My uncle Charlie (Mom’s brother) was the first person to visit us in Belize.  He arrived a couple weeks before Christmas and would be in town for about five days.  At this point we had made a few friends in town who had boats and other water toys to play with so we had a few things planned for his trip.  It would be a busy month because right after he was scheduled to leave my Dad would be flying in for a couple weeks.  That would be over the Christmas holiday so it would be nice to have him here to spend Christmas with us.  U. Charlie was flying in to Cancun and then taking the bus down to Corozal – he was going to be arriving pretty late and told us to be ready to pick him up at the border around 2am so we had a long night planned.  He told us he would call when he got close but what he didn’t count on was that his cell phone wouldn’t work in Mexico, so we were sort of flying blind when it came to his arrival time.  Finally we got an estimated time down for his arrival at the border and we drove over there to wait.  20 minutes went by, then 40 and 50 – we were starting to get worried.  Just as we were about to go looking for him I see this guy in the distance walking to the border with a suitcase in tow.  I couldn’t tell for sure but I was pretty certain it was him considering this was very obviously a tourist walking to the border at 3am – that doesn’t happen so often.  Sure enough, it was him so we waited until he got through customs and immigration and ran over to him when he got through the building.  We all exchanged big hugs and then heard why it had taken him an hour longer than he had told us. 

The way the border is set up between Mexico and Belize you go through the Mexican border first and then there is an entire little commerce area after that border and before the actual Belize border called the Free Zone.  If you don’t realize what is going on it can be a bit confusing.  Well, U. Charlie thought he was through with the borders since he was told that he was in Belize (technically you are in Belize once past the Mexican border and over the river but there still is an official border to go through on the Belize side).  So he camped out at one of the casinos before the actual border and was waiting for us.  Finally someone saw him sitting there with his big suitcase at 2:30am and asked what he was doing.  He told the guy that he was waiting for a ride from his sister – he was promptly informed that he had not quite reached the Belize border yet.  So he got up and lugged his bag along the road until he finally saw the border which is where we finally found him.  We were so glad to see him because we were starting to think the worst.  We got back to the house and stayed up for another hour or so just chatting and gave U. Charlie his first Belikin beer. 

For the next few days we really tried to show off Belize.  It seemed to work because he loved it here.  The major trip was a boat outing with our friend Ken and another guy we had befriended from Canada named Rod.  They both have small boats that we decided to take from one lagoon to the Progresso lagoon.  Then we were going to stop by another new friend’s house.  Just a nice day trip and it was the first time that I would be on it.  We left late morning packing our beer, rum and minimal food – we left from the Copper Bank lagoon (off Rod’s dock) and headed out.  It was a beautiful day and actually not just my first time on these lagoons, but also my first time on a boat in Belize.  The ride was fantastic – to get from the Copper Bank lagoon to the Progresso lagoon there is a serious of thin waterways that you weave in and out of and with a small boat it’s pretty incredible.  It really was a day full of laughing, drinking and general fun.  My uncle got along really well with everyone and was thoroughly enjoying himself.  I think the smiles were actually plastered to our faces for the entire day.  We stopped off at Bruce’s (American) dock to say hi and have a couple drinks.   I had never met him and his wife but my mom had once and she sure thought he was a kick.  We were warned that he can tell a mean story and will have you laughing the whole time you’re around him.  By the time we docked the boat we were all a little tipsy and I was pretty determined to not drink anymore.  Little did I know that not drinking at Bruce’s really isn’t an option.  It only took a few minutes to realize that this guy is an entertainer.  I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who can tell a story like Bruce.  We were thoroughly entertained the entire time and by the time I left I was drunk and my face hurt from laughing so much.  I immediately took a liking to Bruce and his wife – he’s the kind of guy who really couldn’t care less what you think about him.  He says it how it is and that is refreshing in an odd way.  They were currently working on their house – he was in charge of building it and the two of them were putting in most of the labor themselves.  They had a party room with thatched roof already standing and then living in the motor home they had brought down while they built the rest of the house. 

