February 12, 2011 (San Pedro Town, Belize-- Again: Day 1/Part Three)

After pedaling for several miles across the gravel road which crosses the big lagoon just north of San Pedro Town (the road that must have had over 1 million truck loads of gravel brought in to build it) I was getting pretty tired. The road was incredibly rough, and I was surprised that my old and rickedy bicycle had made it this far without blowing a tire. After pedaling in a westerly direction for several miles I finally reached an area that I thought had to be the project. It was crazy! It looked like the project had been built right on top of a gigantic swap! At this point I still thought this might have been the project I was looking for, but the whole proposition was starting to feel like an bizarre detective story. It was like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, and I was trying to fit the pieces together. I was anxious to try to talk to someone with the Town Council on Monday to see what was going on with this property. I continued west on my bicycle for about another mile -- I found out later that I had been riding on the first east-west road to cross the peninsula-- and that the road "opened" in October, 2010! Now I was able to see a number of small signs and other markers which seemed to indicate that this was in fact a real estate subdivision in its early stages. But I never made it to the other side of the peninsula. I found out after the fact that the new subdivision I had just seen was a private project called Grand Belizean Estates. I have since visited their web site and I found that "GBE" is a big project that sits on almost 200 acres of land that was selected for its (relatively) high elevation, dry ground, lush, tropical jungle vegetation and proximity to San Pedro Town (4 to 5 miles by golf cart trail from town).

The subdivision has been carved into 1,200 lots -- all at least 60 feet by 75 feet (or larger) in area. Today it costs just US$750 to reserve a lot. The balance of the purchase price can be paid in cash or you can take advantage of their "developer financing". Lot prices range from US$12,500 to US$20,000 (depending on location) and all lots require a US$3000 downpayment. The developer financing allows you to make 36 monthly payments ranging from US$472 to US$681 per month to complete your purchase. Two great aerial photos showing outline of the subdivision traced by the famous gravel road are shown below:

Grand Belizian Estates as of the Spring of 2011

Another Aerial View Showing the Layout of Grand Belizian Estates

After taking a quick bike ride through part of the subdivision (I checked out the upper part of the rectangle shown above-- I didn't realize the road let all the way to the Caribbean). I decided to head back to San Pedro Town in view of the fact that I had already been riding my bicycle for about two hours and I had not had any food for a long time. It was time to go back. On the return trip, about halfway back one of my tires did go flat. I was lucky enough to run into someone along the way that was able to let me use a bicycle air pump, so I was able to fill the tire up and get started again. Unfortunately, about half of the air immediately deflated from the tire, but somehow enough air remained to allow me to get back to within about 1/2 mile of San Pedro Town. I returned the bike about four o'clock in the afternoon, which meant that I had been on a four-hour bike riding adventure to try to find a real estate project called Caribbean Coves but I accidentally stumbled into Grand Belizean Estates instead.
Thirsty, tired, and starving, I cleaned up and went to Wahoo's Lounge downstairs to grab a couple of beers. In one who's, I spoke with one of the owners of Wahoo's named Doug. Doug is a super nice guy from Colorado, and among other things he told me that summers here on the island were actually better than he had experienced in Colorado. Colorado is largely high desert, he said, and in summer temperatures can reach higher than 105°F. On the other hand, Doug said, the weather in San Pedro and the entirety of Ambergris Caye is fantastic. It was a little early for dinner, but I was starving. I decided to eat at another famous place in San Pedro called Caramba, which I had noticed walking around on numerous occasions but had not tried yet. I had a fantastic chicken burrito and several beers -- and my bill was still less than US $20. Afterwards, I splurged on some fancy ice cream sold at a nearby store (US $4.50 for the "double cone" for which I had splurged for the second night in a row)! The ice cream place was called D and E's Island Original Frozen Custard & Sorbet and was owned and operated by an American ex pat gal. By now it was only 6:00 PM, but I was already exhausted due to my triathlon training that day. I chilled in my room for a while and eventually went back down to Wahoo's lounge about 10:00 PM to listen to the guitar player/singer (who played the guitar -- and sang -- about as well as I do-- which is not very well) and have a couple more Belikins. The guitar player played until midnight, and from my room you could hear every note he played. There was point in trying to go to sleep before 12:00. once again I cursed myself for having forgotten my earplugs!