A couple of weeks ago I had the very cool experience of seeing a wild cat up close and personal.  Of course the events which brought this cat in to my life are very sad – it was a very young baby margay (http://www.belizezoo.org/zoo/zoo/mammals/mar/mar1.html) that had been orphaned and found by a Belizean in the jungle.  This cat is listed as an endangered animal so it was very sad to speculate that its mother had seen a worse fate.  A friend of mine decided to acquire the cat for the sole purpose of getting it to the Belize zoo located in Belize City – it is illegal to keep an animal such as this for a pet.  This little cat was so cute, but sounded just like a big jungle cat so it was a little nerve racking to be around the little guy.

The baby margay was very scared and simply stared at us.  He was maybe one or two pounds at the most.  In the cage he came in he tried his best to disappear in to a corner – we were glad to know that he would be in a much happier habitat soon.

The next day I coaxed him in to a cat carrier – appropriately a leopard print – with some tuna on a plate.  He seemed to be hungry enough since he went right in the carrier and I was able to zip him in for the trip from Corozal to Belize City.  So my friend and I plus another family all piled in to the vehicle and headed off to the zoo – we figured that we may as well make a day of it.  I had yet to see the Belize zoo so I was excited to make the trip.  We had called the zoo previously to make sure this was the best thing to do with the cat and they assured us it was and that they would take him in.

The trip to the zoo was about an hour and a half but we finally made it.  The skies were a bit cloudy and there was some light rain but we were determined to see all the animals.  It was probably ideal weather for viewing the animals since the hot sun wasn’t beating down.  First things first though, we stopped in at the front desk and told the attendant there that we had the margay to turn over to them.  They hustled around trying to find the correct person to check the cat out so they told us to go ahead and make our way around the zoo while they figured it out.

We made our way through all the exhibits and, as suspected, the weather was perfect because we saw all but one animal that day.  Most of the animals were in plain sight and walking around their enclosures.  The experience really felt as though we were simply walking through the jungle observing each of these animals.  There are over 125 animals at the zoo, all native to Belize and each exhibit provides a brief summary of the animal with a few facts.  I have visited the zoo in Portland, OR many times but this provided an entirely different experience.  I had never seen most of the animals that I had the privilege of viewing at the Belize zoo.  The kids were especially excited about each animal – there was some brief hesitation from some of them at first since they weren’t sure what they would be seeing, but that quickly went away and they were all running around to see the next animal.

The kids all decided that they liked the tapirs the best – probably because it was the one animal they were actually able to touch.  It was the first time I had seen a tapir though a few of my friends have seen them in the wild here.  After an hour or so we had seen it all and the kids were getting tired so we headed back to the front desk to see what had become of our little margay.  The carrier was empty and they were busy checking him out so now he’ll be safe in his new home at the zoo.

If you happen to make a trip to Belize in the future or you are here and haven’t been to the zoo yet; make sure that activity gets put towards the top of your list.  It’s a very worthwhile experience and a must see if you spend any time in this country.  Hopefully in the next year I’ll make another trip to the zoo to visit that little cat and see how he’s doing.

The first thing we did was ask around town.  Everyone had a different solution for us.  Various meat shops were recommended; some people told us that we would never find what we were looking for here because there’s not enough fat on the cows and others told us to go well beyond the Corozal town limits to find our beef.  There were a couple options that appealed the most to us.  The first was a company called Running W that was located in the Cayo district (about a 3 hour drive from Corozal) and the second option was to contact the food buyer for the Las Vegas casino in the Free Zone because they get their meat brought in from the states.  First Will called the woman at the casino to talk to her about possibly getting in on their orders but that was an immediate dead end.  They didn’t get their supply from the states anymore and if we were going to tag on to their orders we would also need an import permit.  We didn’t want to put in that additional cost right off the bat so we went to option B.  We were told that the Running W had meat sent in to the stores in Belize City on a regular basis and since we were making some trips over there we decided that we would buy some samples and see what their deal was.  When we finally got to Belize City to buy these samples we found that there was no Running W meat in town because of all the flooding that was happening across the country.  Damn.  So we bought some random samplings of the beef patties that were in the store to try them out.  At this point we were all getting a bit discouraged because if we couldn’t find the meat we wanted then our whole vision would go down the drain. 

We got back to Corozal with our meat as well as all the other supplies we would need to create our first burger.  Will got the grill fired up and it would be our first attempt.  It was an exciting moment with mom and I sitting in the bar waiting anxiously to try out our product.  Will got the burger finished and presented it on a simple ceramic plate for us all to try.  It looked great, we were all optimistic.  Will cut up the burger in three pieces so we could all have a sample.  The three of us took a bite in a coordinated effort and we all knew right away that this wasn’t it.  My dreams were dashed – we would still be on the search for this non-existent beef.  The problem came in the taste.  It cooked up fine and the meat held together but the suppliers put their own blend of seasonings in the actual ground beef that gave the final product more of a meat loaf taste.  It would not be good enough.  Our goal was an all-American juicy burger, not a slab of meatloaf on a bun.  When various meat shops were being recommended early on there was one that was repeatedly mentioned.  Frank’s Meats right in Corozal town – we had been told they are the best in Corozal but even they most likely would not have what we were looking for.  Since we were already down the list to option C we didn’t have much choice but try them out.  So the next day we found our way to Frank’s to see if they could sell us what we needed.  Frank is an extremely friendly man and was more than willing to help us out.  He was excited to hear that there would be a new place opening up in town and also eager for the new business.  We purchased some of his ground beef and some ground steak, the plan was to try a burger made of purely ground beef, one of purely ground steak and one with a mix of both.  So we got back home and Will tried again – he was the one with all the burger cooking experience since he had been an assistant manager at Helvetia Tavern in Oregon where burgers were their specialty.  He got all three burgers made and we sat around again to sample the final result.  This was more like it – all three tasted like an American burger but they all had distinctly different tastes as well.  The meat would make a big difference.  We all voted and decided on the winner which I won’t divulge here since I’m sure all my competition are keeping tabs on this blog J

