San Pedro main drag, Ambergris Caye, Belize.
B-B-B-brrr! Belize was a bit chilly on the Saturday of our arrival. It was early November, 2010- an overcast, windy day. But hey, it was better than the chill and the rain we’d left back home in Atlanta. And when the sun came out, things tended to warm up quickly!
Robin and I had planned this trip over a year ago and by the time it arrived, we were both more than ready to chill on a beach somewhere. I had been home for three days from a week-long business trip to San Diego. I was plumb wore out by the time I got back home. Plus, the 3 days at work in-between trips proved to be lengthy and chock-full of meetings. My battery was running seriously low.
On a Saturday, we made our way to the Atlanta airport for the direct flight to Belize City. From there, we caught a quick 20-minute flight in a small plane to the island of Ambergris Caye, “la Isla Bonita”.
Belize City airport arrival.
I was looking forward to my third trip to Ambergis Caye and Robin was looking forward to her first exposure to the Belizian culture and to experiencing another tropic vacation in the Caribbean.
The interested reader can find, elsewhere on this site, tales of two previous visits to Belize, and a later trip. This visit was slated to be laid-back, with emphasis on much-needed rest and taking advantage of the opportunity to snorkel the fabulous reef just offshore of the island, when weather permitted.
Kenny, the erstwhile, if practically useless, property manager of the condo we rented met us at the San Pedro airstrip. We quickly piled luggage and ourselves into the golf cart we had rented for the week and headed up-island.
Supermarket visit, San Pedro town, Ambergris Caye, Belize.
Threading our way along the crowded, dusty streets of the town of San Pedro, we made a quick stop at the market for snacks and drinks, and within minutes we were over the bridge that spans the “cut”, a narrow inlet that separates the north end of the island from the south end. Shortly afterward we pulled into Bermuda Beach, the beach front condo complex that was to be home for the next week.
After a perfunctory review of the obvious by Kenny (“Here’s your balcony, this is the living room, there are the two bedrooms, each has a bath, this is the kitchen, here is the washer and dryer”), we kindly demurred over his offer of “making arrangements” for our reef trips (he wanted cash, up front—not the typical arrangement on Ambergris Caye. Or anywhere else in the Caribbean, for that matter. I sniffed a hustler). We shuffled Kenny off to Buffalo, unpacked, and had a drink on the balcony. The view from our second story balcony was lovely- looking over the pool surrounded by tropical plantings and out to the nearby reef.
Our digs, Bermuda Beach, Ambergris Caye, Belize.
It was time for a mid-afternoon lunch back in town, so we jumped in the golf cart, tooled over the bridge and ended up at Fido’s (Fee’-do’s), a fixture of San Pedro eateries on the beach, its high and massive thatched roof towering over the town. I had been looking forward to reacquainting myself with Fido’s signature Kalua Colada drink, the Purple Parrot, and was not disappointed when it quickly showed up at our table. Yummy!
Unfortunately, the food wasn’t terrific, and in fact by that evening I was sick. What a drag, to spend the first night and next day feeling sick. Same thing happened when we vacationed on the island of Anguilla in the spring. I wondered if this was becoming a habit.
Ak’ Bol seaside grill, Ambergris Caye, Belize.
Anyway, Sunday was windy, cloudy, and cool, with intermittent light rain, so we passed on the snorkeling in rough seas and instead found Ak’ Bol, a cute, scenic and low-key beach-side bar/eatery near our digs, just a few minutes of B-B-B-banging in the golf cart down the rutted, deeply and amply potholed sandy track that serves as the “road” for the northern portion of Ambergris Caye.
Bike path, north island, Ambergris Caye.
At Ak’ Bol we discovered terrific food, great drinks, and good prices. This yoga-retreat featured several low, thatched-roof cottages snuggled among lush, tropical trees and shrubs. A long dock with a large, thatched-roof open pavilion on the end extended into the quiet water in the lee of the fringing reef. The beach bicycle path ran through the property near the water, framed by large sea grape trees and gracefully curving coconut palms. There was nobody on the path, no nearby buildings, little golf-cart traffic out on the road at the back of the property, and only two people sitting on the high stools at the bar. Perfect! Just our kind of place.
View to the reef from the beach, Ambergris Caye, Belize.
The owner, a somewhat dyspeptic aged hippie ex-pat Gringo, compete with lengthy, dusty grey dreadlocks and a leathery tan, turned out to be a kind and handy source for expeditions to the nearby reef. We easily made arrangements with one of his employees to take us out on the reef, and availed ourselves of the inexpensive, private trips on several subsequent days.
The reef just offshore of Ambergris Caye is part of the fringing reef that runs down the coast of Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. Second only to the Great Barrier Reef in size, this magnificent coral garden has been (mostly) protected by the government and the citizens of Belize for decades. As a result, the coral is in terrific shape, with a healthy population of tropical fish and visits from large schools of ocean fish and predators.
Snorkeling the reef off Ambergris Caye, Belize.
It is not unusual to spot turtles, sharks, large sting rays, spotted eagle rays, and even green moray eels as one tours popular snorkel spots like Mexico Rocks, Tres Cocos, the” cut” and of course the marine park Hol Chan. We drank it all in during the week, and with the exception of one day when the wind was too high, we managed to snorkel on four different days.
