Bedlam at the Boundary

The other day, Doug and Twyla said they had been in Orange Walk and had heard a new shipment was coming in to the Boundary Store. They asked if we wanted to go along and, oh, by the way, how about if we stop at the Hoy Eye Center in OW, as well?

Well, we certainly couldn't pass that up. We had been wanting to go to Hoy for some time now. In fact, separately, Doug and I had each driven around the Orange Walk Regional Hospital a couple of times, as we had been told that's where the Hoy Eye Center was located. Neither of us had found it.

Doug and Twyla and finally found it on their last trip. It's located in a medical building near the hospital, but in true Belizean fashion, there's no signs outside anywhere saying "Hoy Eye Center", or anything even close. It's still a mystery to me how they found the place.

Anyway, we tagged along with them this past Saturday, leaving Corozal about 8:00 AM, We got into Orange Walk about a quarter to nine, and drove over to the Boundary Store. There was already a pretty good-sized crowd on hand, but we figured it wasn't too large, as the store hadn't opened as yet.

We decided to take a run back to the hospital to visit the Hoy Eye Center and see what selection of eyeglass frames they had, whether Transitions lenses were available, bi-focals vs tri-focals, costs, and eye exams.

We found out they had a nice selection of frames. I think we all found something we liked. Hoy does offer Transitions lenses, and trifocals are available as well but only in progressive focus lenses. Eye exams are done Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment only, and if you need a glaucoma test, it's done only at the Hoy central clinic in Belize City. All exams are done by an Opthamologist as well.

They have an essentially "Independence Day" sale in progress, lasting through October, where the exam is free if you buy frames from them. Pretty good deal. Prices for frames and lenses, including Transitions seem to be about half of what they'd be available for in the States, with prices on frames running from around $150 BZD to $500 BZD.

Well, after getting all that good information, we headed back over to the Boundary, assuming the crowd would have dispersed since it was about 9:30 AM by this time.

Crowded Parking At the Boundary

Hah! Were we wrong. You can see in the picture above, up at the end of the road, there's a cross street. We had to park to the right up that road. That was as close as we could get to the Boundary.

What a madhouse. But still, it's something you have to experience once anyway. The place was jam-packed with more people on the way.

Shoppers, Shoppers, Shoppers

We waded our way into the store. All of us hoping to find treasures... and books. Unfortunately, books had all been removed for the time being. But, you can't find that out till you are totally committed as the books are in a far corner of the store, and there's no way to tell without making your way through the whole place.

Lot's of new stuff to look at and buy. Dianna got in trouble looking at some stuff, but it was so crowded, she couldn't tell that the basket she was looking at was what some other lady had already picked out. Ooops.

Since the new shipment is really the first for some Christmas-related stuff, we were pretty sure a lot of folks were doing their Christmas shopping a little early. Get it while you can, otherwise, it'll be gone.

Dianna, Making Her Way Downstairs Into the Fray

We bought a few things. I bought two brandy snifters, since we didn't have any. That came to my mind from the previous night, when I had been watching Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, with Grace Kelly and Jimmie Stewart. In it, a detective friend of Jimmie Stewart's character, came over and they each had a snifter of brandy. I though it looked good at the time. We have a bottle of Traveller's Brandy, that I've never tried, so I got a wine glass and had a wee dram (if you can have a wee dram with brandy). Hence, acquiring the snifters. Dianna got a metal flower vase sort of thing, and a nice toy for our Godson Joshua's first birthday.

Doug and Twyla scored big with a framed mirror, wooden curtain rod, a fancy book bag, and some other treasures. You can see them below, trying to get to the checkout counter.

Doug and Twyla in the Crowd

Dianna and I got done quite a bit before Doug and Twyla, so we were waiting out front. People watching is always such a trip.

There were a couple of young Mennonite guys with a pickup loaded with watermelon to sell to the crowd. They were parked just across the street from the Boundary. What was really interesting about these two guys was that they had a large, bare loudspeaker wired into their pickup's stereo. The speaker was mounted using the speaker magnet on the roof of the pickup and was blasting Bob Marley! Just not the sort of music you would expect Mennonites to be listening to. We were joking that they were Rastafarian Mennonites from the Jamaican sect. They eventually moved their pickup across the street, still blasting reggae to where we were and Dianna bought a nice, small melon from them for $2.00 BZD.

Rastafarian Mennonites

On the way back to Corozal, Doug stopped so I could snap a shot of more vultures we had seen on the way there earlier that day. These guys weren't near as shy as the Corozal clan.

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