Our Burger

So it was a success.  We were yet another step closer to opening day which was tentatively set for November 15^th since we were still waiting for the liquor license to be approved.  We all sat around laughing at ourselves for being in a new country trying to open this restaurant up and not even knowing if we could get good beef – what were we thinking?  Either way we were learning a lot along the way and having some interesting experiences to go along with it. 

About ten days after our arrival to Belize the three of us were finally starting to get comfortable in our surroundings.  Despite hearing horror story after horror story from the expats here we were feeling safe and sound that night.  Will and I were watching the Portland Trailblazer game on TV – a small, but appreciated taste from home – mom was reading in her bedroom.  All of a sudden there are loud blasts close to the house.  Keep in mind we had been hearing all sorts of bad things about our neighborhood, in fact we had just found out that the previous owner had been attacked in the house and shot by the intruder – funny the little details people omit when trying to sell something.  She survived the attack, but the bullet grazed her head and caused vision trouble in one eye.  We were trying really hard to keep this new information off our mind and had been doing a great job of it until those blasts started to sound.  I just froze, my mom and Will have the same reaction.  No one said a word, I’m not sure any of us took a breath for about a minute while this was happening.  All that was going through my mind was that the noises sounded a lot like gunfire.  Will finally turns to me and asks if that sounds like gunfire to me.  I just nodded my head slowly.  At that point my mom comes out of the bedroom with hesitation, eyes wide and asking us what we thought the noise was.  A few minutes later Will looked out the window reluctantly to see if anything was visible – nothing.  The noise started up again so I went over to the window, heart pounding.  We had only been here for a little over a week and already we were going to be killed by random gunfire – outstanding.  I’m straining to see anything out the window and suddenly to the left of the house I see colorful bursts in the air – fireworks!  A wave of relief came over me and I yelled out “fireworks!”  We all immediately fell back laughing at ourselves.  We were all able to sleep easy that night and a little amused at our reaction to the whole thing.  Apparently in Belize fireworks are the standard practice for any holiday celebration.  We didn’t expect them that night because we weren’t aware of any holidays during that time, but there are a lot more holidays in Belize than at home so obviously something was being celebrated. 

The next day we were all happy to be alive and our task was to deal with the required liquor license for our business.  We had been procrastinating a little on this important detail because everything else had been going so efficiently.  We took the walk in to town and went to town hall to start the process.  We learned that we had to track down one woman who headed up the committee that issues these licenses.  We were given a phone number and vague directions to her residence.  The phone number was useless; we called about thirty times with no answer so we went on a quest to find her house.  After about an hour of searching and asking other people for directions we found a house that seemed to match the description.  In Corozal no one goes to the front door to knock – the typical method of operation is to pull up to the house and honk or yell at the house until someone comes out.  This is a little difficult to get used to, but we must follow procedure.  So we stood outside of her gate and yelled for awhile until finally someone came out of the house.  I asked him if Cathy was there and he said yes, disappeared back in to the house; finally a woman emerged.  I told Cathy we were opening up a bar in town and needed to get a liquor license.  She informed me that the committee had already had their final meeting for the year and that they wouldn’t meet again until January.  This meant that we would not be able to get our license for two months.  Well, we wanted to open in two weeks and without a liquor license it would be hard to call the place a bar.  I asked her, very politely, if there was anything we could do.  This would turn in to our first introduction of “buying” our desired result.  She simply said that we could pay $100 BZ for the committee to have a special meeting in order to grant the license early.  We didn’t have much choice so we said no problem.  We paid the money and Cathy said that she would be around to the business in the next week with the chief of police, fire chief and health inspector to check the place out.  At this point we were keeping our fingers crossed that this process wouldn’t take too long because we wanted to be open in two weeks. 

Everything else was in place for our Grand Opening on November 15^th, but we wanted to have a soft open a week before that date.  We would have to sit back and wait on the liquor license but everything else was coming in to place.  We had found a local bakery, Popular Bakery in Orange Walk town, to make our hamburger buns.  They were even going to make us slightly larger buns for our “Big Bay” burger.  We had several leads on stores to get most of our supplies (alcohol, condiments, meat, cheese, etc) in Belize City so we had a trip to Belize City planned for the next week.  Belize City was formally the capital of Belize but after most of the infrastructure was wiped out in a hurricane the capital city was moved to Belmopan.  Despite that Belize City (referred to as Belize by the locals) is a larger city with a much larger variety of our restaurant/bar requirements.  Solomon was going to be our taxi again for that trip and we were eager to make that trip.