La Isla Bonita!

The Spindrift Resort Hotel is located on Barrier Reef Drive (aka Front Street) in San Pedro just south of the Park. It's the blockish looking pink building on the beach side of the street.

There is no curb appeal, and the main office/check-in area fits two people uncomfortably. I received my key to room 17 and my rate of $25 USD per night. Room 17 is actually on the 3rd floor and has an excellent beach view. I was able to peer into other rooms which were being cleaned at the time, and noticed the Spindrift also has 2 bedroom "apartments" with full kitchens for people staying longer.

My room itself was quite unimpressive. A big concrete square with a bed, dresser, TV, and bathroom. The floor was all tile, one of the windows was still boarded up due to the recent hurricanes. In the United States, the Spindrift Hotel would rate below a one star. However this isn't the US with large chain hotels. San Pedro has only independently owned and operated hotels of varying quality. The impressive part of my room was the balcony and the view out to the beach and pier. The Spindrift is located next to the main plaza, so there's a lot of activity to observe from the balcony. It makes for good people watching.

The bed was comfortable enough, and there is a window air conditioner unit. But my main complaint is that the air conditioner is only 2 feet away from the bed, so it does get noisy when you're trying to sleep.

The television has no remote control and the choice of programming is quite interesting. The cable TV is the room is a mix of local Belizean programming and cable TV piped in from Colorado Springs, complete with local Colorado traffic reports and local weather. LOL.

The Spindrift has a small bakery in the front, which I decided to avoid. Locals say there are much better bakeries. The Pier Lounge, located at the back of the Spindrift, is a great place to grab a drink, catch a game, and listen to some tunes.

The Spindrift is located in a great spot, smack in the middle of San Pedro. Taxis are readily available from the Spindrift. Other restaurants and bars are just a few minutes walk away. There is a bank across the street, and a general store in case you need some sundries. Unfortunately, being in the most active part of town, there was a Belizean Independence Day Parade being held the morning I needed to leave town and the parade route ran right in front of the Spindrift. After a few moments, I was able to cross the street and find a taxi though.

I recommend the Spindrift, mostly because of it's location in proximity to everything else going in in San Pedro. The rooms aren't spartn, but they're comfortable enough, given the conditions. I'll probably stay at the Spindrift Hotel again when I return to San Pedro.

I asked a few locals about where to go in San Pedro for dessert. I was referred to Manelly’s Homemade Ice Cream more than once. I recall passing by the outside of Manelly’s a few times before and always seeing it fully packed.

Manelly’s is located on the beach side of Barrier Reef Drive, just north of the Catholic church by the Park. Their white, pink, and florescent green storefront is next to Cocos.net Internet Café. It might be hard to spot since a few letters have fallen off the name on the sign. I walked past a few people leaving with their ice cream and into Manelly’s. There’s a few booths in front, an ice cream counter in the back, a few old coin-op video games, and a big screen television on the wall. I scanned the menu board, which had ice cream scoops, milk shakes, floats, and other items, such as cracker jack, popcorn, and peanuts.

I longingly looked down at the ice cream freezer in front of me. There are all sorts of tropical ice cream flavors, from coconut, to guava, mango, pineapple, green tea, to the standard flavors, such as vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, coffee. I saw a sign advertising Manelly’s World Famous Homemade Coconut Ice Cream. I love coconut ice cream, so I ordered a cup with a scoop of coconut and a scoop of mango ice cream. In talking to the server, she said most of the ice creams are homemade, such as the coconut, mango, and other flavors with readily available local ingredients.

I thought the mango ice cream was just satisfactory. The mango flavor was fresh, but there wasn’t enough of a mango flavor for me. However the coconut ice cream was excellent! I’ve had coconut ice cream back in the states from Baskin Robins, Dreyers, Haagen Daas, and Tampico, and this little shop in Belize beats them all hands down. There are little bits of fresh coconut in the ice cream, it’s smooth and creamy, and the coconut flavor is quite strong. While I probably shouldn’t have, I ordered two more scoops of the coconut ice cream after I was finished.

I didn’t keep track, but I think I paid about $5 US for four scoops of ice cream from Manelly’s. I highly recommend this place, for the coconut ice cream alone. I’m sure their other local flavors are quite good, but I was too obsessed with their coconut to try other flavors. Manelly’s is also popular with the locals and tourists alike, as it’s usually always busy.

