Oh Lord... I’m keeping my head down here in the Linea Dorada bus station in Belize City, waiting for my bus to Flores in Guatemala, but at the same time being drawn into the early morning spectacle of a slanging match in thick patois between a indomitable looking Belizean lady and someone who has evidently done her wrong (I can’t quite make out who this unfortunate person is, but they are on the receiving end of a pretty ferocious stream of abuse - delivered with impressive attitude given that it is not yet 9.00am). Belize City is certainly living up to the edgy and slightly menacing reputation attributed to it by everyone I have met who has been here, and it seems a million miles away from chilled out, laid back and safe seeming Caye Caulker (only 45 minutes away by boat) where I spent the last two nights. I feel it was definitely worth stopping off there but I’m going to leave it at that as far as Belize is concerned – a shame, as I was initially planning on spending about a week here, taking time to see the zoo and some of the wildlife reserves further west. Time is of the essence now I have so much of my schedule to catch up on, though, so I’m pressing on to Guatemala and will just have to attribute to Belize the brief but impressionable snatches that I have gleaned from my bus rides through the country and my short stay on the Caye.
Getting here on Friday was a slightly unpredictable and anxiety inducing experience but it worked out OK in the end. Being on my own, and having heard grim stories from other travellers about being stranded in Belize City at night (these stories involve ‘hotels’ where you get woken up every hour to the sound of gun shots, and the only dining options being dodgy Chinese takeaways where meals are served through hatches with metal bars due to the frequency of armed robberies), I was set on getting to Belize City from Chetumal by 5.30pm in order to get the last boat over to Caye Caulker. The journey is supposed to take about 3 ½ hours, and buses were supposed to be on the hour between 6.00am and midday. Therefore, I arrived at the bus station in Chetumal at 10.30am, thinking that everything would be fine. However, I then got told that there wouldn’t be another bus until 1.45pm, which led to a tedious morning stranded there. Once I had paid up for my ticket, I literally had only 1 peso to my name (I didn’t want to get any more Mexican money out – given my cash/credit card situation) so even the paltry bus station diversions of getting a coffee, using the internet, and buying a magazine were out of my grasp. As a result, it wasn’t long before Chetumal had overtaken Manzanillo in my experience as Mexico’s most heart-sink bus station destination!
Once I was on the bus, though, and across the border (where our luggage was cursorily checked by jovial Creole officials – a refreshing change from the moody Mexican ones) things got interesting, and the atmosphere and landscape changed significantly. Candy coloured clap-board houses and kids with cornrow braids instantly gave Belize a more Caribbean feel and the quaint names of places we passed through (Copper Bank, Yo Creek, Crooked Tree) reminded me that I was entering a former British colony as opposed to a Spanish one. Ethnically Belizean people tend to be darker skinned with more Afro features, many being of Creole descent (the progeny of enslaved Africans and early British settlers), although there are Mayan and mestizo populations familiar from Mexico here too - and a Latino influence does still, in some senses, pervade. English is the official language in Belize (although most inhabitants do speak Spanish and it is frequently heard on the streets). However, English here is usually spoken with such as thick patois-y drawl as to be pretty hard to get to grips with. Once I was accustomed to it, however, I felt fine – almost as if I was home from home, given London’s (especially Hackney’s) huge Caribbean population (at times on Caye Caulker I felt I could have just been popping down Well Street to ‘Tropical Eats’ for a takeaway of rice’n’peas and fried snapper!).
So back on the bus on Friday, the afternoon hours passed by and, as the driver stopped in one sleepy backwater after another to set-down and pick up passengers, I began to doubt that I’d reach Belize City in time for the last boat to the Caye. This prompted me to go and share my worried hunch with the only other ‘traveller-looking’ types on the bus – an Italian couple who also started the journey in Chetumal (I figured that if I got stranded in Belize City I, at least, wanted to be around some other tourists). Luckily, for all three of us, we made it by the skin of our teeth, getting whisked up at the bus station in Belize City and transported to the boat terminal by a highly entertaining (with hindsight!) female dreadlocked taxi-driver, who was the spitting image of Whoopi Goldberg. ‘Whoopi’ chewed a wad of gum throughout the short journey and assured us that we’d make the boat on time. Oblivious to our anxiety, she then proceeded to tell us in detail about the digestive discomfort she’d had all day due to eating too many greasy fritters on an empty stomach that morning. Belizean people evidently like to share everything about themselves with complete strangers!
