Due to requests from foreign parts and tourist agencies on an update
re: tourist bookings. For San Pedro, Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker.


Here it is! You can come, but be sure you have a reservation
guaranteed! The hotels are humming with business and full, but rooms are
booked by electrical linesmen, pole utility people, telephone
infra-structure repairmen. Some of them are going diving with the
regular tourist guide boats. Whatever damage to hotels has not yet been
repaired, will be finished within two weeks for most places. But that
should not stop tourists from filling their schedules. The two islands
are clean. They lost a lot of trees, but that will be replaced given
time. Some restaurants and bars are open. Social life is picking up.
Partying time and reef trips and diving trips are reported as good.


Regular visitors and tourists are trickling in now and reporting
favorable reports.


There are tourists on both islands now, except they are a different
kind. They are infra-structure people, from far away places like Canada,
Bahamas and Barbados. In two weeks they should be gone. All the rest
are already gone. The BDF, the British military and all that stuff.
They are gone! Life is more or less back to normal. Certainly from a
tourism viewpoint, things are already humming. Water taxies running as
usual, the small local planes also.


The phones are working on San Pedro, so is the internet. Contact your
hotel reservations clerk for a confirmed booking. On Caye Caulker you
can only phone in via a main telephone office as of yet. Local phones
should be available at guest houses and residences by the 1st of
November. Come on down y'all! We're ready as we ever will be. The
electricity is still off in Caye Caulker till the end of the month, but
kerosene lamps are working. Food supplies due to lack of refrigeration
are somewhat short, but last word was a Japanese donation of 20
generators to Caye Caulker via NEMO the hurricane organization on the
mainland, should get those bars and food establishments and freezers
working and full, within a week or sooner, maybe by this weekend. Give
people a few days to stock up with meat and cold beer again and things
will be back to normal on Caye Caulker by Oct. 25th. Full fledged I am
sure by Nov 6th is my estimate for regular service in electricity and
home phones and internet service.


Saw a question about scuba lessons with Frenchie. You can call him on
the Caye Caulker phone at the telephone office. Leave a message with the
operator, he will call you back. Far as I know, Blue Hole trips are
ready to go right now. He lost two of five boats. But still operational
was the word I got from Caye Caulker.


There is no need from this date onward to cancell any reservations,
unless you have been in direct contact with your hotel and they tell you
otherwise, because their rooms might be sold out to infra-structure
people. Just phone in and double check your reservation with your
particular guest house, or hotel service you planned to stay at.


Otherwise no problema for tourism! It is already going!
Ray Auxillou

From Mo of Lazy Iguana
Power
will start to be turned on in some parts of Caye Caulker in one to two
weeks.
There are really no support for tourists yet in Caye Caulker. The only
power is from individual generators, thus no or restricted showers in the
hotels. I do not think that any will be open until power is on. The
water
taxi service between Belize City and Caye Caulker and San Pedro is still
operating on the usual schedule. Both air strips are open also. There
are
surviving reef boats, but I do not think that any one is even considering
supporting tourists yet. We at the Lazy Iguana are operational but prefer
not to take tourists until mid November. There is just not the infra
structure to assure them a good vacation. One restaurant in Caye Caulker,
the Sand Box is still open with limited hours and limited menues.