El Pilon is a Cuban restaurant located in an odd fiberglass dome shaped building on Barrier Reef (Front Street) directly across from the Park. The sign in front advertising Cuban sandwiches peaked my interest since I’ve never had Cuban food before.

When I entered El Pilon through the front sliding glass door, I was greeted by a friendly waiter. He let me sit myself among any of the open tables. There are six tables in the restaurant, seating about 16-20 people total. The interior is quite small, given the confines of the fiberglass dome structure. The decor was very minimal, with a few menu boards, posters of Cuban street scenes, and an interesting juice menu plastered on the front wall. This juice menu had different fruit and veggie juice mixtures which were supposed to aid in curing various ailments, such as gout, arthritis, heart disease, and cancer. While I had my doubts about the effectiveness of the cancer treatment, I ordered a large fresh orange juice off the menu. I scanned the menu, which had Cuban sandwiches, Cuban specialties, such as rice and beans with pork, desserts, and drinks. I decided on a ham, cheese, and natural vegetables (that’s what it said on the menu) Cuban sandwich with fries.

The waiter brought me my fresh orange juice with a twist of lime. I found it very refreshing. As I waited for my sandwich, I watched the waiter behind the bar brew up little cups of Cuban coffee (probably very potent) and make a few mojitos. The bar also featured a display case full of Cuban cigars for purchase.

I waited about 10 minutes for my Cuban sandwich before it arrived. And it looked very good. My ham, cheese, and natural vegetables Cuban sandwich is served on Cuban bread, which is similar to a baguette. The natural vegetables, which are tomato and lettuce (I wonder what the non-natural vegetables are…) and ham, cheese, and pork are placed in the sandwich, along with some sort of yummy dressing, and the entire sandwich is pressed then sliced diagonally. The pressing seems to be similar to that of an Italian panini sandwich, but without the grill lines, and it’s not pressed as hard. The Cuban sandwich was very delicious, the bread was warm and crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, and the melted cheese and sauce mixed the flavors quite nicely. It’s served with fries, olives, and a slice of pickle.

The person next to me ordered the largest Cuban sandwich on the menu, which was $12 US. His sandwich included everything, such as pork, ham, cheese, bacon. I think his sandwich was about 2/3 bigger than mine.

After I finished my sandwich, the waiter brought my check. It’s $22 BZ (or $11 US) for a fresh orange juice and Cuban sandwich. Not bad considering how good they were. Now that I’ve tried Cuban sandwiches, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for Cuban restaurants when I get back home.

Cannibal's motto is: "We'd love to have you for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!" Cannibal's is located under a beachside Palapa (thatch roof structure) just off Barrier Reef Drive and Black Coral Street.

I like Cannibal's because the food is good, quite inexpensive, and they serve breakfast. Cannibal's is a bar and restaurant. The bar area is underneath a large pilapa and the restaurant tables are underneath a covered awning connecting the pilapa to the kitchen. Against the rear wall, there's a large mural of a cannibal watching over two explorers tied up and sitting in a large steaming cauldron. Heh.

I arrived just before 8am and the restaurant was only half full. The waitress told me to sit anywhere open and I found a nice table next to the bar. The waitress brought me a menu and I ordered a fresh orange juice to drink. The breakfast menu isn't all that big, just one page of favorites commonly found in North America, from omelets to pancakes to huevos rancheros. I ordered a Denver omelet.

After waiting about 10 minutes, my food came out. My omelet was served with toast, jam, and slices of watermelon and cantaloupe. Just by looking at the omelet, you could tell that a little too much oil was used to grease the pan. Regardless, I liked the omelet. Large chunks of bell peppers, ham, and onion worked quite well.

My total bill including food, drink, and tip was $19 BZ ($9.50 USD) They take credit cards at Cannibal's. The food at Cannibal's is good and inexpensive, and it's a lively hangout for the locals.

I returned to Cannibal's later on Tuesday evening for live entertainment. On Tuesdays, from 6pm to 10pm, famed local musicians Dennis Wolfe on the guitar and Sherry on the keyboard, play under Cannibal's pilapa. They played favorites, such as Johnny Cash, Van Morrison, Jimmy Buffer, and some of Dennis' own creations.

There were only a handful of people in the bar at the time. The bartender explained that there aren't too many people on the island due to Hurricanes Dean and Felix hitting earlier in the month. Because of the small crowd, it was a very laid back atmosphere. It was a good evening just to catch a cold one and listen to some good tunes and just have fun.

I highly recommend Cannibals for breakfast or some entertainment in the evening. The bartender also said there is a beach BBQ on Friday evenings.

