It’s still raining, and Diego has disappeared. We had breakfast in Sunny’s where the service set the standard for slowness. We sat in the porch and watched the rain as we sobered up. Apparently today the locals go from house to house along the peninsula pissing it up!
At about 10:00 hrs. we went up to the Post Office and the Postmaster opened it especially for us. We hired a mask, snorkel and flippers for $5 Belizean Dollars and dived in amongst the boats at the wooden harbour jetty. The water was murky and all that we could see was the seaweed on the bottom.
The water had a nasty sulphurous smell, so we moved on round into the bay, walking through the chickens scratching under the palm trees. The waves stirred up seaweed and sand and made it impossible to see anything.
We gave up our Jacques Cousteau inspired activities and sat in some white wooden chairs to dry despite the light drizzle. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (born June 11, 1910, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France—died June 25, 1997, Paris), French naval officer, ocean explorer, and coinventor of the Aqua-Lung, known for his extensive underseas investigations, and regularly on our televisions.
We returned to the lodge and talked with Ron and an Australian couple swinging in hammocks amongst the turtle shells and coral decorations. Errol the hotel “manager” staggered in in an advanced state of inebriation to collect our money, probably to buy some more beer with.
He collapsed into a chair and muttered, largely incoherently, for about fifteen minutes before grabbing his hat and tottering off. He seemed glad that Diego had left. The afternoon passed and darkness fell obscuring the piglets rooting about at the end of the garden.
We turned on the lights and the intensity waxed and waned as usual. Every ten minutes or so the fan would grind to a halt, and the music cassettes slowed down to a dangerous drawling level before the power surged back in and they set off in full swing again.
We picked up a coconut in the garden and shared the meat and milk after prising the reluctant nut from it’s hairy cocoon. American Ron is good for a laugh and his banal banter is entertaining and his laughter is infectious.
We went to the Stone Crab Restaurant for our evening meal with the Australians, Greig and Hannah. Despite the extensive menu only fish, rice and beans were realistically available. We ate heartily to the music of Madonna (including the ubiquitous La Isla Bonita, with drunken revellers substituting the words “I fell in love with some dego”. Dego or dago used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a person of Italian or Spanish birth or descent, first known use of dago was in 1832).
The resident family were taking down the Christmas decorations while we ate. We re-joined Ron who had been partying again! A local wedding saga was continuing. It should have taken place on 31st December 1987, but the license failed to arrive, and they just had the wedding reception. Today the priest had come again but there was still no sign of the license, so he just joined in with the others in getting drunk!
The first rumblings and lightening flashes of a storm started at 22:00 hrs. as we retired to our room at the lodge. Ran, the owner of the lodge went into the toilet, somewhat the worse for wear for drink. We heard a crash and we peered over the partition wall. He had fallen sideways off the bog (toilet) with his trousers around his ankles and lay in a foetal position crushing the wicker toilet paper disposal basket.
He must have come to his senses later on because he was gone in the morning.
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