Corozal.

Footing Holes Sprouting Everywhere

This afternoon, while getting ready for the Men's Group meeting, this time at our place, I spied a visitor on our back screen door. A pretty praying mantis. He (or she) wasn't really interested in what I had going on, so after I snapped this photo, I left him/her to his/her own devices.

I'll have to look it up to see if it's a praying mantis or a preying mantis. Sort of different ends there - one feeds the soul and one feeds the bod, or is it a play on words? Hmmm, I wonder.

Screen Door Visitor

Well, it turns out it's a Praying Mantis. Often, it's incorrectly written "Preying Mantis", usually because of its aggressive nature. Thanks Wikipedia.

Now this morning. As Twyla and I were walking the doggies into town, as we were approaching the fishermen's pier, something just didn't look right to me.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I told Twyla, "I think one of the boats has sunk." Neither of us could recall any bad weather during the night, so unless a through-hull fitting failed or a wooden something or other failed, I can't imagine what caused the problem.

As we approached the pier, there was no doubt as to what happened. One of the fishing boats had definitely sunk - motor and all. No one seemed to be in any great hurry to raise it from the depths, so we contented ourselves with a couple of photos and then continued on our way.

Definitely a Problem

Didn't appear to be any sheening from fuel, so that was a good thing. Lord only knows what kind of damage salt water will do to the motor and controls over the long term.

Yah, she's sunk alright.

When I passed by later in the morning, like around 10:30 AM, the boat had been re-floated and again, no one was around, so maybe damage had been minimal.

On our way back from the morning walkies, I stopped to take a picture of the new Hailey's Beach (used to be Hailey's, then it was the Hurricane, and now it's Hailey's once again. They seem to have decorated the place quite nicely - curved bar and all. Several outside seating options are available, a play area for kids and off-street parking.

Their sign says they have a seafood menu and also serve Belizean Cuisine. As long as the beer's cold and the chow is good, we'll participate. I'm looking forward to our first trip down there. Might just ride our bicycles down for some refreshment.

Hailey's Beach

Market Rehab Underway

Last week all the vendors in the tents in the middle area of the Corozal Market were moved out and over to the vacant lot beside the post office and behind the police station. This was, we were informed so that new bodegas could be built for them.

My thought was, "Yeah, right. Any excuse to move them out and open up the area for more parking and more access to the vendors along the perimeters.

Well, lo and behold, we came traipsing along this morning and what do we see? They have kicked the automobiles out and have been getting ready to pour some concrete. This is amazing progress so far. Our suspicions that this was a ploy to get rid of some vendors was groundless. Which is nice to see. This whole project might go a long way to cleaning up the Corozal market, making it a more attractive and fun shopping experience.

Corozal Market Construction

I know the quality of the photo isn't up to par. I've got a boatload of excuses.

1. My Nikon Coolpix is on the fritz (I think... May be related to battery problem below)
2. I'm having a hard time right now finding US made Duracell AA batteries. I can find a ton of Chinese counterfeit Duracell's that last about *** that long.
3. I forgot to bring my specs along this morning.
4. I took the picture with my cell phone camera - I need the specs to read the screen.

It was a good thing Doug was with me this morning, to read the menu on the damn phone. Maybe I should have had him take the photo too! Well, anyway, it isn't supposed to be art - it's news, or something similar.

The quality reminds me of when I was in the Navy. A good friend of mine then was a photographer's mate named Willy Dyer. I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with him in the ship's (USS Iwo Jima LPH-2) photo lab (You could flip the darkroom warning light on, which showed out in the passageway. No one would dare enter the lab with that light on, thus ensuring some hour's of quiet and escape.).

Anyway, we had occasion (Apollo 13 Recovery) to have a photographer from AP or UPI on board. He just freaked us out with his photo development techniques. He'd over-expose his film, then run into the lab, flash develop a roll in the chemicals for no more than 30 seconds at each stop, dump the negatives, still wet, into the enlarger tray, expose a print, run the paper through it's process, slap it into the print dryer (set just about on fry), peel the print off the drum, and stuff it into a fax machine (one of the old 11-minutes a page models - hot stuff at the time) that had been installed for the press' use and his image would be on its way to New York or wherever in an instant. It was amazing to watch him at work. His stuff was always so grainy and just really terrible looking on print stock, but would show up in the news looking good (We had to take his word for that - we never saw any of his stuff in published form since we were out at sea for that whole time).

So, there you have it. News as it happens, right here in Corozal. Almost as fast as it did in 1970!