At Hol Chan, Robin got to see a giant grouper and many of its smaller cousins, clouds of snappers, a 6-foot, free-swimming moray eel, magnificent spotted eagle rays, sting rays, and nurse sharks in the depths of the shipping channel that cuts through the reef, allowing large boats access to the island. We swam within touching distance of numerous turtles that were feeding in the shallows on the back side of the reef. I was heartened to hear our vigilant guides warn neophyte snorkelers to avoid chasing the turtles, as doing so would stress the animals and keep them from breathing when they needed to the most.
This time of year the water was cool, so we wore our skins and rented shorty wet suits to allow us to stay a few more minutes in the water on each dive. Our captains and guides eyed our wet suits with envy- poor guys, they had to snorkel in swim trunks and t-shirts, quickly bundling up in hooded jackets after each dive. While we were warm in the water, we got more than our share of goose bumps during the boat rides back to the dock. We often donned our windbreakers, but still, B-B-B-brrrrr! We’d sit in the sun out of the wind when we got back to warm up, just like the rock iguanas that hung out around the condo sea wall.
Evenings we would drive over the bridge and into town to grab a bite, which was more often than not street food, which was plentiful, fresh, yummy and inexpensive. BBQ chicken, rice, beans, and some plantains were the mainstays and suited us just fine. Sometimes we ate fish and we enjoyed the papusas made famous by the fabulous ladies at Waraguma, a hole-in-the-wall eatery on the main drag in town. Passing golf carts stirred the dust that wafted in the window openings of Waraguma’s. As indeed the dust wafted everywhere in the town, settling thick on counter tops, chairs, tables and on the collection of paperbacks at the tiny used book store we frequented. All part of the atmosphere. When inclined, we would escape the noise and bustle of the narrow town streets by hanging out at the bar of any of the restaurants that line the narrow beach of the town.
Several times we B-B-B-banged the golf cart from pothole to pothole, threading among palms, scrub and construction that, these days, makes up the northern end of the island. Three years ago I observed the beginnings of many construction projects, private homes, condos and resorts. The development is marching inexorably north of San Pedro, with a temporary slow-down caused by the Great Recession. But the signs are there, and I saw more new construction on the northern part of the island during our stay than what I’ve seen in the communities around our home in suburban Atlanta in the past 3 years.
Unfortunately, Ambergis Caye is faced with the same dilemma that bedevils most Caribbean tourist destinations; rapid over development, precariously perched on inadequate and poorly-funded infrastructure. Fresh water, sewage, solid waste disposal and the taxed and aged electrical grid all vie for attention and go unheeded as more ex-pats pour into the country, looking to “live the dream” with their vacation home or retirement condo. Magazines, online articles, blogs and travel forums trumpet Paradise! Those who get the real story from the locals or ex-pats apparently haven’t paid a lot of attention to the many vacancies, unfinished and abandoned construction projects, and foreclosed and sadly untended properties that are now on the market for dimes on the dollar and remain unsold. Meanwhile, AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other tropical delights confound the poor, (and I haven’t even broached the topic of abandoned and stray former pets) who make up the vast majority of islanders who live in the hot, airless lee of the island, their tiny, tilting wooden homes perched on rotting stilts over brackish and sluggish water. Healthcare is hardly universal. Education is improving, but statistics like high infant mortality, unemployment, children borne out of wedlock, alcoholism and an average annual income of $1200.00 US (not a typo- that’s twelve hundred dollars) tell the real story of this former “banana republic”.
Anyway. There we were, spending our hard-won dollars, doing our best to support some economy, somewhere. We could sink into despair over the plight of a “developing” country, or revel in the “great deals” we secured for a just-off-season vacation. But we did neither. We mostly lived in the moment, taking and giving and enjoying what, for us, was a much-needed break from work and a wintery Atlanta.
All in all we had a fine time, even though we had to deal with Kenny-the-wanna-be-grifter. The story of Kenny would be fun to tell if it wasn’t such a sad reflection of a person who (sometimes?) works hard for very little, and who clearly saw us as easy targets for his sad but rather lame schemes. Suffice to say we dealt with him firmly, and without rancor.
The sun broke out hot and welcoming, promising a fine, flat day on the reef. But of course it was Saturday, time for us to head home. Oh well. We did enjoy our rest, the atmosphere of the island, the quiet and bucolic surrounds of the as-yet-untrammeled areas north of the cut, the warm and friendly people of San Pedro and of course the snorkeling.
The relatively quick trip from San Pedro to Atlanta (about 7 hours total travel time) had us home on Saturday evening in time for me to unpack my dusty carry-on, repack it with business attire, pack the laptop and Blackberry, catch a few hours of sleep, then head back to the airport for a week of business meetings in Las Vegas.
In Lost Wages, the rapid change of pace, time zone and atmosphere resulted in jarring, noisy, and smoky culture shock. Under other circumstances I might have enjoyed the trip, but the contrast between what I had just left to long hours in recirculated hotel air and the man-made, manufactured, heavily populated, noisy casino bustle was, at best, off-putting. In any event, the days and nights I spent in meetings were lengthy and tiring. Late at night, when I laid awake, still on Belize time, I found myself drifting back to Ambergris Caye, to a quiet afternoon spent soaking up the sun at the Palapa Bar, sipping a cold concoction, eating fish tacos and listening to the sound of the ocean breaking on the reef, while waiting for the perfect moment to click a photo of that stunning sunset over la Isla Bonita.
