Category: Celebrating Life
First Ever Belize Electronic Music Weekend – The official launch of an EDM era in Belize!
The first ever Belize Electronic Music Weekend was a great success in many ways, with international DJ’s, happy positive people, breath taking venues and – most importantly and not often heard of here – really good audiovisual gear – equaling CRISP and well-balanced sound, and nice visuals! The weekend was three full days of new friends, great tunes, dancing and hanging out. And I can’t wait for more to come.
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Belize Ocean Club welcomed us with great service, rum cocktails and a beautiful suite that David, Natasha, Luc and myself would be staying in. We headed straight to the beach and had a quick evening swim before having a nap and heading to the Maya Beach Hotel Bistro where we had a VERY good dinner, and then to the lagoon side of the hotel to check out the party. The venue was perfect. With a dock going into the lagoon, all beautifully lit up, open air, and even a little hangout place with a fireplace. We spent the night chatting away, dancing and meeting new people, and the last couple of hours until sunrise in a ring around the fireplace. The best thing about the party was undeniably the mix of people. The mix of ages, the mix of backgrounds, the mix of interests. People from the most random corners of the world, many of whom were complete hippies in their minds yet proper responsible adults in practice. People with a past, a present and a future, stories to tell and an open and welcoming mindset. We felt so much at home in the conversations it felt like it was all just a very big and well organized house party with good friends and some new exciting people. Just the way you want your electronic music party to feel, right? Perfect!
On the second day we woke up late, hung out for a while by the pool, and headed in to Placencia town for the sunset party at Tipsy Tuna. Again, we danced, chatted, and hung out. The party ended a bit earlier which was nice as we were completely dead after the night before. Sunday was a different thing. We headed straight to the pool where the pool chill sessions kicked in at noon, with the same friends, warming sun, live electronic beats and colourful cocktails – we stayed for as long as we could before having to drive back to Belize. And the weekend was complete.
A big thanks to all our new friends, and especially to Anna and Marcus Perigo from Sisimito Records who arranged the weekend, invited us, and were being great hosts throughout. On our way out from Belize Ocean Club, I spotted Anna and thanked for the weekend. “Can’t wait for next year’s party!” I said as I gave her a hug. “Oh, no no no.. you won’t have to wait that long – after this success we’ll make sure to arrange events like this more often!” she responded. Which sounds absolutely perfect. This is the beginning of an Electronic Dance Music era in Belize, and I’m VERY happy to be here just now.
Just call us and we’ll be there!
Now – enjoy the photos – and don’t miss the video!
(The following three photos were taken by Leonardo Meléndez)
(Photo above by Leonardo Meléndez)
Tulum stories: The moon is full and life is yours to enjoy, now come – dance and love.
We found our way back to Tulum where the moonlight was telling a million stories and the beach embraced us in all of its warmth and beautiful vibes. We were invited to stay with friends and joined them for a party on the beach, under the full moon, under the palm trees and with what happened to be one of my long time DJ crushes, Nightmares on Wax. We played, we loved, we danced and we welcomed the sun as it came up in the morning.
Life is a Cabaret – Last night in Playa del Carmen
New friends, wine, a boat, and yet another beautiful sunset…
We hopped over to Isla Mujeres where we spent the day on the beach and met a crowd of New Yorkers who insisted that we shouldn’t be taking the ferry back to Cancun – but join them on their catamaran instead. So we did. And had a beautiful afternoon on deck, dancing, playing, having drinks and swimming as the sun was setting and the moon came up. All as beautifully random as an afternoon on a boat can be with a big group of happy people. Thanks guys!
Counting down to 2015, Celebrating New Year’s Eve in Mexico.
We ended the year on a beach in Cancun. An electronic music concert with David Guetta and his buddies who delivered a spectacular show – and loads of happy people, yet not too crammed, not too loud, and not too much in your face – we had enough space to dance around, enough hearing left to be able to talk to people, and enough energy and happiness to dance all of our make-up off when it started to rain. It was a great night, one hundred per cent positive, and I couldn’t have been happier and more grateful to spend it with two people who had made their way all the way to another continent to dance through the night and count down to 2015 with me. So much love, thank you darlings!