Men's Group Celebrates Their Women

How else? By consuming ice-cold beer and having a Bar-B-Q, BBQ, Barbecue, Barbeque, Bar-B-Que, or Barbie. And, as usual, Wikipedia, the online source of all knowledge, has a large chunk of information about the subject at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue).

Anyway, I think it was Craig who originally came up with the idea, but managed to get enough cohorts of a like mind, that the Corozal Men's Group was motivated enough to actually put on the bash.

Craig and I went shopping for most of the big items, meat, fish, veggies, and other cooking supplies.

This was intended to be a photo-documentary of not only the shopping (although that would be interesting in and of itself), but the cooking and of course, the consuming. Unfortunately, that sort of "clicked" to a halt when my camera quit working for the evening. Well, that and perhaps a beer or two too many may have helped with the confusion factor.

So, to document the shopping experience. Since Craig and Mae's maroon beast was still in the shop being morphed into a metallic green beast, courtesy of one of Corozal's best Earl Sheib paint shop imitators, I took the Isuzu, newly out of the mechanic's shop itself, after having gotten a new clutch, body mounts all around, A/C fanbelt, and turn signal short all sorted out, and picked up Craig for our morning adventure of speed-shopping.

Our first stop was to Jud's Meat Shop and Deli, since we didn't want to take a chance on them selling out the 10 pounds of baby ribs we had reserved the day before.

Craig In A Determined Pose Outside Jud's

I have to say, I do like Jud's Meats. It's always clean inside, and their ground beef with the peppers and spices they add into it when they grind it, is something special.

Here's the proprietor, showing Craig the rack of ribs we were going to have cut into individual portions. Nice looking piece of meat.

Craig Checking Out the Goods

A couple of things on display in the store was this armadillo, and a wood snake. Not just a wood snake (if there is such a thing) but, a wooden snake. Close-up, it looks pretty authentic.

Armadillo's, Oh My

Snakes, More Oh My

From Jud's, it was just a hop, skip and jump up to D's Supermarket, where we bought a whole batch of stuff. Here's Craig checking out a bottle of coconut rum - he eventually opted for the cheaper Traveller's brand (which took a fatal dive onto the concrete steps once we arrived at Jim's), and then, there's me showing how we buy eggs in Corozal. Eggs, regardless of size, sell for about $0.30 BZD each no matter where you shop.

In the Liquor Isle

Eggs-zactly

Here's Amelita (on the right) checking our purchases for us. She is one of the few checkers in town that always gives you a receipt - a nice touch.

Amelita (right) and Her Helper

From D's, we hotfooted it over to Frank's Meat Products. This is another favorite meat shop. We get some great cuts of beef and pork here. Today, we're buying a fillet of Chilean salmon, farm-raised, but mighty tasty. I know, not in the same league as the northwest salmon, or even Copper River salmon, but when you can't get that, the Chilean variety will do wonders.

Craig Describing What He Wants

The Girls Digging For It

And, here it is, on the scale, looking mighty good, They keep it in black plastic, even in the freezer, otherwise, exposure to light down here will kill the color. That fillet cost $78.00 BZD, and was worth every penny.

Weighing the Salmon

Our final stop on this shopping trip was to the Corozal Market. Craig had a whole laundry-list of veggies to get, including ten pounds of potatoes. He wanted red potatoes, but they've just gone out of season, so we got whites. We live and breath with the veggie seasons here, not like Safeway, or Piggly Wiggly up north.

Craig Describing the Veggies He Needs

While we were shopping, we were found by Wendy, Roger's wife. They're just newly returned from five weeks in Britain, and glad to be back.

Wendy Congratulating Us On A Fine Shopping Job

Here's the stall vendor at the market. Her little girl was very much interested in the camera. So much so, she couldn't keep her fingers off of it and somehow goobered the settings, which I didn't discover till we got to Jim's for the party. When I couldn't get the trigger to fire at all. Bummer.

Peter and Sylvia's Daughter A Market Stall Vendor

and Her Young Inquisitive Daughter

So, that is why this is just a speil about shopping and not about the celebration as such.
I did get the camera working again, this morning. Only after I took out the batteries, reinstalled them, and reset the camera to it's factory defaults. Wow!

Did I Say It Was Cold?

Yesterday morning was, in a word, cold.

56 or 57 degrees (f), depending on who's thermometer you perused. I know, all you folks up North snicker and in one or two cases probably guffaw at our concept of cold down here...

