Day: 227

Waking up in Gales Point Manatee (I know, it’s a hell of a handle for a village of 500 people), we went to the front porch of the guesthouse where we were staying to meet up with Raymond.  Raymond, among other things, is the 71 year old Hotelier, local Moonshine maker (hence last nights berry wine) and Manatee viewing tour guide.  After a breakfast menu, which consisted of any combination of scrambled eggs and fried dough you could want, made by Raymond’s daughter, we tossed him a wad of cash to head out on his boat and see what we could of the manatees that this place is named for.

Manatees, it turns out, surface for air about once every twenty minutes or so.  In a colony of somewhere between 50-70 sea cows there was a constant stream of them surfacing for air. The only major drawback is that, in exchange for being given an extremely lazy lifestyle, Mother Nature also deemed manatees shouldn’t be at all interesting too watch from a boat for more than a minute.  We sat there staring at the sea for a couple of hours with our major excitement being when one of these floating pieces of blubber would surface, breath with a huge “whsssh.”, then return to his underwater home.  Finally we told Raymond to take us back to shore so we could get out of this tiny town and onward to new places.  Being sure to stock up on a couple more bottles of his homemade headache wine for the road.

In a country as miniscule as Belize, having a car has already allowed us to travel to numerous places that the average tourist might miss.  Today we were able to squeeze in manatee watching at Gales Point Manatee, hiking and swimming in Mayflower National Park, and even made it all the way south to the peninsula of Placencia where there are bars and mass quantities of alcohol to celebrate Brian’s 30th birthday, which is today.

Needless to say I knew I’d probably lose control of most motor function, meaning my camera was locked in the room and I was free to test my wit on the ladies without trying to impress them with the size of my lens.  It almost worked to, but I think that last beer may have pushed me just past the point of being able to focus my eyes on her.