A most happy place

Greetings from Belize:
Well, that’s a lie. We’re not actually still in Belize, since we arrived in Costa Rica last night, but our thoughts and minds have not yet made the transformation from that newest point of the planet about which we have fascinated. It’s easy go get caught up in the life around the Jara household and so I need to write this before things get lost in the vacuum. Belize had been a place in which I have been really interested ever since I flew over the blue hole and saw the magnificence of the water and cays from 33,000 feet. For Carol the interest was about this place in the center of Spanish Central America where the Brits established their enclave and maintained a presence until the 1962 when independence was granted.
Ethnically, it is a colorful mixture of peoples. Creole are British pirates who mixed with black slaves and created a lilting language of their own. Mestizos, are a mixture of the Hispanic and local Mayan peoples, and the Garifunas are a combination of African and Mayan with the African features being predominant. Throw in a small, but important, bunch of Menonites and you have a combination which works in a wonderfully, vibrant way – and amazingly well.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier group of people than the Belizeans. You can’t walk down the streets ride in cars, or simply sit somewhere and not be bombarded with smiling faces, people inquiring about your health, wanting to know if you’re having a good time, or simply waving to you as you pass by.
From old to young, people are genuinely friendly. There doesn’t seem to be anything contrived about it. It just creates a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere to enjoy where you are. It’s easy to get cautious when traveling. Strangers will come up to you and give you the old “Aren’t we best friends,” bit, then proceed to try and sell you something. But there’s no false friendliness here, it just an honest, straightforward smile and inquirey to make sure you’re okay.
Our arms got tired of waving to people as we drove down the highways. People we’d never seen before and would never see again. No matter. They were passing and acknowledged you with a smile and a wave. This must have been what the British royal family must have felt like back when people actually liked them.
We had a serious discussion yesterday with some young Yanks on the subject of poverty. We remarked that we didn’t see the grinding poverty to which we’ve become accustomed in much of Hispanic America. They said that we obviously hadn’t been where they were because they saw plenty of it. We realized we’d seen the same things, we just looked at it differently. From their point of view, they saw homes that barely qualified as shelter, and lots of kids with little in the way of decent clothing. They thought this showed that poverty was rampant.
We told them that we looked at it differently. First there was no begging. A real indication of desperate situations, There wasn’t anybody selling things that nobody wanted in the first place who look at you with eyes that told you things were indeed dire. There were no babies with swollen bellies or flies around their eyes because it takes too much effort to keep brushing them away and conserving energy is a good thing. Mostly, though, it’s just the laughter in the air. No matter how remote the village, it’s a constant. Geographically, the land sits on the Caribbean, with Guatemala on the west and south, and Mexico’s Yucatan to the north. No more than 75 miles wide at any point and 175 miles along the coast from north to south, a total of 250,000 people live in Belize, with 70,000 in Belize City, a place, honestly which didn’t interest us. It’s the islands and the jungles that draw people to its ever burgeoning tourist industry.
The coastal temps are in the 80’s for highs most of the year and mid 70’s are the lows. Both are accompanied with high humidity. Staying warm is not a problem. Warm weather people delight in the consistency of it all. Up in the mountains, it will cool down all the way to the 60’s and they complain whey they actually have to cover up at night to go to sleep.
The highlands near Guatemala form a thick jungle rain forest, but the country is really dominated by the coast. Containing the largest barrier reef in the western world, It is simply magnificent. Small cays stick out of the water everywhere around the reef, some with only a single palm tree growing out of them, while others contain hundreds of people living on them. One of them is called “One Man Island.” It should more properly be called, “One man, one dog Island” for the inhabitant has built a “house” of about 10 square feet which takes up most of the island. He has posted signs of “No Loitering,” and has just enough land left for the dog to run which it seems to do constantly. Whenever a boat comes too close, he runs up the stairs into the house, out the back door, around the house and back again. This seems to be his routine, complete with constant barking. No sneaking up on this guy.
It must be written into the law books that nobody has the right to get seasick, because these people live on the sea. It serves as their livelihood. From fishing to tourism to transportation, there is the constant whirr of outboard motors as somebody is going somewhere by boat. Lots of areas don’t have “roads” or even foot access, and hence boats are the essential item. Without one, it’s total isolation.
