| July 10 Life in the jungle: I ended up sleeping in from a late-night last night. I started my day at the ponds to plant papaya seeds. Twice I dropped the container of seeds. TWICE! I couldn’t believe it. Little black seeds dropped in the dirt. Good grief. I ended up running out of seeds about 95% through my planting because of how many seeds I lost. From there I started planting fruit tree seedlings in the coconut field. I planted 28 soursop, 18 Indian lime and 8 local lime seedlings. From there I headed back to the ponds. I had some tiny papaya plants from before and I was able to finish planting my papaya rows. I got back to the house just before dark. [In the end, planting all these papaya seeds/plants would fail.]Tomorrow I am heading to Hopkins for a few days. This trip came up unexpectedly from my conversation with my website developer back on July 4 and I have been going crazy trying to get all my work done in preparation plus make lots of short videos for this new project. They want to build my social media audience via short videos and reels. [In a few months they would ultimately abandon the project.] July 11
Hopkins My first job after getting something to eat and visiting the beach. My visit to the beach only needed to be a minute or two before I was satisfied on that front. My first focus was to organize my computer to get as many photos and videos into the cloud and off my computer. At the time I was down to less than 2GB of storage left on my computer. I ended up working very late and going to bed at 2:45 AM. I ended up going to bed late because I started editing my website to reflect my new life in Belize, not my old life of bike touring. I also watched some YouTube on How to do aquaponics.
Another thing that sort of pissed me off was the night guy shut off all the lights on me at about midnight. No asking me I wanted some lights on or a reminder to turn the lights off when I go to bed. I have no idea what people do if they have to find a washroom in the middle of the night with no light on in this place. July 12
July 13 |
I spent some time this afternoon downloading some podcasts to my computer. I used to love listening to podcasts when I drove a truck. Business podcasts were great for getting my creative juices flowing. With no internet, my podcast days ended a long time ago. [I would discover later on that even though I downloaded podcasts to Spotify on my computer that I would need an internet connection to use Spotify!!! Rrrr]
A mural by the beach
I also had a call with my website developer. He wanted some audio videos to go with some of the older videos I had sent him the other day. That had me walking outside of the village looking for a quiet secluded spot away from people and houses. During our conversation I had him finish the website modifications that I couldn’t complete myself from Monday night. I still have so much internet research and work to do I could easily sit in front of the computer 14 hours a day for another week or two. I shared my 26,000 km’s Later and I Am Still Me blog post with 17 Facebook bike groups.
I also worked on uploading the remaining files to my Belize work permit application portal as I need to get this headache out of the way. According to the website, all my paperwork went through. But who knows? [This work permit would be another waste of my time.]
I went to bed at 1 AM. Almost 18 hours in front of the computer less time for lunch and supper.
The beach at Hopkins
July 14
Life in the jungle: I woke up just before 8 AM and packed my bag and inquired about how successful I would be at hitchhiking back to the main highway. I was told that hitching a ride to the junction would be pretty easy. I ended up walking about 3 km’s (out of the 7 km’s) before I got a ride. I caught the ride all the way into Dangriga. I was hoping to make up time if a bus recently passed. At the bus station, the bus was running and waiting. Within about 5 minutes we were on the road. $6,50 USD to Belize City.
Anyways, my trip to Hopkins cost me a few dollars but I feel I was pretty productive for the time I was there. Now I am headed home for a day or two of rest. This has been a very hectic last 2 weeks. And my body is pretty sore from 2 bus trips and almost 40 hrs in front of a computer sitting on a very uncomfortable wooden bench.
I arrived in Belize City at 12:35 PM. Five minutes after my bus to the village left. I needed construction nails, a watermelon and something to eat anyways. The next bus was 4 PM. I appreciated seeing my bus driver enjoying a few beers before the trip home. (?!?) When I got home, I ran my pump (from the river) and it worked! I was always sure that if I did not run my river pump at least once a day for a few seconds then the water in the pipe would slowly drain back into the river as I have always had problems with this since the pump was first installed.
Some species of unusual weevil
Belize Part 33 (July 3 to 9)
Belize Part 32 (June 27 to July 2)
Glossary of Terms
Glossary of words or people that may or may not be part of this blog post. This glossary will be at the bottom of every blog post for Belize.
Jack & Jill – These are my ex-property managers (names changed). They are Canadian, they introduced me to Belize in 1997, sold me their house in Belize in 2003, and rebuilt my house from 2014 to 2018. I have known them for over 30 years. After almost 20 years of me supporting their life here in Belize Jack decided quite unexpectedly to declare “war” on me right before Christmas 2021. They would end up stealing my business license and causing me a lot of grief. They live on the farm, but not on my land.
Wayne – He is the son of the original owners of the farm (both owners are deceased). The original farm was 2 – 30 acre pieces minus 2 – ¾ acre parcels for my house and 2 – ¾ acre parcels that Jack & Jill own which were all originally purchased from the original owners. In 2017 Wayne sold me 40 acres of land from the original 60 acres (30 acres plus 10 acres). Wayne lives in his parent house and has a few cows on his remaining 17 acres of land.
The ponds – I have 2 large (300ft long x 50ft wide x 10ft deep) ponds on my 30 acre parcel of land which is basically jungle. I have about 60 coconut trees (mostly mature) around the ponds. I have plans to plant a few hundred papaya trees here plus other fruit bearing trees around the ponds.
The coconut field – I have about 400 coconut trees planted (various growth states) on about 3 acres of cleared land of the 10 acre parcel. I plan to add various fruit trees to the same field as soon as I can.
The river lot – my house sits on a ¾ acre lot. I have a second joining ¾ acre lot that allows me river frontage on the Belize River. I call that my river lot.
The dry – Belize has 2 main seasons. The rainy season and the dry (no rain). The wet is obviously the rainy season.
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush and unwanted trees
