Madonna is Full Of Shit and So Are The Chickens: A Soggy San Pedro

That Madonna is full of shit! Her dreams about San Pedro included tropical island breezes and all the nature wild and free. We did not find the Isla to be bonita at all. Instead our two-night stay on the island was filled with rain!

I’m sure it truly is a beautiful island but the Mayan Rain God Chac just was not on our side as it poured all day each day we were there. We sadly never saw the sun the entire time and instead had to imagine what this tropical paradise would look like under normal circumstances. January is supposed to be part of the dry season for Belize and even the locals said the rain and mild temperatures were quite unusual.

Snorkeling and SCUBA diving were out of the question, as was lounging on the beach. We decided to try to go for a bike ride up the island and got completely soaked in the process. Oh well.

Oddly, the rain seemed to clear up a bit at night after the sun went down. There are a few bars built out over the docks here where we were able to enjoy a few drinks without getting rained on. Lights from the docks shine down into the shallow crystal-clear waters below and we were fortunate to get an awesome show of marine life visiting us. There must have been at least twenty different big and beautiful spotted leopard rays that stopped by periodically. Then at one point a huge shark swam right by us too! Given the weather, this may have been our highlight during our stay San Pedro.

One of our nights there, the rain did let up enough for us to enjoy the weekly Chicken Drop. This unique event only occurs on Thursday nights at Wahoo Lounge and we just so happened to be staying at the hotel in which the bar is located. So what is the Chicken Drop you ask? Allow me to explain…

Each Thursday evening tourists and locals alike begin lining up around 6:00 pm to buy lottery tickets of sorts. The fun begins at 7:00 though. There is what looks like a large bingo board set up in the sand with randomly placed numbers from 1-100. There are eight rounds total and each round you have the opportunity to purchase tickets that coordinate with each of the 100 numbers. Each randomly drawn number you purchase is 1$ Belizean Dollar ($0.50 US).

At 7:00 the first round begins. The MC makes a call to Chicken Security (yes, there really is a Chicken Security) to bring out a chicken. A volunteer is asked to be a chicken fluffer of sorts and to ceremoniously swing him around, blow on his butt, and place him in the pen. The chicken walks around as she pleases until she has to relieve herself on one of the numbers. The crowd cheers the chicken on hoping she’ll move in the direction of their number, but the chicken usually seems to have its own agenda.

Once the chicken takes a shit, the winner is to come forth to clean it up in order to claim their winning $100B pot. There’s also one round in which tickets are $10B and the pot becomes $1,000B. Its all a fun spectacle but there’s also some real money on the line here.

We did not win with the weather in San Pedro so it was only fitting we did not win any rounds of the Chicken Drop either. But we had a good time playing, so I suppose that’s what matters. Nah, I wanted the money. Anyhow, onward to dry out in Caye Caulker.