1/ Fungineer
2/ Brand Strategist
3/ Storyteller

STEPHANIE WANDKE

1/ Fungineer
2/ Brand Strategist
3/ Storyteller

Belize

November 2, 2011

Private Beach Anyone?

What better place to relax and recover than my friend’s private eco-beach retreat in southern Belize! David and Wayne had been inviting me down to their new home just north of the small village (and I mean small – like 30 people) of Punta Negra, and finally our calendars coordinated!

I got a ride to their place with them and the Punta Negra school teacher, Teach, who was wearing a Green Bay Packers hat! All right!! We took an amazing journey through the mangroves and past Monkey River, dropping Teach off at the Punta Negra point….where about 6 homes are sitting along a rapidly eroding beachline. Most of the villagers came out to greet us, and we hollered that we’d be back in a few days for “the birthday party!” (I don’t remember the little girls’ name, but her birthday party was clearly the highlight of the week!)

Sabal Beach is such a romantic beach spot – absolutely secluded with barely a boat passing by. A fine groundsman is keeping the beach raked and the trees pruned – assuring a picture perfect beach at all times! And the sand around Belize is different on each beach – their place having this dark golden soft sand – very differrent from Placencia!

I brought a stack of board games and immediately got the boys playing Phase 10, Bezzerwhizzer, and everyone’s favorite $20,000 Pyramid! Both the guys are wonderful chefs, so we all took turn making fantastic meals for each other. Wayne showed me the importance of sifted flour for our pancakes, and then I showed him that pancakes don’t need to be round! We spent the good part of the morning designing and making pancakes shaped like peace signs, manatees, and of course the letter W !!!

One afternooon we went down to the dock to go swimming and there was a huge barracuda hanging under the dock! We spent a long time stalking it from one side, to anotehr, to the other, and then Wayne just grabbed my hand and said, let’s run and just jump in! So we did – jumping opposite the barracuda (but you know they move so fast it really didn’t matter) and of course David yells “OH its’ right behind you!!” and then we start freaking out, treading in circles, clinging to each other, and David’s laughing his ass off. We didn’t stay in the water too long after that – it’s freaky without your mask! LOL

Around sunset we liked to play yard games, cocount bocchi being the best! We threw coconuts all over the yard, and ended our day on the dock discussing stars and the universe. Also, Wayne taught me the wonder of the iinternet. I mean, I’ve always been amazed, but he has google almost glued to his brain and he would call up internet pages on every random subject i mentioned (which you know is a lOT) and even though half the word would be misspelled, he’d say “Google will figure it out” and don’t you know it sure did!

On my last day there, we went for about a 100 yard kayak trip – now these are my kind of athletes! Just down the beach from the house is a mangrove lagoon with fresh water so dark and cool; it makes wonderful reflections! Check out the pics! Then that afternoon, we walked down to the point for the Birthday Party! Halfway there it started pouring rain and we had to hide out under an abandoned platform….but ten minutes and the storm passed and we continued on our way. There were about 10 people at the party and they made a mouthwatering belize plate – stewed chicken, rice and beans, and coleslaw. Yeah!! And a perfect pink cake! YUM! It was nice (bud sad) to talk politics with these people and hear stories about the amazing fishing that used to be. They had the bill of a sawfish on the wall that was almost two feet long – caught right off the point by their father! (They have a long flattened snout that has pointed teeth extending from both sides!! A double edged saw!) But recent Belize fishery laws have prohibited them from casting nets in their own front yard, taking both their food supply and livelyhood….not that there’s much swimming by anymore.

A local fisherman was taking a boat down to Punta Gorda that day, so I hitched a ride with him and had a cheap, safe, and interesting ride home. From there I hopped on a plane and was back in Ptown within 20 minutes! A GREAT vacation from my vacation life! 😊