Fishy Friday

I LOVE THIS PAINTING!

I instantly fell for the bright colors and giant fish eyes. It's so vibrant that it instantly makes me happy.

I asked the gallery guy for some information about the artist. He sent me an email that said: RE: Jorge Landero. The first line said "the artist Jose Landero" - huh?

Mr. Landero lives in Santa Familia village, the Cayo district, Belize. The email said: Google Earth reference; 17.10.42 North, 89.04.46 West - yeah, I don't understand that. But I do know if I want to visit him, the quickest way from San Ignacio is by a hammock bridge.

Here's the final line in the email: "He have been living there his entire life, Mr. Landero is well known for his different paintings in the country and is very popular in the island. His height is about 5' 5" he is a bit chubby."

Sounds about like something one of my friends would write!

A Sad Imposter

This Blue Morpho Butterfly lives on our fridge. He's the only thing allowed there because I'm a freak about clutter... I digress.

We watched the real ones at Chaa Creek's Butterfly Farm. The Farm placed a little glass case by the restaurant, and each morning and night you'd see a little more progress of them morphing into butterflies.

Unlike my little feathered fridge fly, the real ones are an extraordinarily brilliant blue and don't have sparkles.

Wednesday's Wine + Belikin

This week's Wednesday Wine is the Qupe 2006 Syrah. I first learned about Qupe from a wine dinner at the Four Seasons. I've loved their stuff ever since. It's got that spiciness you'd expect from a central coast wine, but incredibly balanced.

BUT... KEEPING IN MY BELIZEAN THEME...
I'm adding a Belikin to my Wedensday's Wine. Belikin is Belize's beer. Every bar serves Belikin, Premium Belikin and Belikin Lager.

Which means we drank a lot of Belikin... often starting before noon. It just felt right after riding bikes a mile or so into town, having a leisurely breakfast and then organizing our next dive, or zip line or cave tubing experience. After that, clearly we'd earned a beer!

Belikin's tag line is: The only beer worth drinking. My husband's tag line for Belikin is, if I had to drink this all the time, I'd give up drinking.

It's a good vacation beer though.

Conch, as in Con-k

At this beachfront restaurant in Ambergris - where even the wait staff doesn't wear shoes - I thought I'd try something new, so I ordered some Conch Fritters.

Waiter: It's pronounced Con-k.

Me: Ok, I'd like some con-k fritters.

Waiter: The season's over. We don't have any.

I let it pass. But I tell my husband I want a con-k shell. Even though I didn't get to eat any con-k... I figured I'm justified now that I can pronounce it. He takes me to the beach later that day and finds dozens of con-k shells on the beach. But I say, I want a pretty one like the street vendors are selling. He says, you want to buy one of those instead of take one of these? Me: Basically, yes.

Belizean Hangover

This seems about right for a Monday - don't you think?

Since we've just come back from Ambergris Caye, I'm planning to make the holiday hangover last as long as I can. We picked up this mask as part of our tradition of getting something local that we can hang over the doors to our bedroom. Before Hurricane Dean voted us off the island last year, I picked a funky gecko. This year, clearly my husband's choice.

I wanted to wear it this morning as we took our kid to his first day in third grade... to which my husband said... Do what now?