First Glance at Belize

Rainy day at El Pescador.

It’s been a wild week here in Belize. I’m currently writing from the screen porch at El Pescador, where I’m hunkered in from the afternoon showers and trying madly not to fall asleep on the striped cushions. I still feel like I’m rocking a bit after eight hours on the panga throwing flies today (maybe the daiquiri isn’t helping) and feeling the tingle of a kind-of-epic sunburn on my face and forearms.

I said it’s been a wild week. It’s also been a hell of a week. An awesome week. An incredible week. Filled with adventure, a stunningly terrific team, sand flies, saltwater, rain, and some pretty awesome food. Boat rides and island ferries and vans bumping along muddy roads in the jungle.

The fifteen-person photo crew—exactly two of whom I had met before—turned out to be awesome. There’s nothing for building team cohesion like sticking them in a foreign country and asking them to create something fantastic under in adverse conditions. We laughed. We got soaked in the rain. We splashed around in brake-less golf carts through the streets of San Pedro and prayed we wouldn’t hit anyone. It was a fantastic crew (mostly NYC-based) made up of folks who proved to be real troopers.

And what can I say except awesome things about El Pescador? From the staff who magically seem to remember everyone’s name, to pickup games of volleyball, to Mariano’s magical bar concoctions, to the stunning facility, it’s a place I have not left yet and already yearn to come back to.

And, yeah, after everyone else from the Orvis photo shoot left today, I got a bit of fishing in. Got my first bonefish (kind of fun for this Montana girl!) and then we chased tarpon. Lots of shots and a few follows. I’ll be back.

Look for more tales from Belize to come in all manner of forums—from the Orvis catalogs to various fishing magazines and websites to this blog. So many amazing stories, I’m struggling to catalog and comprehend them all.

An epic-level cold and about four hours of sleep a night for the past week hasn’t really helped.

But, hey, life is awesome. And while I’m not terribly stoked to be returning to Vermont, I’m sure more adventures will be on the way. It’s going to take a while to recover and write the stories I need to from this one.

After all, any work escapade when you get “kidnapped” but three friendly Belizians and taken to a local beachside bar to celebrate the near-wrap of the shoot can’t be too bad…but that’s a story for another day.

Stay tuned.