After a long and entertaining day in the sun we headed back to Rod’s place – the sun was setting and the water was gorgeous.   We spent most of the night out on Rod’s beach talking and laughing and having the insane type of philosophical conversations that you can only have when you’ve had way too much to drink.  Yes, I did fall backwards while looking up at the stars to convince my uncle that the prominent constellation you see in this part of the world is Orion and not the Big Dipper.  No, he didn’t believe me at the time but a couple weeks later admitted that I may have been right. 

The rest of the trip consisted of impromptu poker games and general entertainment – U. Charlie loved it and we hope to see him back very soon.  The next visitor on deck would be my dad and sadly this visit would cause some major fireworks between Will and me.  It really would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Now, back to last year -things at the bar had been moving along well.  It had been a few weeks since grand opening and we were steadily gaining new customers as well as seeing repeat customers coming in.  It was a good sign.  Our state of mind was pretty good too; while Oregon was having one of their worst winters in a long while we were swimming in the Caribbean and sweating when we laughed too hard.  We were still in the honeymoon phase of our move to Belize so we met every experience with eagerness.  We were also looking forward to family visiting soon.  My Dad was scheduled to visit in a few weeks and my uncle was planning a visit right before that.  So we kept ourselves busy with trying to finalize our menu and prices, entertain customers, picking out the perfect plastic Christmas tree and watching all the newly released movies on DVD for $5 BZD. 

We wanted to get a gimmick of some sort in to our place to spread the word.  A lot of people weren’t aware we were open despite our marketing attempts and sadly a lot of people who had heard about us were having a hard time actually finding the place.  We needed to figure this out.  One of the expats we had met during the Halloween party, Dave, from England had started to become a good friend.  He was a regular in the bar – at least 3 times a week for lunch or beer.  Dave is an interesting guy and a perfect example of the type of person I would never meet in Oregon.  He is the personification of a “tough guy.”  He is extremely rough around the edges with a heavy English accent; he’s rude and blunt and doesn’t particularly like Americans.  Apparently he was able to put up with us though and one day spoke to Will about a possible way to get more customers in.  He is an avid poker player and Will also had a love for poker so the idea was to have Scotty’s Bar & Grill host a private poker tournament every Monday.  We were closed on Mondays anyway so it would be perfect.  The plan would be that we would be closed to the public that entire day and the game was hosted by Dave and set up as invitation only.  He already knew of a group of players which is what he would provide and it wouldn’t interfere with anyone’s business because the casino’s poker room was closed on Mondays.  We would have a couple poker tables made and hire dealers from the casino to make the atmosphere a little more professional.  At the end of it we agreed on all the details and planned a date to start the game.  Will was going to be in charge of running the game with Dave. 

It was an interesting experience to get this whole thing set up.  No one in town was doing it so it would put us on the so called map of Corozal, at least among this group of influential people in town.  I won’t go in to details of who was on the player list but it contained the names of some of the most prominent people in town so I was excited to meet these people to say the least.  We had to get permission from one of these people to even have the game and he gave us the authorization to move ahead – he wanted a place to play too.  We hired Ducky to assemble the poker tables, he had done a great job on our bar stools so we just stuck with him.  Dave had a set of standard chips and we got professional decks of playing cards.  The game would be Texas Hold’em, it would be set up as a tournament that would pay out three places in the end and it would all start around 8pm. 

It was a trip when we had our first game.  The atmosphere was totally different on Monday nights now.  We had people in from all walks of life, Belizean and foreign, young and old, women and men.  The poker tables had turned out beautifully, they were blue felt with a padded ring and cup holders to top it all off.  Each table held about 10 people – it was as if we had suddenly turned in to a mini casino.  We are in Belize so the game did not start on time.  9pm was the actual starting time and these people were absolute poker addicts.  It was a friendly game, but friendly did not mean unprofessional.  All the standard rules applied and it was absolutely fascinating.  Behind the music playing in the background and the cigarette smoke wafting through the air, there was the clamor of poker chips being played with, cards being dealt, groans of disgust as the wrong cards appeared and solo celebration when the winner was realized. 

It was around 3am when it was all said and done and had gone well.  Will stayed out there with them for the entire night while Mom and I tried to go to bed a little earlier.  It was impossible to sleep through the noise though.  So that was our new gimmick – Monday night poker games – little did we know that everything would drastically change with Dave over the course of the next few months.