Since Holiday Hotel was the first hotel to welcome tourists to San Pedro, the pioneer tourist guides have got to be Mr. Gabriel “Gaby” Perez, Mr. Abel Guerrero and Mr. Jose Gonzalez. Pictured here along with San Pedro High School benefactor, Mr. Al Felly, is Gaby Perez. Their main objective was to give their guests something to brag about – a large catch of fish and a fantastic day at sea.
Our pioneer guides were very skillful at this. They made sure that their guests reeled in a large catch like this one – five barracudas and a huge grouper. The next trick in the trade was to catch one huge jewfish, sailfish, tarpon, or the like. And the final trick used by Gaby was to enable the guest fishermen to have a long battle in reeling in their catch. The longer the fighting period with the catch, the bigger the bragging rights! Not sure what the record is but there were guests who boasted fighting up to 90 minutes with their catch.
Our pioneer guides must have done a very good job because tourists returned time and time again and brought others with them and the trade is still going strong up to this day. It is fishing and diving that attracts visitors to Ambergris Caye and of course their warm hospitality of the tourist guides. Hats off to all of them!
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