All this movement takes place on a sea of green varying from dark azure to turquoise, and all of it is truly incredible and you never get tired of just sitting and looking at it. And there’s not just pockets of it, it’s everywhere. Naturally, the place is a huge dive area. You can choose whatever level of experience you want to have, from snorkeling in a Marine sanctuary, to scuba diving around the coral and reefs, to the ultimate, an all day trip out to the famous “Blue hole.” A crater that collapsed in on itself, it’s a perfect circle with that iridescent color all around the rim where the is shallow and that deep, deep blue of the hole itself, which just goes straight down over 400 feet. There’s a cool picture of it at:
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/greatbluehole.html
At one of the resorts we were offered a drink of rum which had a snake in the bottle – for extra flavoring I guess. An alternative would have been the one with a scorpion in it. I passed on both, but one of the guys who didn’t said that the stuff with the scorpion in it wasn’t bad, but that the snake one was just pure fire. I guess they had to fortify it because of, well I don’t know why.
Drinking is a favorite pastime of most tourists and the bars are full of heavy partiers at nighttime. They start filling up in the late afternoon when the dive boats come back from their trips and get downright congested as the night progresses. We didn’t stay to see just how late they do their thing, but it’s safe to say early morning is not a favorite part of the day here. Dive boats can go out at any time of the day and afternoon dives are a particular favorite. Wonder why?
The majority of people coming to the various cays are snorkelers and scuba divers. As mentioned before the water is so clear, such a beautiful color and the sea life so close to the surface that all levels of skilled people can partake and enjoy themselves. The humidity will soak you through almost immediately and so people dress as casually and skimpily as decorum and their personal levels of decency permit. There is usually a nice breeze which blows off the water moderating the heat, but it still feels much hotter than it actually is. All that reflection off the water means that some very heavy-duty sunscreen is necessary, and never mind all this all day protection stuff. Using it liberally and often is the modus openendi.
We began our stay in the southern part of the country near Placencia. It is very remote and villages are populated in the hundreds, not thousands. The resorts range in quality and Francis Ford Coppola is building a mega joint which will be 5 star all the way. For people who want to experience good diving, but not big crowds, it’s an ideal place. Our place had AC in all rooms, wonderful, but expensive, food, cable tv in all rooms and was thoroughly enjoyable.
We then went to the highlands to get a feel for that part of Belize. Towns have a rugged self-reliant feel to them. Fewer mosquitoes, and some beautiful resorts catering to people who want luxury in a rain forest setting. It serves as a jumping off place for Tikal, the magnificent ruins of the Mayans, which is just across the border in Guatemala. There are lots of things to do from lazily drifting down rivers, to cave tubing, to river rafting and jungle walks looking for wildlife.
This area, so close to Guatemala, is naturally where you see most of the Guatemalan refugees. With a long border through the jungle, it is impossible to control migration and since Belize has a minimum wage more than double that of Guatemala, naturally lots of people come here seeking better lives. The two countries still have major disputes about territory with Guatemala claiming that since Belize was ruled by the Brits as British Honduras, the independence which the Brits gave to Belize really has no validity.
Tensions remain but have not broken out in outright total hostilities. Once in a while, the Belize army sweeps through warning the illegals to evacuate the camps. They are ignored, the army comes back, shots are fired, people die, and both governments posture for their respective citizens and then things go back to the way they were. Interestingly, the Guatemalans living in Belize don’t want to see Belize become Guatemalan territory because, they say, things would just deteriorate to the point where they are in Guatemala. Tis a puzzlement.
But of all the places in Belize that are really cool, the signature location is that of Ambergris Caye and it’s town of San Pedro. Funny, doesn’t sound very British. Just a 15 minute flight from Belize City, this is the mecca for visitors. The number of dive sites, their closeness (because you’re already on one of them) makes it the center of tourism. Again you can select your level of isolation, but most people stay in close to San Pedro because of the night life and the aforementioned watering holes. S. P. has a population of 4,000 permanent residents and the whole island has only 632 rooms, which is about the size of some of the mega resorts in Cancun to the north. Yet the place really rocks and everybody has a good time since it’s still happy Belize.
The streets of S.P. are a chalky sand and clay mixture and the vehicle of choice for locals is the golf cart. Some pick-ups can be seen, mostly used as delivery vehicles, but the golf carts are everywhere. Tourists can rent them for an hour or a day up to a month at a time. Cheap to buy, operate and maintain, they negotiate the narrow, dusty streets easily without choking the life out of the place with traffic jams and pollution. Almost all of the streets are one way. Okay, there are only three streets going north and south and two of them are one way with the third being anything goes. Each of the side streets, and there are probably 10 of them are all one way as well.
The island of choice for those on the cheap is Caulker Caye. It is the backpacker’s haven. We didn’t go there, but everybody says the same thing. There is an inexpensive hotel on the island and people go there when they want the experience, but don’t want to spend the money at the major resorts. Sanitation seems to be a problem, and we did hear complaints about the general odor of the place.
