Grocery Shopping and Waiting on the Gas Man

I purchased this beautiful conch shell down by the beach yesterday.

I spent most of the day grocery shopping and waiting for the gas man to show up.  In Belize you have to shop around.  It is nothing like at home in the US.  Here you will American products next to Belize products.  The American products are going to be much more expensive since they have to be shipped in to Belize.  On some items the name will be written in Spanish, so with what little Spanish I know, I am trying to guess what it is or look at pictures on the packaging.  Shopping for day to day items in Belize is a completely difference experience and I have a lot to learn.

Stocking up on groceries.

You can get pretty much anything you want in Belize, you just have a limited selection.  Prices will vary from store to store, so you have to go to several stores to get everything you need and for the best prices.  Then you may need to go to other places to get your fruits and vegetables.  It is definitely a learning experience.

I finally found a diet Pepsi today.

I  love this Goss dark chocolate made here in Belize.

My new gas stove.

We have a nice new gas stove in the house.  I have never cooked on gas before.  I know lots of people say they won't cook on nothing but a gas stove.  We use butane in Belize, and they come and pick up tank, fill it up and then bring it back.  The tank was just filled and returned late today, so we haven't been able to cook since we have been here.  We have pretty much lived off chips and salsa for the last two days, but I never get tired of chips and good salsa. 

Caramba!!

Caribbean jerk chicken.

Hanging out on Middle Street.

Belizean kids loving on Alina.

Alina peeping through the staircase.  She smells food.

We decided to go downtown on our bikes this evening and take Alina.  We stopped in at Carabma on Middle Street since we could sit outside and have Alina there too.  As always Alina got all of the attention.  Everyone wants to hug and have their picture taken with her.

Our First 24 Hours in Belize-We Made it

We spotted this guy on our walk to Estel's on the beach.

We spent out first 24 hours getting settled in to our new home in Belize.  I had all of our bags unpacked before we went to bed Friday night.  It was only 4 suitcases, so it didn't take long.  We made a list of things we still needed and planned to get out Saturday and hit the streets.


First thing we did was stop by our favorite place to have breakfast on the beach, Estel's. The food is great, service is great and the view is amazing. On our way back home we stopped off at the Belikin Beer Distributor, it is located just around the corner from us. We ordered several cases of drinks, Belize coffee, and 2 pounds of ground beef. They had it all delivered to our house in no time.

Estel's Dine by the Sea.

We took Alina with us for breakfast.

Fry jacks, eggs, grits and bacon.

Bill and Alina playing in the water.

Guys raking the seaweed on the beaches in the morning, they have job security.

Lot of drinks to choose from besides just beer.

That's a lot of Belikin.

Alex at Belikin wanted his picture taken with Alina.

Kids are turning in their empties to get money back on bottle and crate deposits.

Saturday I contacted a friend that I met online prior to moving to Belize, she moved to Belize in September of last year, I asked her if she could pick me up and take me around town.  Gigi has a golf cart and we could get around town faster.  I was only able to bring what things I could carry in our suitcases.  So we still needed a few items to hold us over until we have the rest of our things shipped down in a few months. 

This guy down at the park wanted his picture taken with Alina too.  Alina is a popular girl.

Saw this this little fellow on our street yesterday, he had just gotten ran over by a golf cart and was still moving.

We hit up Caye Mart, A & R, Caye Supplies and Wings.  I also did some grocery shopping at Super Buy, went by the local fruit and vegetable market which is just down the street.  I purchased a few supplies and dog food from Caye Mart and had it delivered to my house.  It makes it nice, you
can continue to shop and just have it all delivered later.  I am totally liking this. 

All of this for $10.00US.  The salsa was great, going back for more today.  The pineapple-banana bread was awesome.

Coffee from Belize and 1 Barrel Rum.

Our new Beach Cruiser's with baskets.

That afternoon I told Bill we needed some wheels and I wanted to go purchase some bikes.  I asked a few locals who had the best prices on bikes and San Pedro Hardware seemed to be the place.  So we walked to San Pedro hardware and road out on our brand new beach cruisers. 

Ah, another day in paradise.

Planning Your Fact Finding Trip to Belize

There is really only one way to know for sure if Belize is right for you and that would be to make plans to visit Belize.  If you have never been to the country before, I would recommend an initial fact finding trip. Go to Belize to see for yourself what it is like there, eat and drink like a local.

Our initial trip to Belize was for vacation and it was many years ago, so last year we booked a flight to Belize to go on a fact finding trip, with the idea of retiring in Belize.  Months before we left, I read several books on Belize (see Taking Belize blogs recommended reads) and anything on the Internet that I could find related to retiring abroad.  We only had a week, so I made a list of things that we definitely wanted to check out while we were there.  Belize is a small country but a week is really not enough time to see everything, so you may need to make several trips to Belize.

On our first trip to Belize we flew back and forth from the island to the mainland in small puddle jumper planes, but in September we chose to take the water taxi's.  We took a water taxi to Chetumal, Mexico to check out the shopping available there. We also made visits to many of the island grocery stores on Ambergris Caye.

English is widely spoken throughout Belize, so it is easy to travel independently in Belize.  We found the Internet was available in most areas of Belize, so if you needed to make a quick reservation, it was no problem.

Grocery Shopping on an Island in Belize

Super Buy Grocery

During our stay on Ambergris Caye, we decided to visit some of the grocery stores to check out the prices and things that would be available to us there.  The island has many grocery stores to choose from located throughout the island, most of which are very small and cater to the specific area on the island.

We found most of the stores carried similar items that we were familiar with back in the U.S.  There was Oscar Mayer Luncheon Meat, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Nabisco Chocolate Chip cookies, Del Monte canned vegetables, Charmin Tissue, Criso Oil, Jif Peanut Butter, Pedigree dogfood and Patron Tequila.  However, these items can be quite expensive due to having to be shipped into the country. 

We checked out prices and talked to people in the stores...all of the comments that we got were.."You Gotta Shop Around".  The prices vary from store to store, sometimes maybe going to as many as 5 different stores to get everything that you need.  But, hey we figure we are going to be retired, so we will have lots of time to shop and compare prices and I really like going and looking around in grocery stores just to see what they have. 

Rou Rou Supermarket

Check out the price on the Patron Tequila - $184.95BZD/$92.50US

Of course if you eat like the "Belizeans" and buy authentic Belizean groceries, you can really eat pretty cheap.  There were many open markets that we visited and we were able to buy fresh produce, homemade sweets and tamales, all at the same place.  The only thing that I would definitely advise, would be to just buy a small amount and try it first to see if you like the item.  We found that even though it may be called the same, it may not taste the same.  We learned this lesson when we bought several dozen hot tamales.  Bill loves hot tamales, but the Belizean hot tamales we got were very very sweet tasting and they were full of chicken bones, yuck.  So to say the least, we did not eat them.  We gave them to some starving backpackers at our hotel and warned them about the bones. 

The other thing that we found, you really had to check the expiration dates on food items such as milk, cheese and the sandwich meat, many had already expired by about a month. 

Local Grocery Store

There are several bakeries on the island and I found all of them to have wonderful looking breads, cookies, cakes and sweet rolls.  They tasted yummy too.