Picking up from my last article, I finally boarded the ferry from Harvest Caye to Placencia and I immediately bonded with everyone aboard.  They were fellow travelers who sought a more authentic Belizean experience than the one offered at Harvest Caye.  This is what I love about travel, meeting like-minded journeymen and women who are more than willing to regale anyone who will listen with stories of faraway places and new destinations on their horizon.  We are not tourists, we are travelers, the distinction being that we want to experience our destination.  We want to live there, be citizens of where we are visiting, whether it be for two days or two months.  Lying on a beach isn’t enough, we want to know what makes this specific beach different from any other. We feel the sand, notice the color, the texture, the geography of the coastline and how it affects the ocean’s waves. We want to eat the local food, and collect the local money;  drink the local drink with those who have crafted it.  We want to shop local artists and talk to them about their craft while watching them at work.  I got to do all of these thing in Placencia and I was one happy traveler.

When disembarking from the ferry, the driver gave us the name of a restaurant to have lunch.  He said to tell them that Louis sent us.  It was his mother’s restaurant.  I had every intention of going but I was led completely astray, but more on that later.  Louis informed us that the last ferry back to Harvest Caye was at 3:30 pm so I had only a few hours to take it all in.  He pointed us toward the “Placencia Sidewalk” and told us it was impossible to get lost as this was the only “street” in town. “Just walk to the end, turn around, and come back to catch the ferry,” he advised.

It really is impossible to get lost here.  The concrete walkway runs the length of the village and is lined on both sides with small business and local artisans creating and selling their wares.  You get more than you pay for when you can actually shoot the breeze with the artist and find out who they are, see where they live, and see the look in their eyes when they speak of what inspires them.

As I strolled at a pace that implied that I hadn’t a care in the world I stopped to watch an extremely talented wood carver, Leo Hulse, the owner and carver of Made in Belize.  I asked him if he would mind if I take a short video of him and he told me that the only way he will get back to the US is on my camera and told me to take as many photos as I wanted.  After chatting with him for less than five minutes, I found out that he briefly left Belize over twenty years ago and used to live in Brooklyn, my hometown.  We lived only a few miles from each other at some point during my youth and yet we didn’t meet until we are thousands of miles away in another country.  That’s what I love about travel…no matter where I am in the world, I can always find a fellow Brooklynite!  But seriously though, in the Amazon jungle, a small (and I mean really small) town in southern France, we are everywhere.

I continued my meandering down the sidewalk and passed a bunch of interesting artisans and ice cream shops that I want to stop in on my way back to the ferry. As I am a selective diner, I like to explore a bunch of different options before I settle on where I will have my late lunch.  But then I was literally stopped in my tracks when I see this sign:

If Wile E. Coyote ever set a trap to catch me this sign would be it! “Have you heard about our shrimp grilled cheese?” Why no, I haven’t but tell me all about it, and don’t leave anything out.  I think grilled cheese in all of its forms is one of my favorite things on Earth.  To me, it is a cultural unifier.  Almost every culture has its own version of it from the Mexican quesadilla, to France’s croque monsieur, to Italy’s mozzarella en carrozza.  It seems we can all agree, melted cheese is where it’s at.

I followed the narrow alley that led me to the Barefoot Grill.  Once I realized that it wasn’t a trap I immediately fell in love with this place.  It has one wall completely exposed to the beach.  I decided to take a break from the sun and have a seat inside at the bar.  The bar area was filled with a large group of people eating, drinking and experiencing all around merriment and I assumed that they were all on vacation together.  Mind you it was around 2pm on some random Tuesday.  As the guy next to me struck up a conversation, I learned that there is a huge expat community here.  Because English is the official language of Belize, as well as a great currency exchange rate, it has become the retirement destination for many Americans and Canadians.  This is no boring retirement community. These are adventurers…these people are me in 30 years (or sooner, depending on the success of this blog…share it with your friends, wink!).  I had wandered into the Belizean version of Rick’s Cafe! (Figuratively, of course, as I found out later on that there is an actual restaurant called Rick’s Cafe in Placencia).

