Caye Caulker: The #OMGBelize Adventures

I'm not saying you shouldn't plan ANYTHING on your next trip... buuuut... ok, I am saying you should probably not plan out your next trip. Not to a T atleast. Wing it.

Do it, you'll like it.

We showed up at the Belize International Airport with nothing but a couple tickets on the puddle jumper to the islands, and a guaranteed place to sleep at night.

And guess what? Not only were we NOT BORED. We stumbled upon a whole lot of awesome that we probably wouldn't have stumbled upon had we showed up with a detailed itinerary of ToDo's.

(Side note: even if the guy working at the counter for your tiny island airline says go to the bar and drink until its time to leave on your flight, don't go to the bar and drink until it's time to leave. Because then they'll tell you you missed your flight and you'll have to wait another hour for the next one, and you'll probably be grumpy.)

We touched down to a drizzly Caye Caulker airstrip roughly nine and a half minutes after taking off from Belize City, and immediately started laughing.

What had we just gotten ourselves into?

That cheery fella was the entire operations of the "airport", and that building back there... yea that was the airport. He insisted on taking our luggage on that cart the 30 yards back and having us pick it up under the porch And when we asked for a taxi since it was raining, a jolly ol barefoot chap pulled up on a 6-seater golf cart and scooped us up and dropped us right in front of our new home for the next few days.

The benefit of staying in a hostel is that you make roughly 32 new friends within like 20 minutes of arriving... couple that with the benefit of staying on the worlds tiniest (may be a slight exaggeration) island is that you actually know every bartender, shopkeeper, chef and dog* within a day.

*Never in my life have I seen so many stray dogs in one area. Let alone stray dogs that are the nicest, most laid back, chillest dogs ever.

So, let's summarize shall we? Caye Caulker: Tiny.. full of pooches, backpackers and expats. Oh, and Go Slow. The islands motto, it's posted up EVERYWHERE in case you forget. (Supposedly it's for the golf carts... I personally think it's a reminder to just sit back and chill the eff out. Who knows)

And me?

I fell in love. The island didn't even have streets. You walked everywhere. Barefoot if you were really embracing it. You got the best meals sitting in lawn chairs on the sand. Afternoons were spent laying in a hammock at your hostel or on a dock at the far end of the island with 50 other people.

I had carry out Chinese food, while laying out, and drinking rum punch. How could you NOT fall in love?!

Our favorite hangout became the sports bar, owned by an expat from Pittsburgh, and the sweetest pooch Sir Finnegan. I wish I could count how many beers we had sitting in those old wood chairs. What started as a table of 4 gals quickly grew with every visit. We acquired accomplices from New York to California to England to South Africa and everywhere in between.

The island was so, so quiet being slow season. And BOY do they take slow season seriously... our last morning in Caulker we tried 3 different breakfast spots, to find all of them had closed down for the month until business picked back up. Have no fear, we made our own fun... if that wasn't already evident. Ooh the shenanigans that begin with a bottle of local cheap rum and a can of Arizona Kiwi-Strawberry...

After spending three nights at Yuma's House (safe to say it was definitely one of my favorite hostels I've stayed in) we headed to the water taxi dock Monday afternoon, and I was pretty pouty about leaving our little island behind. After being reminded we still had a weeks worth of Belize left ahead of us though, so let's be honest... I turned the frown upside down.

Ambergris Caye, here we come!

Other babblings:
We flew TropicAir from BZE to Caye Caulker, and used the Caye Caulker water taxi. Great service from both! 
Some favorite eats: Paradiso, Happy Lobster, Bambooze and the little Chinese food joint across from Frans

And then there was #OMGBelize

I guess I should have been more nervous about the fact that I had only spent a cumulative 18 hours total with one girl I was traveling with, not to mention I had never even met other gal.

Even as I was nearly sprinting through the Atlanta airport after a slightly late flight into the great Peach state, trying to get to the international terminal to meet them, the only thing that was on my mind was if I had actually thrown in enough swimsuits or was 3 was going to be disappointingly too few.

Does that mean I've hit that level of weirdness that traveling to Central America with two strangers doesnt even phase me? #bloggerprobs

Maybe I should back up and explain how this entire trip even came about. Sometime in the middle of the summer, I stumbled upon a ridiculously cheap roundtrip flight to Belize from Atlanta. After half-jokingly sending the link to Whit, she replied "let's book it". Mind you, I send her random flights at least once a day and usually she just tells me to get back to work. Naturally, my reply was SERIOUSLY? and we both decided 'why the hell not'.

She got a hold of her sister, as they had been tossing around the idea of a fall trip, and I tried to wake up Jenn in Vegas, as we had been throwing around the idea of Thailand in 2014. After a little convincing, we had 4 airline tickets purchased and a slight smirk on our faces. About 4 hours later, prices went up about $400. Yahtzee.

 The next few days were filled with a lot of "Holy shit what did we just book?" and  "Where is Belize anyways?" Those quickly evolved into "Oh my god we're going to Belize!", a countdown was started, and the token #OMGBelize phrase was born.

Funny how quickly those hundred or so days had flown by. Once settled into row 13, Whit & I looked at each other and just giggled... 'watch out Belize, here we come!'

Little did we know the adventures we were about to stumble upon.

BZE > IND

Another set of passport stamps. A fresh batch of scuffs and scars on the suitcase. A whole new series of stories to laugh about. Another country checked off the list. Another sleepy Monday morning spent readjusting.

Labor'ing in Punta Cana

It's only taken just shy of a decade, but I'm finally savvy to the fact that if I travel during a major US holiday I get a freebie vacation day.

It was a double whammy that my mom's birthday falls on the eve of Labor Day, so it didn't take much more convincing than a simple text that said "you don't REALLY want to spend your birthday stateside, do you?!"

