On to Caye Caulker **updated with photos

If you've ever wondered, "caye" is pronounced "key". I have to remind myself of that constantly, like before I open my mouth. It is a little odd here to not only speak the same language as the locals, but also not detect a major accent. It makes me hesitate to use certain words that can be slang in our language, or different in another country. It's easy to understand that slang words aren't the same in another language, but more difficult if everyone is speaking the same language.

This morning, a driver from my hotel drove me into Belize City to catch the water taxi. And from what little I saw of Belize City, it isn't nearly as bad as the guide books would have you believe. It was cloudy again, with pleasant weather.

The water taxi to Caye Caulker was about an hour. For the first couple hours I was on Caye Caulker, it was fairly cloudy and cool. But then the sun came out and it warmed up. The internet is pretty slow here, so photo uploads aren't going so well. I'll have to save most of those for another day. (**yay photos!)

I had a second breakfast of bacon, beans, eggs and fry jacks, which I took to eat on the beach. I walked up the beach and found a place that sells iced coffee and the most amazing chocolate rum balls ever.

The hostel where I'm staying is called Pause, and while I didn't read the description of the place well enough to figure out that I'm actually staying at a "wildlife sanctuary", it's a pretty nice place. It's on the west side of the island, with a dock and free kayak rentals. There are cats (domestic type), a few dogs, and one weird looking duck. I'm so bummed about the internet, because I've got some photos. (updated with photos)

The view from the private dock at the hostel:

I kayaked around (in the Caribbean by the way) and took some photos with my waterproof camera.

The view of the hostel from the water:

I walked around the island more, had an amazing fruit smoothie, scheduled a snorkeling tour for tomorrow, and came back to have a beer and watch the sunset from the dock. I talked to an amazing woman who's cycling down to Argentina. She's taking a year or two to do it, enjoying the countries she visits on the way.

It had gotten dark and I still needed to find dinner, so I set off to locate a place I had seen earlier that looked much less touristy than other places. I ate at Reina's where a guy named Elvis announced he would be my waiter, bartender, and chef. I had a couple beers, Jerk Chicken with coconut rice and vegetables, and lemon meringue pie. All made by him. Except the beer, but he at least served it to me.

Tomorrow I will head out to snorkel in the morning...possibly with rays and nurse sharks...we shall see.