Life's a Beach | Daily Life and Real Estate in Playa del Carmen

The view from Cahal Pech down to San Ignacio. A cool morning fog blankets the valley.

We all arose bright and early and ready for a hot breakfast on a chilly morning. Via Facebook, we managed to connect with our friends Sandra and Court Roberson and made plans to join them at the ranch, meet their new baby Nicholas and tour their new residential development project, Cedar Bluff. Court's father came to Belize in 1960 to run a Georgia Pacific logging operation which he later bought out and took over. One of nine siblings, Court and his wife Sandra, spent several years on the Riviera Maya working in real estate and development and recently returned to the homestead to start their own family.

The Roberson family now develop and sell real estate and raise prize winning Brahma bulls and cows, including the current Grand National Champion. Great care is taken to preserve the breed standard, calves with imperfect or undesirable traits being culled and sold for beef.

What a majestic beast.

Later, we toured their neighbor's beautiful home and walked down to the river to check out the recently surveyed lots for Cedar Bluff. Court's brother, Tre, has had great success with is own gated community, Olde Mill and the world class equestrian center onsite. This next project, on the shores of the beautiful Macal River and just minutes from downtown San Ignacio is sure to do well for this family.

Court's crew cleaning up the river front lots.

A rare and spectacular Volaceous Trogon, one of a pair that reside outside Court and Sandra's window.

Until today, all of the people we have met and spent time with in Belize have been either expats or nationals in the service industry at some level or another. Not until now have we been reminded that Belize until very recently was a British Commonwealth, a colony if you will. The country may no longer serve at the pleasure of Her Majesty. but the disparity of wealth, power and opportunity that comes with Colonial rule still remains to some degree.

We bid our goodbyes to our friends, promising to stop in again on our way home, and made tracks for the border. We quickly reached the Belize/Guatemala border and navigated immigration/customs with no issues. In an effort to stimulate the local economy, we enlisted the services of a Guatemalan gentleman to "guide" us through the process. I had made the necessary copies of most of our documents but we were still missing a few papers needed to bring our vehicle into the country. Our "guide" and I trekked across the river, about 200 yards to small tienda that offers copy services. Two photocopies, $40 quetzales to the government, one hour and a generous propina later we crossed into Guatemala, changed our US dollars for quetzales at a rate of 1:7 and carried on to El Remate.

The now familiar car ferry to the ruins at Xunantunich.

Wash day at the river.

Aproaching the border.

Melchor de Mencos Guatemala

The road from the border to Lago Peten Itza is pretty good for the most part but you will encounter some dangerous potholes and other "road hazards" along the way.

El Remate, on the north-east shore of Lago Peten Itza is pretty quiet but a convenient place to stay while visiting the famous ruins at Tikal. There are plenty of small bars, restaurants and decent places to spend a night or two. We decided to eat at La Casa de Don David, a pretty hotel on the lake with a clean restaurant, gift shop, tour services and beautifully manicured gardens. The lunch was filling but uninspired, clearly designed to satisfy what must be thought of as the typical American palette. While unimpressed by the food, we would absolutely consider staying there overnight.

Gallo (GUY-oh) is Guatemala's answer to Belize's Belikin but tastes much like any Mexican lager.

We had originally planned to press on to Rio Dulce, but our extended visit with Court and Sandra forced us to "Plan B", stopping at Finca Ixobel in Poptun, one and a half hour north of our intended destination. We arrived just before dark to find they had just three cabins left, none of which had electricity or private baths. Cole and I elected to stay in the most spacious of the three options while Rob and Birdie decided to camp out in the back of the Expedition and watch movies on the laptop.

Dinner, served from 7:00pm to 8:30pm is a well presented buffet with roast chicken and a tasty satay sauce, rice, coleslaw, peas, carrots and fresh garden salad all served with warm bread. There is a selection of sodas, beer, coffee, tea and lemonade and a variety of deserts. Everything is run on the honor system with each group or family responsible for logging the items that they have consumed during their stay. We eagerly devoured our dinner and chatted with a young German girl, Anja, who was biking her way through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and finally ending up in Panama, What an adventure! The kids played a few games of checkers and we all tucked in early again, hoping for an early start in the morning.

Today we logged 118 miles and 6 hours of travel time including over an hour at the border and one hour for lunch. Tomorrow we buckle up for a long (possibly 8 hour) drive straight through to Antigua. Stay tuned.

Go to Day 3 - Poptun to Antigua Guatemala