A few days later we decided on the Now Larimar in Punta Cana. I'm a big fan of the Dominican Republic. I always tell everyone, Australia aside, Punta Cana has some of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen.

Per my usual routine, I religiously scoured TripAdvisor before booking the resort. Much to my surprise the negative comments were few and far between, which actually made me slightly hesitant. No resort can be THAT good, can it?!

The verdict? It can.

After a slightly rough 5am flight (it seemed like a good idea at the time of booking) out of Indy we were wheels down on the island by noon.  Truth be told, we did a whole lot of NOTHING the entire time, and it was amazing.

Laying by the pool, enjoying the beach, reading books, soaking up the sunshine, people watching, eating copious amounts of delicious food and indulging on all the fruity libations... it was pure bliss.

Being able to escape reality for any amount of time is always fantastic, being able to escape it and have some girly bonding time with your mama is even better!

And even though I'm a loyal Riu Resorts gal, I was pleasantly surprised by Now and would definitely go back!


(No affiliation with any resorts listed, not a sponsored post, just my honest opinion.)

Tuesday ramblings

I read 'Gone Girl' while I was at the beach last week. Maybe I missed something, because my desire to rave about it like everyone else has is FAR from there.

I literally finished the last page, sat my iPad down and replied "That was the DUMBEST book I have read in a long time." Which was truly how I felt, a 'long time' measuring the amount of time between that day and the day I finished 'Girls in White Dresses'. Perhaps that's why I rarely read the quote unquote popular books. They just aren't my thing....

Although 'Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me' was a pretty good one, I will hand that one to you, popular society.

Up to this point in the post I've wondered if I'm correctly using book titles, or if you're even supposed to add ' to them. Unfortunately for you and the rest of the internet I don't care enough to actually go Google it though.

The world is weird right now. I think that was my original point of this post. America is slowly losing it's fascination with dumping water on their heads, planes are being shot out of the sky, Ebola is running rampant, China's building islands and terrorists are cutting off heads.  Meanwhile I'm just sitting here making pretty pictures of liquor, trying to figure out if my blouse would have looked better with white jeans (despite the fact it's after Labor Day. I believe in a good winter white. Err, autumn white?) 

Which genuinely makes me sound like an egotistical, self-centered asshole. Maybe I am. It's not that I'm not concerned with the destruction of the world around me (dramatic, much?) It's just that it's overwhelming so I'll just sit here and pick at the lint on my black pants and pop Junior Mints into my mouth.

And count down the days until Belize. (sixteen, if you were curious) 

Oh hey.

I'm somewhat of a unicorn around these parts nowadays. And by that I mean the obvious... rarely ever seen. During the peak of my blogging I was a lowly intern here at the house of booze. It's amazing how much more free time you have when your only tasks are data input and filing.

Just kidding, I did my fair share of designing back then too... but the workload was easier, especially compared to now and running the department.

I'm gearing up for the trifecta of travel, as I've affectionately deemed it. I've been afforded a few opportunities I couldn't pass up, which will lead me to three Caribbean countries in the next three months. My beach baby self is GLEAMING at the very thought of it right now.

If you count being in Jamaica in July then you could actually call 2014 the quadfecta of island hopping but quadfecta isn't a real word, and it sounds a bit too much like a jungle-contracted disease, so we'll pass on that.

The point of this post is lost on me now, except maybe to just fill the void that was left when I forgot I possessed the ability to type full sentences on a computer that aren't the likes of "$4 Shots of J�ger every Friday!"

Mission accomplished.

Oh, and I am being taken on a date tonight. Just throwing that out there.

When the ice melts.

I hate writing about current events. It's just like begging to stir up a shitstorm. I deleted this post twice before actually publishing it. But after scoffing at this all week, I felt a need to truly voice my side of it.

My beef with this ice bucket challenge?

What sort of society do we live in that we have to dare our friends to dump icy, cold water on themselves to get them to care about a cause? 

Is that really what we've become?

Believe me, the marketing/grass roots/word of mouth aspect of all of this is awe-inspiring from an advertising/PR point of view. I could sing the praises of whoever started all of this (despite mixed reviews of how it actually originated) I have never once bashed the organization or the fact that they are receiving donations. It's awesome that they have witnessed such a boost in awareness.

What I'm disappointed in is that so many people are only doing it because its "cool".  Do you know what isn't nearly as buzzworthy? Sitting at a nursing home for a few hours keeping the residents company. Taking time out of your holiday season to go slop turkey and noodles on a Styrofoam plate for the line of homeless folks standing before you. Throwing your spare change in the red bucket at Christmas. Do you know what makes you feel just as good inside?

My beef isn't with the cause, it's with the motive of the participants. Do you, as a human, as an American, really need guaranteed pats on the back to do good onto others? That mindset is disgusting, you guys.

I have always made a point to donate my time or money to a handful of selected charities every year. Guess what? No one in particular asked me to, and no one sings my praise when I do. I could be lead astray, but I am fairly certain that doesn't decrease the value in what I do. I do it because I feel personally vetted to the individual causes. In one way or another, I have been drawn to each of the respective organizations, and I want to pledge to them. Not because someone dares me to.

I hope that by dumping ice water on your head you do truly realize the meaning behind it, and you do truly want to help cure this disease. I hope that this opens the eyes of many to what a little fun and a little donation of time can lead to. I hope that ALS research advances leaps and bounds by this, but I also hope that people use it as a jumping point to find other things they are passionate about, and find ways to help.

If you pledged anything this year, ice or not. I thank you. Thanks for putting good juju into the world. We need more of that. I genuinely hope that we aren't approaching a time where they only way you can get someone to care about a cause is to turn it into a media circus.