We continued to another beach once the party started dying out, had some food, danced a bit on the street and went home just as the sun was starting to make its way up. I was happy. A bit worried about 2015, but very happy.
Oh, and cameras were forbidden in the concert, so please excuse the quality of what is to come. Don’t miss the videos, though – one was filmed by a production company and features a split second of our dance moves at 2:24, and the other one is from my phone and captures the moment when the rain fell. I think our shared happiness can be felt through both the shouting and the music, that rain couldn’t have come at a better moment.
Playa del Carmen is for Dancing, and surprise Cabaret.
We made our way up from Tulum to Playa del Carmen, where we stayed in an Airbnb apartment close to the beach and went out dancing at Coco Bongo, a very interesting nightclub experience that combines cabaret shows with club music, acrobatics, tequila shots and dancing in a beautiful venue. In one night, we saw super talented impersonators copy the exact live performances of LMFAO, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Daft Punk and Beyoncé, and movie scenes from The Mask, Spiderman and TRON with Cirque du Soleil acrobats hanging from the high ceiling and confetti and glowsticks all over the place. Quite a ride considering that we had zero expectations and didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into when a promoter on the street put courtesy bracelets on our wrists and literally pushed us in through the door, Coco Bongo wasn’t a night club, it was a very cool show that we suddenly were in the middle of. Very cool.
Apart from Coco Bongo, we also danced at Santanera and Raices, and hung out on the very nice beplaya rooftop.. and had some food, of course.
Christmas on the beach – thank you, Tulum!
After our weekend on Caye Caulker, Avina and I took Suz and made our way up north, across the border to Mexico, to my favourite dreamly little hippie paradise get-away in Mexico – Tulum.
We spent Christmas on the beach and crashed a random Christmas party for staff at Waye, my favourite bar in Tulum. We also had two mind blowing dinners at Casa Banana, and breakfast from heaven in La Zebra. Food was great, people were wonderful, and everything was really nice about the jungle beach town. Before leaving we also paid a quick visit to the Tulum ruins, but it was raining and we didn’t see much apart from a poor little lion baby that tourists were paying to take pictures with.
I love Tulum, Avina loved Tulum, and Christmas couldn’t have been spent in a more awesome way. The only thing missing were our loved one’s – but as we said, we wished they had been there with us – not that we had been anywhere else. Christmas on the beach is the best way to do it, hands down.
Halloween 2014: The blue ninja was nowhere to be seen.
I embraced my Halloween costume this year. I’m totally feeling the idea of cosplay and experiencing living a character for fun – I loved being a blue ninja! Jumping around in my sneakers and comfortable ninja-friendly outfit, I felt strong, fast, invincible and like I could battle all the monsters in there. In Belize, the Halloween party is said to be the biggest of the year apart from the carnival. And yes, people did go all in on their costumes and some were super cool, fun and creative, though there were maybe one too many “Officer Booty on Duty” girls in there..
By 1:30 am the party went bananas, the rain had started pouring down and people stood crammed by the bar instead of dancing since there was no space anywhere. People wanted to go home, so I dropped them off and went home to dance around in the house instead.
When I got home a friend had posted on twitter: “Went to a fancy dress party. My friend went as a ninja. Didn’t see her all night.” haha!
The NYC quickie: A selection of very random activities, hugs and lots of yum.
My flash New York trip started out with a crazy storm in Belize City that was so bad that my flight almost got cancelled. We did take off eventually, even if it was 1.5h late, and I had 20 minutes to run through the entire airport in San Salvador to catch my connecting flight. I took a 2:30am airplane lavatory selfie just before landing, and was welcomed in the US by the new ultra high-tech border control system at JFK. The airport was pretty quiet at that time, and while approaching the long empty row of green-glowing machines I was thinking about how strange it must feel for people who are used to very simple airports where they are greeted by humans, what a strange place this looks like! I was happy to scan my passport and give my fingerprints to a machine instead of feeling like a criminal and answering completely irrelevant and rude questions to some scary looking and tired officer, and most of all I was happy about not having to stand in a line – and being on the other side in less than 15 minutes. Thanks ESTA!