The bartender handed me a drink list with every permutation of tropical liqueur and fruit that you would expect to find on an island paradise.  I wanted to keep things simple and local and I ordered a coconut water with coconut rum.  Since my arrival in Belize, I had seen tourists drinking fresh coconut water out of coconuts and so fresh coconut water was on my to do list, and why not mix it with some rum?  This IS vacation after all.  And then I asked about the shrimp grilled cheese.  He told me that it’s usually made with lobster, but they ran out so made it with shrimp instead.  I ordered one and continued chatting with my new friends.

The man next to me, let’s call him James (I don’t remember his name, but I’m feeling a strong “James” vibe as I write this), was in his sixties and is semi-retired.  He is originally from Canada where he used to design restaurants.  He loved his work, as most people in the food industry do, but noticed that as he got older, his friends started having health problems and some even died pretty young.  He was diagnosed with diabetes and decided to enjoy his life before it’s too late and now flies south to Belize every winter.  There is a large expat community here and he told me the social scene is great.  I told him I want to be just like him when I grow up and he told me not to wait.  I told him I would love to retire and travel the world, taking photos and writing about my experiences, and he told me not to wait.  Over drinks and shrimp grilled cheese that afternoon, he encouraged me to start my blog, and not to wait. The Barefoot Bar is not a tourist trap, it’s where the locals come for camaraderie and good company and that’s exactly what I got.

I wandered in for the grilled cheese (and free wifi to be completely honest) and I walked out with sound life advice, a full stomach, and a new “don’t wait” outlook on life…and I never used the wifi.

By the time I finished, it was almost time to catch the last ferry so I headed back to the dock, passing up all those ice cream shops I had wanted to explore, with about twenty minutes to spare.  The dock is right on the beach and the beauty of this is that I was able to wait for the boat while bathing in the ocean under the afternoon sun.   As soon as I saw the ferry approaching, I toweled off, grabbed my belongings from the sand and walked down the dock.  If only air travel were this accommodating.

By the way, Barefoot Bar’s shrimp grilled cheese was teeming with shrimp. The bread was perfectly crisp and buttery and the cheese was gooey, stretchy, and was a surprisingly wonderful complement to the perfectly cooked shrimp.  I added some hot sauce and am still dreaming of it today.

Here is my own version of that (perhaps life changing?) sandwich.

Shrimp Grilled Cheese, serves 2

Ingredients:

10 shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 tablespoons softened butter

1 clove chopped garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 slices American Cheese

2 slices Provolone Cheese

4 slices of thick soft bread, think Texas Toast

Your favorite hot sauce (I’m using Tabasco in this recipe because it really stands up to the richness from the cheese and butter…and that’s how I enjoyed the original)

Instructions:

Put 1 tablespoon each of butter and olive oil in a skillet.  Once the butter has melted, add the garlic and shrimp and cook, turning until pink on both sides.  Season with salt and pepper.  Transfer shrimp to a cutting board and slice in half horizontally to create two thinner pieces of shrimp.

Lay out four slices of bread.  Spread a thin layer of softened butter on each slice, being careful to cover the entire surface.  Turn over two slices and top each with two slices of American cheese.  Divide the shrimp between the two sandwiches and arrange in one layer.  Sprinkle on some Tabasco sauce, or your preferred hot sauce.  Top each with 1 tablespoon of shredded mozzarella and two slices of provolone cheese.  Place the other slices of bread on tops, buttered side out.

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat and carefully add both sandwiches. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown and carefully flip over.  Once both sides are golden brown remove the skillet from the heat and cover with a lid and allow to sit until the cheese is melted, about 4-5 minutes.

To serve:

Slice in half diagonally and serve with a simply dressed mixed green salad.  Optional but recommended is a coconut water and rum…and good conversation.