Ecotourism is certainly a buzzword in the travel industry nowadays, and resorts use it for their own purposes with varying degrees of commitment to environmental protection, but Belize really seems to be doing a good job. They realize that what they have is a unique environment and try to maintain it for the long run, not just the short term advantage. This is how they will survive in a fickle tourist market. Belize seems to be far better known to easterners and southerners than to us on the left coast, but we met people from all over the U.S.
The use of Palm trees for thatch has practically stopped, and ceramic tiles are the roofing most commonly used. All containers sold have to be recyclable, a source of income for people to gather and return and we were very impressed with the cleanliness of the areas we visited. Seems like everybody’s bought into the concept.
The Mennonites and the Amish presence has added a lot of agricultural emphasis to a place where it was significantly lacking before their arrival. They exist in colonies of varying degrees of religious fundamentalism. The Amish still go around in their horse drawn carts, just as they do in Lancaster County, Pa.. while the Mennonites are far more involved in commercial enterprises. They build houses and sell them to the Garifunas and Creole people, and their industriousness as a mini society with the whole has had a positive effect in a land where the heat, the humidity, and the abundance of natural food can easily create a culture of “Everything’s fine, let’s do it later.”
It’s not hard to get around the country. There are only three main roads, all of which are paved, and there are two airlines operating small single prop 12-17 passenger service to various places for $50 to $100 bucks a pop, and it’s really a beautiful way to see the place. High enough to get an overall picture, low enough to really get some detail. It was like flying back from Tortuguero in Costa Rica.
Our last day we rented a car and went to a spa resort where they had a pet baby monkey. This is where we found the viper rum. Naturally, Carol had to find it and play with it. Well, it’s a baby, and like a kitten, it has sharp teeth, so play, but play at your own peril. Carol left with a smile on her face from the experience and hours later had no trouble recalling the experience by simply looking at the tooth marks on her arm. No blood, no serious damage, no dreaded diseases.
We left Belize to come to our friends place in Cost Rica where we have been happily received once again. We flew Taca airlines from Belize to San Jose, changing planes in San Salvador. We taked to the agent when we checked in at Belize City and he upgraded us to first class since I was a travel agent. Free drinks flowed on the one hour flight to San Salvador, with rum being my choice and orange juice being Carol’s. I swear, that woman has no sense of imagination. Anyway, we bought Carol’s ticket on the internet for $300, yes, cheaper than even I could get as an agent, (and we wonder why travel agents are dinosaurs) while mine was purchased on a travel agent discount for $88. All well and good until we reached San Salvador and I decided to walk around checking out the airport. I returned before boarding and Carol was nervous, saying: “Didn’t you hear them paging you?” The gist was that the flight was overbooked and since Carol had purchased a full price ticket, she could fly, but since mine was a t.a. discount, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was the first to be bumped. There was another flight an hour later, so it really wasn’t the end of the world – just inconvenient for us and for our friends who would have to wait or make two trips to the airport.
I did my best whining, cajoling, groveling, and whatever else I thought could get me on the plane. I’d have to wait and see if there were any no-shows. She had no idea as to whether I was going on the same flight with her when she boarded the plane. Just before they closed the gate, they told me I could board the plane, but since they had given my seat away when they cancelled my ticket on that flight, I would have to take Carol’s seat, and she would have to move to first class. NOW, WAIT A MINUTE!! I’m the travel agent here. I should be the one upgraded. She’s just another passenger like everybody else. I’m the one who sells Taca. I’m the one you have to take care of here. She’s only on this flight because I put her here.
Well, no, it doesn’t work that tay.She paid full fare, so she gets upgraded, and I get the cattle call. The agent in Belize who upgraded us was the station manager, and he has the right to do that, they are just workers and can’t, so stop complaining, get on the plane and shut up, or stay here. Could I be upgraded if I waited for the later flight, I asked? No! Are there first class seats available, I asked? Yes, but you can’t have one was the unwelcome response. So, grudgingly, I traipsed on the plane and had to tell my elated wife that she had to move to first class. This was just adding to the insult to my professional pride.
I considered not saying anything and just taking the first class seat, but figured they’d come on board and check, which they did, so she moved and I sat. She got the free drinks totally wasted on orange juice and I had a small glass of coke filled mostly with ice cubes. She got the first class meal, while I had a huge roll of bread where somewhere inside was hidden something that tasted vaguely of cheese and had wilted lettuce.
Trust me, she’s paying for Taca’s insult and will continue to pay for as long as think I can get away with it. But in the end we were on the same flight, were greeted by the whole Jara clan at the airport and have once again begun to enjoy life as extended members of our second family.
Love to all,
Carol and a pissed Jim.