Fido's Restaurant and Bar is housed under the largest Palapa (thatch roofed structure) in town, making it pretty darn easy to spot from the beach. Fido's is off Barrier Reef drive in San Pedro, just north of the Catholic Church building and Park.

Fido's has a bar along one side, and restaurant tables facing the beach. We sat ourselves down at an empty table under the pilapa. The underside of the pilapa has all sorts of oddities hanging from it, from surfboards to a plastic figure of a shark eating a diver.

Our waitress brought a menu and took our drink orders. Fido's has a fairly large menu, with a mix of Italian, Caribbean, and Mexican/Central American dishes. We chose a fajita beef quesadilla, fried calamari, fried lobster raviolis, and Caribbean style fried chicken wings.

Our order actually took a while before it arrived, probably 30 minutes. Customer service wasn't the greatest (but then again this isn't the US, so get used to it.) but we did get our orders. While we were waiting, we noted that Fido's is a good place to people watch. We saw people offloading goods and passengers from ferries on the beachfront docks, other tourists and local gringos drinking and dining at Fido's.

The fajita beef quesadillas were quite good, with bits of grilled steak, large bits of red and green peppers and onions melted into the cheese. Suprisingly enough, my favorite was the Caribbean style fried chicken wings. They were breaded and deep fried, and tasty in themselves. There were two sauces to dip them in, a spicy sweet and sour Asian type sauce, and a really hot Caribbean mustard with little bits of pepper (similar to Caribbean jerk chicken.) The menu described the calamari as fresh, and it tasted fresh, but there was still that rubbery texture to the fried calamari. My next favorite were the fried lobster raviolis. The menu said they were made from fresh lobsters caught locally. (and I have seen plenty of lobsters being offloaded from fishing boats on the docks just a few yards away.) The raviolis were quite tasty, and the lobster taste was good, but probably not as intense as some of the lobsters you would find in New England.

All in all, I enjoyed the food at Fido's. After looking around for a few minutes, our waitress finally appeared with our cheque. Our total was about $48 USD. I did fid that a slight bit expensive for food in San Pedro. Because it does cost more, most of the customers at Fido's are either tourists or the local gringos. The food was good, although the service a bit slow. I'd probably go back to Fido's again.

I found an interesting roadside food stand along Pescador Drive (Middle Street) in San Pedro. It's located on the west side of the street in between Black Coral and Buccaneer Streets. There's no name on the building, but a few handwritten pieces of posterboard that say PUPUSAS!

There were two ladies at portable flat grills in front of the building making what I originally thought were freshly grilled corn tortillas. I asked one of the ladies what that was and she said " pupusa." I watched them for a few moments and realized a pupusa is not just a corn tortilla, but they were stuffed with cheese, pork, beef, or whatever you'd like.

I looked behind her towards the tables and saw plenty of people chowing away at their pupusas. I figured I'd give it a try. I asked for one in my broken Spanish. I ordered one cheese pupusa and one cheese and pork pupusa.

I watched her make my pupusas. She grabs a small handful of masa (corn based dough) and shapes it into a ball and presses out the middle. In the newly formed depression, she put some white cheese (queso blanco) which is the standard white cheese commonly used in Central American cooking apparently. She then formed the cheese filled masa into a ball and flattened it before putting it on the grill. She then took a second ball and repeated the process, putting in some pre-cooked shredded pork and cheese. After a few minutes on the grill, she flipped the pupusas. A few minutes more, she then removed them from the grill, with nice and crusty outsides. She made them with such ease and speed that I could imagine she's had this pupusa recipe in her family for generations and has made thousands of them in the past.

She put some picked carrots and cabbage on top, then glopped some salsa over that and served it to me.

I loved them! The pupusas are so simple, yet so good. The cheese on my pupusas oozed out of their little pockets as they sat on the grill. This actually grilled whatever cheese oozed out and the grilled cheese was quite a tasty treat. The pickled veggies were a little odd to me initially, but they do work with all the flavors of the pupusas. The best way to describe a pupusa is a cross between a hot pocket/toaster pastry and a small quesadilla.

My total bill came out to $3 USD, including tip. These pupusas are definately tasty little treats by themselves, and probably a bunch of them make a good meal! I later found out that pupusas are from El Salvador. Being in such close proximity to Mexico, I originally thought it was Mexican cuisine.

These ladies at the roadside grills sure opened my eyes to the pupusas. I'll definately seek them out next time I visit San Pedro.