We finally have some video for you! This video is from our first day- arriving on Ambergris Caye in San Pedro, arriving to Cocotal Inn and Cabanas. Robbie making us coconut rum drinks. Courtney and I climbed coconut trees and then the beautiful sunset.

Check it out! September 2009

I’ve been hard at work trying to edit the video from our trip. There is just so much, and I am only a novice video editor. Consequently, the wait is becoming much more than I’d imagined. That is unfortunate. I wanted to share the HD underwater video with everyone. It’ll happen. I just don’t know when.

In the meantime, I’ll share this: I’ve learned a few things about making movies and shooting video. It seems as though 90% of what you shoot is rubbish. It then becomes increasingly necessary to carefully cull through all of that rubbish in order to find the few fragments of entertaining content, piece those together in an interesting way and publish the end product with a few nifty bits and pieces of post production.

So far, I have managed to extract dozens of clips from the day and night dives. But I wasted so many good shots trying to use the zoom on the camera. Great shots like the crab and eel combo (a sushi delight) are almost completely ruined because of my poor video skills.

My friend Garrett, who lent me the camera suggested that I take all the video and scale it down to one minute clips. This, I thought, would be imjpossible given the volume of video I had. But now that I look back on it, two or three one-minute clips may be all I have once it is all said and done. Hopefully, the first will be ready for release at the end of this weekend.

We reported back in August about the Belize Hot Card, a discount card one can purchase for US$50 and use for discounts and perks at numerous locations throughout Ambergris Caye and a few places in Belize City.

Liz and I took our Hot Card into San Pedro each day and took advantage of a number of opportunities to save money. From restaurants to diving and snorkeling, we were able to get a lot for a little bit less than advertised thanks to this discount card.

About the only challenge we had was remembering to use the card. The card comes with a nice little printout of all the places where the card is honored. We checked that frequently when looking for a place to eat, such as at the Jambal Jerk Pit and Palapa Bar and Gill and let it often help us decide where to go. It never steered us wrong, but if we forgot to give the card to the server, or mention the card to the clerk, it was our own fault!

There were many discounts we weren’t able to capitalize on, such as hotel and golf cart/bike rentals simply because we either had prior reservations or simply weren’t on the island long enough. The cart rental would have been great had Cocotal not offered free use of their bikes and we were staying on the island longer.

We did, however score BIG with the card at Ecologic Divers! The 15% discount offered when one pays cash helped us to do much more than we’d originally budgeted for. We did a grand total of four dives and three snorkeling trips between the two of us. We saved much more than the cost of the card; and had we stuck around in Ambergris Caye longer, would have dove and snorkeled enough to save much, much more!

Here is a video from our zip lining trip at Jaguar Paw. While we weren’t totally bowled over with the resort itself, Kent and Harrison were great guys and they gave us a really nice private zip line tour. They were patient with us; especially with my technical issues. I think they might have even been a little bit amused by our enthusiasm and silliness. Enjoy the video:

About the only downside to the trip to ATM was the tour group. Mayawalk is not a tour company I’d recommend to any potential tourists. I hate to say this, because their prices are cheaper than the competition, but the experience could have been far better with a better company. “Why,” might you ask? There were a number of shortcomings:
Liz was ill so she couldn’t go. They charged me a 50% cancelation fee, explaining that they’d already purchased a lunch for her, etc. The lunch, while tasty, cost $4US. I know this because I bought lunch from the same place they did the day before. No other sacrifices were made on their part. They definitely didn’t turn any potential guests away. I realize a cancelation fee is almost always applied, but this was unbelievable; especially because of their next ding.

To the guides credit, he did tell a great story, and I did thoroughly enjoy the experience, despite the constant grumblings of one of the other guests. He still shared some interesting stories and described how the Maya may have interpreted different features of the cave, such as the sacrifice victims and the rock formations. I really wish I’d been able to make the POV function for that trip. Sans video, it was still an excellent narration and I can’t for the life of me, remember all of the details.