Ambergris Caye is not wide but it is long. From one end to the other, head to toes, is over twenty eight miles.
San Pedro Town is in the middle of the island and holds most of the business and population. The island’s one improved road, to the south and north,is functional. Once off the pavement though, small tributary roads are potholed, dirt, muddy in wet weather, often difficult to navigate.
As you walk south or north,homes become more private, isolated, and there is more open landscape between them. There are resorts all along the main road and some accommodations have ” Beware of Dogs ” signs on their front gates, security cameras and barbed wire, swimming pools, tall fences you can’r pull down or climb over. These expensive Caribbean bungalows are nestled next to bare wood shacks where a single electric pole runs twentieth century technology to seventeenth century shacks to keep a refrigerator and lights running.
Along the bike ride. I hit a place called ” Hotel California ” that makes me hum the Eagle’s top hit. There are plenty of escapees from cuckoo California in Belize. Californians like to run but they always bring their state, and it’s ideas, with them.
A sign on the Hotel California’s fence says, ” Trespassers will be shot first, and then shot again if they survive. ”
At the end of this bike ride is a knot of construction men digging a hole with shovels and a backhoe to install PVC pipe to hold electric wires that will supply electric to a future gated community for escapees from America and Europe.
In paradise, someone still has to mop floors, fix broken pipes, babysit, build, take care of the needs of people with money from abroad.
On the ride back to Chez Caribe on my borrowed bike, I visit the Marcos Gonzalez archeological site, going back thousands of years. The world has been full of people for a long time and people still don’t clean up after themselves, leaving clues behind about what they were up too. Going from this site to Hotel California is an incomprehensible leap in time and technology, lifestyle and mindset.
I hide my bike in the bushes because I don’t want it to disappear.
A bicycle in Belize is a poor man’s Cadillac and plenty of poor people would borrow this one for free if they had an opportunity.
Taking precautions might be tedious, but I don’t want to walk home and have to explain a bad outcome..
I doubt the residents of Marcos Gonzalez were any more honest than those in San Pedro town today.
According to Rabbit, retired bartender, Ramon’s Village is one of the better values in San Pedro Town. If you are coming to Ambergris Caye for a week and want to have convenience, service, good food, security, access to the water, a good home base for your explorations, nice accommodations, for a good price, Ramon’s is the place for you.
The resort burnt down several years ago and was rebuilt with work going twenty four seven. Ramon didn’t want to re- open but did anyway. His resort has an international flavor, and, unlike many lodgings on the island, is maintained by a full staff of worker bees.
Ramon’s is maybe not the best way to get to know the island, close up and personal, but lots of people visit San Pedro Town with no desire to move here and want the island to be accompaniment to their vacation instead of the melody.
Even Ramon himself, greeting breakfast diners, asks me this morning how I am doing?
I compliment his hotel and listen attentively..
Maintaining and managing a profitable business anywhere is worthy of respect.
People are part of a trip. Places are another part.
Places are where people go for fun, for business, to restock, to rest, to meet, to connect, to share news.
These places in San Pedro Town are like little trinkets on a charm bracelet women wear on their ankles.
When I revisit this trip, without going back, these photos will be my next best vacation.
Lake Caribe has not vanished.
This morning a path is built of cinder blocks so those of us walking from the house to the street don’t get our shoes wet. Some say there is no progress in this little slice of Paradise but this path is living proof that us humans adapt to Mother Nature when we have to.
Walter and I build the cinder block stepping stone path the morning after the big rain, and, except for a little sliding of blocks when you walk on them, it works perfectly.
The world news today is terrorist bombings in Paris, France. That country continues to let refugees into their country by the hundred thousands, don’t know their intentions, and seem surprised that they are getting victimized by those they seem to think they have to help.
In San Pedro Town, the world is out there somewhere, beyond the reef.
Hopefully, that is where the world stays.
Building a simple cinder block path to get from the house to the road is more pressing than Paris and is something Walter and I have control over.
The grills are fired up and chickens are the topic of conversation.
A local Hispanic church is doing a fundraiser selling food, used clothes and donated items outside their little church in San Pedro town.
” Jesus es la Repuestra ” the marquee says and they are doing brisk business this Sunday at lunchtime.
I have barbecued chicken and rice with slaw, sit on a bench as a cluster of volunteers praise Christ, pack orders to go, and celebrate.
A boombox, on the wall next to me, plays Cuban salsa.
It feels like home to be hearing Spanish and even though New Mexico just got snow, which I know because I checked with the weather lady on the internet, I’m not ready to run back home just yet.
There are rubber bands tied to my ankles that want to snap me back to the Land of Enchantment when I have pulled them to their maximum stretch. The rubber bands are extended, right now, almost to their maximum length.
Jesus motions for us to follow, but some insist on putting toes in the water before their feet go in.
Humming ” Amazing Grace “, sitting on a rock wall, the water is already up to my knees.
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