On the subject of strangers, the Italian couple then demonstrated their trust and generosity by very kindly lending me (as someone who they’d known for about 20 minutes) some cash to cover the taxi and boat fare. This was because I hadn’t had the time or opportunity to get to an ATM in Belize City, as I’d hoped. Luckily, after our 45 minute speed-boat journey in the dusk to Caye Caulker (quite exciting although a bit bumpy) I was able to pay them back. On a financial aside, it turns out that my mislaid debit card probably is not that much of a disaster. I will just have to get money out on my credit card in the meantime (and think ahead as to how much I will need so as to avoid multiple hefty withdrawal charges). Then, in a week or two’s time, once the replacement card reaches my Mum and Dad in Gosport, it will be a case of fun and games getting it delivered to an embassy or fixed address somewhere out here (probably in Guatemala or El Salvador, depending on where I am). I had a good chat on Skype with my Dad about it on Friday which was comforting and a relief.
So, back to Caye Caulker… A whole host of new ragamuffin would-be buddies greeted me as I got off the boat, trying to persuade me to stay in their ‘cabanas’ or to sign up to their diving or snorkelling trips. I made a bee-line for Tina’s hostel though – which was where I had heard the backpacker budget accommodation was to be found. This characterful wooden house on stilts, right by the beach, with a ‘vibe garden’ (?!) and a multitude of colourful hammocks strung up all over the place, was my resting spot for the proceeding two nights - and it proved to be as friendly and sociable a place as I could have hoped for. A guy in his late teens/early twenties, who I assume was Tina’s son, helped me to carry my bag up to my dorm and proceeded to entertain me and my roommates over the course of the weekend as he bumbled around the hostel, promising, but never quite managing to get a variety of things done (such as fixing the lockers, making the beds etc.). We came to the conclusion that he had been smoking a bit too much of a certain substance that, although officially illegal on the island, was offered to us pretty much every five minutes by grinning rastas in golf-buggies circling around the shore!
On Friday night, my Canadian room-mate (who’d already spent a couple of days on Caye Caulker) gave me a tip-off to head to a place called Fran’s for dinner, just along the beach. Not so much of a restaurant, more of a beachside hut, he promised me that this was one of the best places to get good seafood, and he wasn’t wrong. Fran turned out to be a squat Belizean woman almost as wide as the green and yellow shack that she used as her kitchen. This was something I correctly interpreted as a sign that she loved good food and knew all about how to cook it! Calling me ‘honey’ (in Belize I was no longer ‘nina’ or ‘senorita’ - but ‘honey’, ‘miss’ or ‘gyal’) she soon sat me down on a long wooden table already packed with in-the-know travellers, and bought me out the first of the two glasses of rum punch that were included in her legendary ‘meal deals’ (a main dish from her BBQ, two drinks, and a slice of Oreo cookie cheesecake just to end things on a sweet and decadent note). Unfortunately, the last of the lobster had gone by the time I sat down, but I put an order in for shrimp and wasn’t disappointed, even though there was a bit of a wait (my stomach was practically eating itself I was so hungry, but the pause allowed me to chat a bit to my neighbours/fellow diners – a slightly younger group of Brits who had just travelled up from Guatemala). When my meal arrived I was transported into a state of bliss as it tasted divine – juicy shrimps in savoury garlicky butter, served with sumptuous garlic bread and mashed potatoes. It was certainly a welcome change from Mexican tortilla based fare and a treat to set me up before all the interminable rice and bean meals that I hear I’ll be getting in allegedly un-gastronomic Guatemala.
Fran-style cooking had an understandably soporific effect on me and I wasn’t good for much after my final mouthful of cheesecake. However, I sat in on a few rounds of the pub quiz in a local beach bar before heading back to Tina’s. The next morning, I woke up early, feeling refreshed and, as the sun was not quite at its peak, I decided to put my trainers on and go for a run – damage limitation following Fran’s meal the night before (!), plus a good opportunity to familiarise myself with the island. I had got the impression that it was a safe enough place, so I took my camera out with me and got some of the snaps that you’ll be able to see of the palm trees, glassy blue waters, and pastel coloured wooden houses. The pace of life on Caye Caulker is so slow that I think a lot of the islanders thought I was nuts running around. However, they also seemed to have that laid-back ‘anything goes’ attitude that goes against batting an eyelid at any type of eccentricity.