On Friday we woke up after only three hours of sleep and I ran a million errands while Luc was at work. I was tired, but survived the day and managed to get home for a power nap before the evening. In the night we had a nice dinner and went clubbing in Brooklyn. Finally I was dancing in a real night club, where people dance and have fun and love the dj. We were at Output and Theo Parrish was spinning tracks in the main room, and we danced a lot to Frank & Tony’s deep house beats in the Panther Room – keeping it up until 5am! Still proud of us considering the amount of sleep we had gotten the night before.
As expected, it took us forever to wake up, have breakfast and get out of the apartment on Saturday morning. I really loved the Airbnb place we stayed at in the Upper West Side, it had a great little terrace where we had breakfast in the sun, and beautiful furniture that I felt like I could have chosen myself, it really felt like a home. My favourite part about staying in Airbnb places is that it’s real apartments with their own personalities, so if you feel like they somehow resonate with your taste it really becomes a space you live in and enjoy as if it was your own. We did eventually get out – and went for smoothies, talks and some Halloween costume shopping.
We went to New York Adorned, and I took a last picture of my ear before the super smooth J. Colby Smith pierced my helix. Even if it was a rather simple piercing, it felt very reassuring to have it done by a renowned and recommended artist, and I was treated with top class care. New York Adorned has a gorgeous selection of jewellery, and even if the prices are a bit steep, it’s totally worth it in the end. Especially since I will be wearing this for a long period ahead, I’m happy to have an earring that I know is made out of real gold and will help my piercing heal safely. Thanks Colby, I’m loving it!
Sunday was, again, a day of culinary treats, shopping and walking. Then we went for a quite intense Bikram yoga session in the evening, and went straight to close the day with Indian yum at the Drunken Monkey. Still completely soaked after the yoga (and that, my dear friends, is how I you get a bad cold.)
On Monday, Luc stayed in for the first half of the day and we both worked from home for a while which was absolutely wonderful, as we could have a long breakfast and eat blueberries with nutella while both minding our own business. There are very few things that beat being relaxed and doing your own stuff while being accompanied, closely after dancing and sharing minds, it’s my favourite way of spending time with people I like. Luc went to work and I went for errands and meetings, and got together with lovely Emine for an update and some giggles. “I just realized I have never seen you in a jacket!” she said, and we reminisced a bit about our life in Mozambique while Emine kept trying to convince me to move to New York. Concerts every week is indeed a good point, work being far less rewarding makes it all a bit complicated though. And I do live in the Caribbean now.
After work and dinner, it was time for us to go to Escape the Room NYC! Do you remember those old escape room games online, where you wake up locked in a room and have to solve puzzles and look for tools and clues to get out? I had always wanted to try this in real life, and Luc somehow found that it actually exists in New York. (I love that city for literally having everything, and Luc is possibly the world’s best at finding fun activities.) The set up was that we were locked into an apartment (with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, everything) together with 8 other people we didn’t know, and had exactly one hour (with a big digital timer on the wall counting down) to get out of there. It was super exciting and so much fun! And we did it just 7 seconds before the time had run out!
Tuesday came with its last run of errands and hugs, and then Luc treated us to a last dinner at the Japanese restaurant Soto, with a 15 course Omakase menu, where we course by course were presented with little explosions of taste on beautifully presented plates. A great experience to share with somebody who enjoys tastes and textures, and the place is very quiet and neutral (it doesn’t even have a sign on the entrance door), so you really get to focus on the food, your company, and on discussing the peculiar tastes. “What is this thing?”
I took off on Wednesday morning, accompanied by the morning sun and a nice train ride, I got to JFK, had to bend my plastic Halloween ninja sword in half to fit it into my checked in luggage (“we can’t let you through security with that”) and had a nice little walk through the airport. All smooth and fine.
While being sad that I had to leave New York and wishing I could have stayed a little longer, I was touched by the very real feeling of going “home”. Belize feels like home now and the value of having that is really something! Again, thank you New York. Thank you Luc. Thank you life for all the beautiful and much needed little adventures and “why not’s” you keep throwing my way. I’m in deep appreciation of it all. And happy!
I could have ended there.. but I also have to share the fact that I took a last airplane lavatory selfie, now accompanied by a cold from hell and completely blocked sinuses and ears (and, audiophiles take note, my new Klipsch R6m’s!) – keeping it classy in my hoodie.