But, when you guys get cold in your house, what do you do? Why head over to the handy furnace thermostat and kick it up a notch or two. Failing that, you might toss another log or two on the fire.

We can't do that down here. No one has this thing called a furnace, much less a thermostat. So, when it gets to 56 degrees inside your house, it's bloody cold. And if your supply of blankets, quilts, throws, etc., is limited, it can get quite uncomfortable.

Not to mention your supply of warm clothes, becomes very limited down here. All the critters that live in your house with you (the uninvited ones that is - geckos, roaches, etc.) all seem to like using bits of your clothing for nests, food, or whatever. So stuff like clothing disappears over time. Then when it gets chilly, you reach for your nice wool sweater and find it has been decimated. Brrrr.

And before I forget, the longer you stay down here, the more you acclimatize. That slight drop in temperature in the evening is noticeable every day. When you have a significant drop, your body not only notices it, but it absolutely freaks out. Goose bumps pop out in places you don't ever remember getting goose bumps before, shivering so bad, you almost slosh your morning coffee. Why, it was so cold yesterday, I had to use my insulated cup to keep my coffee warm. Too warm it turns out - I burned my upper lip (turns out, I have one, not having seen it in many a year, having had a mustache since I was eighteen).

To show just how you acclimate and dress for cold weather, in the foto below is Twyla, our neighbor, on our walk to the market yesterday and she's dressed for the occasion. She's got her fleece top on, long pants and socks on under her Crocs. If Twyla had gloves, she probably would have had them on too.

What she's doing is loading up Lola's packs with veggies. The market vendors love to see us load up the doggies packs. They get a real kick out of it.

Twyla Loading Up Lola

The same morning, I just had to take another shot of the pelicans. Sometimes, you just can't resist, y'know?

They're Probably Shivering Too

To Market, To Market...

Ah... There's something really elemental and satisfying about going to the marketplace here in Corozal. Fresh fruits and vegetables are generally available everyday, as long as the item is in season. For example. The other day we tried to get radishes. None of the market vendors had radishes. Finally, one of them told us that radishes were out of season and that no one would have them. It just never dawned on us there was a season for radishes, I mean, Safeway always had them, right?

The lady below is one of our favorite vendors at the marketplace. She's showing us some of her wares. It was interesting, that while this was going on, a truck was delivering fresh broccoli to the market and all the vendors, her included, were keeping an eye out to make sure they got their fair allotment of the delivery. We also bought a head of broccoli.

One of Our Favorite Vendors at the Market

Dianna selecting some fresh green peppers. Vendors here usually have a broad assortment of peppers, mild to blow the top of your head off, savory, spicy, you name it.

Everything Always Looks to Good

One of the more interesting fruits we've found here (I have no idea what it's name is, locals call it something like "mammia"), looks like ripe papaya on the inside, but tastes like pumpkin pie - complete with cinnamon.

The View From Peter and Sylvia's is Good Too

Here's another shot of some of the fruit that's available. Watermelon is usually available everyday as is mangoes, papaya, bananas, plantain, grapefruit, grapes, and surprisingly last month, Washington State apples! Complete with labels and really shiny, shiny.

Fresh and Lots to Choose From

Here's a view looking down the marketplace. Notice also how clean the marketplace is. It's like that every day. All the vendors are pleasant and easy to deal with. There's virtually no haggling, a relief for us Gringos unused to that process, with prices set. They might vary a bit from vendor to vendor, but are similar throughout.

How Much You Want?

Also at the market (I'm sorry, no pictures of this yet) is a fish market. Fish day is Thursdays. The fish sellers usually have Snook, Snapper - 3 or 4 kinds, Jackfish, mackerel, etc. of various sizes. Now, buying fish is a two-step process. There's the fish seller, but the person who will likely be helping you decide on what fish you want is actually another business person - the fish cleaner. After you decide on the fish you want, the cleaner takes the fish and puts it on the seller's scale. The seller states the price and you pay that. Then, the cleaner takes the fish down the hallway and out back to the cleaning station, where he scales and guts the fish. He will also cut fillets or steaks for you and bags the fish. For this service, you pay about $2.00BZ. A completely separate transaction from buying the fish.

There are rules of conduct for fish cleaners posted on the wall near the cleaning station. Only cleaners with current health certificates can work there. There can be no spitting, cursing, smoking, or alcohol. The fish cleaner we had was proud that he used fresh lime juice in his rinse water and made it a point to tell us that fact.

There's also a restaurant upstairs at the market. We haven't eaten there yet, but we will and