I had some sorting out by internet to do with Bambabus yesterday morning regarding my itinerary (thankfully all manageable with Wi-fi at Tina’s) and then I just spent some time sunning myself on the beach at ‘The Split’ (the area where most people swim off the Caye). With its globally acclaimed coral reefs and legendary ‘blue hole’ (literally a huge sink hole in the bottom of the ocean) Caye Caulker is a mecca for divers and snorkelers – a couple of whom I chatted to the night before. Although it’s not really something I would describe myself as being into, I thought I couldn’t leave the island without exploring some of the marine nature nearby. Therefore, I booked myself onto a half-day snorkelling trip that afternoon. There were five of us in the small motor boat that our snorkelling guide and skipper (an amiable Belizean called Ash) took out into the shallows around the island. First of all we swam with stingrays in ‘shark alley’ - something that Ash, in spite of the whole Steve Irwin thing, assured us was perfectly safe (he managed to get me to stroke one – but I drew the line at kissing it as he suggested!). They weren’t the most beautiful creatures, I must say, and I guess I was a bit of a wuss, shrieking every time one of the flat slimy fish came and tickled me on my legs! Snorkelling around the boat was great, though, and there were many smaller exquisitely coloured and patterned fish that it was wonderful just to observe (my favourites had ultra-violet stripes and little beaky noses). Later in the afternoon Ash took us round coral reefs and I marvelled, if slightly spooked out, at the hidden world beneath the ocean – strange brain-like corals, creeping antennaed lobsters on the sea bed, squirming green eels and sleepy starfish.
Knowing that I would be leaving today, I had half a mind to do a sunset sailing trip around the island when we returned yesterday but ,actually, the snorkelling tired me out and I opted to head back to the hostel to shower and warm up (being all wet in the breeze I actually felt quite chilly). Back at Tina’s, some new Ozzie girls had moved into my room and I agreed to go for dinner with them and some others at Willy’s Shack – another poplar local haunt that word had got round about. We relaxed on the hammocks for a while first, though, drinking rum and pineapple bought from the little supermarket over the road. Belizean rum was great, especially drunk on a hammock, looking out to sea with the moon laying low in the sky. Some of the others were drinking a Belizean speciality called ‘Green Stripe’ (a spirit with the same logo as Red Stripe, but green). I gave this a wide berth, though, as it was supposed to be like peppermint sambuca – something that didn’t exactly appeal to me!
Dining at Willy’s (as with Fran the night before) was an experience thanks to the setting, and Willy himself, as much as on account of the food (which was incidentally great – and it was wonderful to eat fresh vegetables for what felt like the first time in ages, along with the fish and pork chops he cooked up). A smiling dreadlocked giant (Willy must have been about 6”4 or so) with ebony skin and a proud pot-belly (again, a good advertisement for his cuisine!), Willy stopped intermittently to chat with us in between cooking our meals and bringing us out two huge bowlfuls of rum punch to ladle out and share. Sitting at a big creaking wooden table in the chaos of the garden outside his ramshackle hut/kitchen felt just like the right way to go out for food on the Caye and, at BZ$15 per head (about a fiver) to pretty much eat and drink all we could, it was great value. We even got the assurance that Willy’s Shack passed Belizean health and safety requirements as, at the end of the meal, we witnessed the entertaining spectacle of two health and safety inspectors whizzing up on a golf buggy and giving Willy’s kitchen the once over. I’m not sure how thorough they were, nor how much either of the parties involved actually cared, but officially Willy passed muster (and a day has passed without me getting food poisoning so I think I’m safe!).
So that was Belize, in as much as I got to experience it. I obviously don’t feel I got to know it (or love it) as much as I did Mexico, but the friendly relaxed ‘re-charge’ that I enjoyed on Caye Caulker was just the ticket, and I’d certainly recommend it to anyone into sailing, snorkelling, diving or just lazy beach-side living Caribbean style. I get the feeling that Guatemala will be very different still, and it feels a little strange venturing forward to my third different country in as many days. However, I’m excited as well because nearly everyone I know who has been to Guatemala has loved it - and cheap and friendly are the two words that keep coming up when people talk about it. Can’t be bad – so more later in the week when I've actually experienced it for myself.
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