First off we had a great trip again. Just a few things happened that have never happened before. And in no way will we not be coming back to San Pedro. My husband and I love it there. First off, we have a couple that have been coming out with us for 2 weeks every year for the last 4 years. We arrived very late Feb 2. Flew into San Pedro in the dark. It was fun seeing the islands all aglow. Sunday we hopped on the gulf cart and headed out for breakfast then did some roaming and stopped at the Pier Lounge to see if we could find out our numbers on the football board. The guys decided to play the machines. I have to mention what happened to explain what happend a few days later. We were at the Pier for maybe 20 minutes. It didn't take the guys long to lose $20 on the machines. Our golf cart was right in front of the Pier Lounge. Hopped on it and went right home after that with no stops inbetween. Started up the steps to our condo and L (no names) relized her purse felt light and looked in side and there money was gone. S was making L carry all of there money with her and belive me she didn't want to do it and my husband and I had know idea they where doing it. They never did it before. We have a lock box and always keep most of our money in it. Well the guys went straight to the Pier Lounge and of course it wasn't there. They made a police report. So anyway we really don't know what happened. It was either left at the the Pier Lounge or she was pick pocket on the way out. This is a lesson for everyone to learn from. Not a put down on the Pier Lounge. Monday they went to the Belize Bank and used their Visa to get money. Because of this my husband and I exchanged US money with them for BZ money. It is the only place we got BZ money from. Feb 7 we decided to try the Sunset Grill for dinner. We each had 2 drinks and S had none because he is diabetic. We got our bill for $212 BZ. Put the money in with the tip in one of those black folder things and the waitress threw it up on the bar (we were sitting right by the bar and cash register). About 5 minutes later the waitress comes back and says there is a problem. One of our $100 is conterfiet. This bill looked like it was right of the press. Nothing like the money we were carring on us. It wasn't folded or wrinkled at all. All of our money has folds and wrinkles in it. We pointed this out to her and she started to fold the money right in front of us and we are telling her to knock it off. The owner gets involed and says he has had to eat 5 or 6 conterfiet 100's in the last couple of weeks and he wasn't going to do eat anymore and if we didn't make good on it he was going to call the police and we said call them. We told him we had gotten all of our 100's from the BZ bank and are sure they didn't give us conterfiet. Well the police arrived and took the conterfiet money and more or less said if we didn't make good on the money we would have to go to the staiton and be booked. We paid the other 100 and left. We went to the last Jerry Jeff Walker concert and when we were leaving S felt a hand on one side of his butt and then the other side of his butt and then it reached into his side pocket and he grabbed it and it was an American lady trying to pick pocket him. He had nothing on him. This is all true what I am telling you. It was a very interisting 2 weeks. A guy that was staying at the same place as we were got stopped at one of the check points in front of the police staition for having an open bottle of beer in the golf cart. The police told him to be quite and took him into a back room and asked him how much money he had on him and he told them about 30 BZ. Then they wanted to know how much his wife had and he said about 60 BZ. He was in there for 15 min and sweating buckets he was so nervous. Apparently this was not enough money for the police to bother with and they told him to leave. The police are not what they use to be 2 or 3 years ago. Even the Belizians say they are all crooked. Most of us that come to the island a lot know the rules but it was their first trip. Our friends went home Feb 17th and my husband stayed out of trouble for our last 2 weeks. We went to the San Pedro sun to renew the paper and talk to Tamara and another lady about what has happend and the took interest in the conterfiet money because none had been reported on the island. The other lady (I never got her name but she is Papi's daughter) said she was due to talk to the police that day to get the police reports for that week and would ask about the incident with the Sunset Grill. The police told her there is no report becaues we paid and they have no report on any other 100 conterfiet bills. So this means the owner at the Sunset Grill never told the police about his other conterfiet money he claims to recieve and he wouldn't talk to the San Pedro Sun claiming he didn't feel he comfortable because there is an investigation going on. NOT. Someone is trying to run a scam on tourist and please beware. If it happens to you have them call the police. If the owner really recieved other conterfiet he would have made a police report it he wasn't involved in the scam somehow. Anyway my husband and I did the zippling and it was a blast. Espically the last part. Then cave tubing which was also great. And a lot of fishing. It is always fun to see what you pull out of the water. We had a wonderfull time even with what happend. This is the first time I have written a trip report and did it just so others will be more carefull with there money and to let people know about the counterfiet scam. Get you money from a bank or Milo's. Not that it did us any good but we diffently knew we didn't have counterfit money on us and we were falsely accused.
Denise