Down to de coast 21 February - and some ramblings

21 February    

On the way out we drove up that causeway to the Northern Highway and it seemed like a long way even in a pickup truck.   We could have shared a car for BZ$70 into Belize City but chose to get the bus for BZ$6, so after half an hour we flagged one down and away we went back to town.

I’m drifting back a little here but crossing a border by land always has a frisson of excitement about it even though one side often looks much like the other.  Not here, where the difference is immediate, particularly in the ethnicity of the people.   On the Guatemalan side, it’s European/Mayan and from what we’ve seen here in Belize it’s Black and definitely Caribbean.  The country appears to be poor but not as poor as Guatemala.   Here there is mechanisation and despite what we’d read we had amazingly not picked up that it’s English speaking.   I’d always thought that from the southern US border right down to Tierra del Fuego was Spanish speaking apart from Brazil being Portuguese.   Now I wonder about the old British, Dutch and French Guiana and what they speak in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana now.

Due to some complex historical reasons Guatemala claims that Belize is its eastern province, a view which does not receive universal acceptance in Belize.   I was told by one Belizian that the Guatemala Pacific coast is not attractive and that they covet the Caribbean coast that Belize has. That plus an apparent oil deposit makes Belize with only a 300,000 or so population an attractive place to Guatemala with 15 million plus.  Belize is holding a referendum to decide whether to go to the International Court of Justice for a ruling.  

So far we’ve been mercifully clear of insect bites but have been surprised at other traveller’s attitudes to Malaria because we make sure we’re covered for the strain of it in the area we’re going and we stick to the dosage.   It seems that lots of people don’t bother because they don’t like the tablets or something similar.  One woman told us she would start taking them if she developed symptoms, which really is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted because the tabs are a preventative, not a cure.  Unless we’ve got it wrong.   Perhaps they don’t realise how bad Malaria is.   It is a killer but generally of the weak or children but as a healthy adult it isn’t ever cured and symptoms can return at any time.

So, we get to the dump that is Belize City, described to us as Belize Shitty by one of the locals and walk from the bus station via an ATM to the water taxi dock.  This is our exit onto the Caribbean and the famous Cayes, strings of islands inside what is the second largest barrier reef in the world.   While waiting H looked at the guide book to find that we have just walked through the area to keep away from even in the daytime.   It all seemed very friendly to us.  We also saw one of the three or four attractions listed in our book for the city.  It was the swing bridge which is about fifty feet long and it was behind us before we’d really noticed it.   Ambergris  Caye is the really expensive one but we’re headed for Caye Caulker which everyone says is great.  Well a lot of the other travellers we meet who are mostly in their twenties or thereabouts say so.   The incoming ferry  docks and amongst the passengers are a young Danish couple we crossed the border with about 5 days ago.  We greet each like long lost friends.   Caye Caulker is only going to be an overnight for us because we leave in the morning for three days sailing south to Placencia.   In the local lingo it’s a laid back sort of place with a cool vibe,  which actually means that it’s an overdeveloped sandspit which was probably idyllic thirty years ago.  As we walk along to get a hotel because we arrived without a booking, we pass on the beguilingly named Dirty McNasty’s Hostel and The Real McCaw Hotel.  We walk straight past Panchos Villas and the Ink Sanity Tattoo shop.  You see the style of humour and I haven’t even mentioned  ‘Guatever’ and ‘you’ll never Belize it’.   We finally book into a hotel that’s not a lot of pun and go for lunch.   

It’s busy so we share a table with a young American woman from Las Vegas who’s on holiday volunteering for a local animal charity, The Humane Society.  This charity provides  inoculations, adoptions, neutering and advice for owners of cats and dogs.   All the usual chit-chat with a stranger at lunch.  What do you do, one of us asks “I’m a fire artist”, almost imperceptible pause “topless”.  Oh, we both say.  So we have a chat about fire eating and setting your arms alight and so on with La Rue McClean which she feels bound to explain is her ‘professional’ name.   Fortunately I’d chosen shrimp and not flame charred breast of chicken for my lunch.

Crossing the border and Crooked Tree

We cross the Guatemalan/Belize border and go birding - 17 February

We reach the Guatemalan/Belize border at 7.30 after a two and a half hour bus ride and another breakfast of a mouthful of water.   It is a slimming diet I suppose but not one I’d want to stick to for long.  There are hordes of men with fistfuls of money offering Belize $ for US $.  Two B’s for one U.S.  I don’t know how this works because there is no commission, you really do get 2 for 1 but the official rate is fixed at 2 for 1 as well.  Perhaps it’s a charity for travellers.  So we have to get off the bus with our luggage, pay the exit fee, walk through customs and immigration and back on the bus.  It takes an hour and is like trying a transit in a U.S airport.   At the immigration desk, Miss Congeniality, personal motto ‘service with a scowl’, takes my papers looks at them , looks up and with a huge beaming smile says “you’re stayin  in my village”.  Yes we are and it’s called Crooked Tree.   Four nights booked at a lodge by a lake with birding expeditions, but of course there’s a catch.   There’s no room on the first night so we’re with the owners Mum doing B & B.  Not great but we reckon we can do one night’s homestay with an old Belize woman in a little cement block house.    Our last email to them says we’re catching the bus from Belize City and will be at the Northern Highway junction about 1.00, for a pickup.  

The bus is the usual full, however H uses her experience in India to elbow past old ladies and children and secure the front seats,  the hour and twenty minute ride costs us BZ$3 (£1) each.   The conductor knows everyone and leans to the driver every now and again “stop opposite that car parked on the left”, “next to that big tree” and so on all the way from Belize City.  At each stop someone gets off and walks straight to their gate.  The man is a real professional.   When we paid we said Crooked Tree and sure enough he tells the driver and drops us right on the spot.  It’s 12.50.

