There I am… relaxing in the shade of a coco palm. My feet basking in the warm waters of the caribbean. In the cup holder of my chair is what was just a few minutes ago a very cold beer… but it’s so hot out that it’s now barely a lukewarm beverage in a supremely sweaty bottle. A slowly building breeze carries a sweet smell that I can’t quite place. Hopefully it’s the cane fields that line the bay… and not the nearby dump.
I’m watching this cloud that you see above slowly grow into an enormous ghostly sea turtle. No one agrees with me… of course. Kaila sees it as a dude flying through the sky… and I can’t remember what everyone else saw in my cloud, but whatever it was they were obviously wrong… it’s clearly a sea turtle! In the midst of proving to everyone that it’s a turtle… I had the strangest thought. It dawned on me that if the cloud has any awareness at all it probably doesn’t see itself as a big white sea turtle either. It likely fancies itself as something far more macho… or a lot less wrinkly, or both.
And the same thing could easily be said about our lives. We too are simply natural processes at work, being shaped by the the forces that surround us… and seen… not as what we think we are, but as those who are watching imagine us to be.
The official language of Belize is English… but everyone here, and I literally mean everyone is trilingual. English, Spanish, and Creole… which sort of sounds like English, and makes you think that you can understand it. But it isn’t and you can’t. Conversations routinely hop from English to Spanish and back. Thankfully, they seem to only inflict Creole on each other. It’s an accent that just doesn’t go with a fifty year old white dude.
Some months ago it took us nearly four hours to import our flip flop footed tribe into Mexico. A feat we achieved in Belize in just about an hour. My personal highlight: the “health inspection” for Max the dog. If the Minister of Health and Agriculture looked at him for ten seconds I’d be amazed. He seemed only to be looking for proof of a pulse before stamping his “pet passport”… and charging us $55 US. The man must be a pet whisperer.
Just a couple of miles in country we picked up an English speaking radio station. The very first Belizean ad that we heard: “The price of Presidente beer has been reduced to $2.50. That’s a schilling (25 cents) cheaper than any other beer in Belize… and remember that Presidente beer has 1.5 percent more alcohol per beer than most other Belizean beers. So enjoying six presidente beers is like drinking eight or nine of the others. Presidente Beer… it’s a double value” Now that’s how you advertise a beer!
If you’re thinking that Belize… being more or less a third world country, is a value travel opportunity… let me quickly disavow you of that notion. Belize ain’t cheap. Prices for groceries and beer and gas are pretty much double what they are in Mexico. And they use dollars here… Belizean dollars… but dollars nonetheless (the exchange rate is $2 Bz to $1 US). So you have to keep reminding yourself that the Prego pasta sauce isn’t really $9.00… it’s <i>only</i> $4.50. And that the gas isn’t really $11.00 a gallon… it’s <i>only</i> $5.50. Which is a big relief that fades quickly… because it’s still pretty fricking expensive. It’s also a country of miles, miles per hour, pounds, and inches. Just when we got used to the other stuff.
LONG WALK… you know the rest
BELIZE IS A COLORFUL PLACE
Here’s another interesting thing about Belize… it has less than 400,000 people. In fact, it has the lowest population density in the Americas. But one thing that you notice right away… at least I did, is that there’s A LOT of young people here. At first I thought that maybe it was just me being so old that everyone else looked young… but I looked it up, and nearly 40% of the population is less than fifteen years old. All those kids… and no work. That could end badly.
WATER PARKS OF THE CARIBBEAN
The weather is HOT. Highs are in the 90’s, and with lows hovering around 80 it doesn’t cool off much. The humidity is a constant 80%. Which means that you really can’t do much during the middle of the day other than drink cold beverages and stay close to the water. In the afternoon the wind get’s to freshinin’ de place… as they say, it resuscitates you enough to contemplate moving again. And when it rains… which it does basically every afternoon for around thirty minutes or so, it feels sooooo good. Our daily routine has basically been to get to the water as early as we can and stay until the mozzies (mosquitos) kick us out.
We spent the first couple of nights at the Caribbean Village Park just across from the water in Corozal Town. It’s an Ok place… a little expensive for what you get, but we reckon that it’s a good place to get your Belizean legs under you.
ME AND ALHAMBRA WATER… MAKIN’ FRIENDS
With the exception of a pretty good pizza that we found at RD’s diner in downtown Corozal ($28 BZ for a large Hawaiian)… Belizean food has so far been pretty boring. There’s only so much stewed meat and rice and beans a guy can eat. We came from the incredible variety of fresh fruits and vegetables of Mexico into what appears to be a produce wasteland. Your choices are cantaloupe watermelon, bananas, and broccoli… or broccoli, bananas, cantaloupe, and watermelon, depending on which end you enter the market from. Three bucks for a pound of broccoli that’s so limp that it might as well be lettuce is… well, a little disappointing. There’s a market that assembles right next to the graveyard (which may or may not be a coincidence) early Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s that offers one or two more options, and marginally better quality. But… there’s a bright side to this story and it’s a big one… cheddar cheese.
THANK YOU GEORGE FERRIS
We experimented greatly with the cheeses of Mexico, and ultimately were unable to find culinary happiness with them. Too soft. Not enough flavor. Many, many times I would have happily paid handsomely for a block of good cheddar cheese. The first store that we walk into in Corozal Town had one pound blocks of Tillamook cheddar… for $18 BZ. And what did I do? I passed because it was too expensive. Some people never learn.