Power Outages – Yes they are common occurrences in Belize. Hey! We are still considered living in a third world country and from time to time, the power goes out; sometimes for a few minutes and at times for some stressful hours. They come unannounced and sometimes they are scheduled when the power company has to conduct maintenance.
Well what happens in Belize when there is a scheduled power outage? We get out of the house – PRONTO! There is no point staying in when you know there is going to be power outage. It’s torture to stay home – you can’t watch TV, can’t open the fridge to eat something because you will let out the cold air, can’t heat up anything in the microwave, can’t turn on the fan OR air conditioning; pretty much everything runs on electricity…WHY STAY HOME!?
It’s HOT! If you stay home you will only suffer from immeasurable sweating (like really). It’s the rainy season, but summertime is a scorcher in the tropics. GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, I SAY! And the best thing, especially here in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, is that the beach is only about a three minute walk away – at the most!!! People on the island get on their golf carts and take a drive, some hit the beach or the nearest bar and/or restaurant!!! If the power outage happens at night we sit out on the porch (or head to the beach) for some star-gazing; add a bottle of wine and its GOLDEN!
So this past Saturday, the electric company announced a power outage. Granted they changed the outage hours a couple of times, we still knew we would be out of power for about four hours – give and take 30 minutes; the power never comes back at the scheduled time. Because we have set a goal to go swimming more often, our obvious decision was to hit the beach as soon as the power went out. We hit the beach with the intention to be back home when the power came back – NEVER HAPPENED! The day was so beautiful that we forgot about everything and decided to “beachbum” it for the day – best decision ever.
We swam, we ate ceviche, we made sandwiches, played on the beach, took a siesta, swam some more and swam some more. It was the perfect Saturday after being stuck at home catching up on all the writing of our recent travels. It was a much-needed break.