Across the road is the track to Crooked Tree and there’s not a vehicle in sight.   It’s 1.00, it’s very hot, we haven’t eaten since 7.00 the previous evening, a dusty unshaded  track leads distantly and arrow like to a point and somewhere beyond that at an unknown distance is our lodge.   Oh and of course we have all our luggage, we’re backpacking aren’t we.  We can wait or walk so we take action and walk.  Part way along I realise I could make a cup of tea with the contents of my, now hot water bottle and then after crossing a causeway we reach the village.  It has taken an hour and it is three miles.   Now we stop and 10 minutes later up drives Angie, the lodge owner with two other guests who she’s just brought from Belize City.  Ha, ha, ha.  We pile in for the drive to Angie’s mum.

Now we are in for a surprise, homestay is a good description but only if you’re staying with the president.   Becky is probably in her fifties and the house is huge.  It’s a south facing open E without the central bar set in 5 acres of garden and cashew nut trees, the kitchen diner is 50 feet long.  In our room we have to climb up three steps to get into bed.   Becky is one of fourteen children and after the village school she went to work in a garment factory in Belize City and went to night school for four years.  In the late 70’s she went to Florida, worked in interior design, coming back home with funds enough to retire and built this amazing house.  Apparently all but one of her siblings has also ‘done good’.   We end up staying here all four nights and taking meals and trips from the lodge which is a couple of miles away at the other end of the village.   And how did we get there.  Well Becky said “you can use my pickup”.   When I pointed out that we had no driving licences with us, she said it was no problem because most people in the village didn’t have drivin licences either.  So one pickup, no licence, no handbrake, no fuel gauge, under efficient foot brake and at one point no petrol.   All very satisfactory.

The village is really strung out with every house having a mini-field around it.  One of the oldest in Belize it is very traditional with about 900 people and six or seven churches.  Becky goes to the Nazarene and was at Church on Sunday and Bible studies on Wednesday evening.   There are only a few surnames and almost everyone in the place is either a Gillet, a Tillet, a Willet or a Crawford.

We took our meals at the lodge and went on a couple of good birding trips on the lagoon and around the grounds.   Those of you who have used a proper bird guide know that some of them seem to possess almost supernatural senses.  Their peripheral vision, perception of tiny movements, hearing and knowledge of what does distinguish one species from another in behaviour and markings is often quite astounding.  One we had said that birds were either good looking or talented which I quite liked, meaning  that the best singers are often drab while often the most colourful don’t sing well.    I had a little trouble with the local accent and it took me a little while to realise that the birds which were ‘wobblers’ were actually ‘warblers’. 

The other guests were what we’ve come to expect mostly Canadian or US citizens with a sprinkling of others .   Some very pleasant people plus one or two who needed a good smack.   Here, one was a woman currently living in Canada who sat at the head of the table and just talked.  You’ll know there are people who when not talking are listening and people who when not talking are not listening but merely waiting to talk.  This one just talked whether others were or not.  If there was a space at the table it was always next to her.  One of the other guests, a very interesting  quiet Canadian lady leaned across the table  to me and said “if she doesn’t shut up I’m going to stick her with this fork”.  At one point, annoying woman said “of course birds see all red things as green”.  One of the other guests said “how does anyone know”.   My response of “well, they never stop at traffic lights” got a good laugh and shut her up for a few seconds.  The other was a Brit who was one of the most arrogant irritating little shits I’ve met for a long time.   He started telling a couple of us all about his massage experiences in Thailand, how cheap, how effective, and generally all about what massage was.  At a pause I mentioned that Deborah, a very quiet North Carolina resident who was next to me and right opposite him was a massage therapist.  Not even a pause as he carried on about massaging.   In a talk on driving in different countries I mentioned how bad it was in India .  No, no it’s perfectly ok, no problem at all.   I spent 6 weeks in India seeing it at first hand.   When he told me that H's car getting 42 miles to the gallon was “rubbish” without even knowing what the car was, I got up and joined the other table.   He was totally and absolutely insensitive to anybody else’s opinion.  Amazing.   Happily for her, H had been on the other table the whole meal and enjoyed conversation about women artists and similar highbrow topics.

Flores and Mayan Tikal in the jungle

Flores 15 February

Breakfast is taken on the island which looks at first to be disappointing but away from the edge it’s lively and colourful with a huge selection of restaurants, a small selection of different menus and a medium selection of people we’ve seen before.   This is a rest day before we visit Tikal, the Mayan temple complex and city in the jungle.  H has a swim while I fall into that deep form of contemplation that the uninitiated believe is merely a nap.

I mentioned the armed guards in a previous posting and there are also lots of police and army around.  They all respond with a smile and a buenas  dias  and  I even get a smart salute from one soldier.   The whole country seems very amenable to travellers from our experience but I always wonder how many years’ worth of average income we’re carrying about in the form of cameras, lens, binoculars, e-books etc., let alone the cash.

Up at 4.30 again for a 5.00 bus, breakfast a mouthful of water followed by an hour and a half ride.  Roseate fingers of dawn clawing at the fleeing  night sky.  For goodness sake, where does this tosh come from.   Weakness through hunger, probably.

The whole Tikal area is big and there’s nothing to see except trees when we arrive, no looming temples glimpsed from the bus.  We only booked the transport, not the guided tour but we drift along at the beginning because the guide says we have to be shown where to go.  He explains the arrangement from a model and I ask him quietly how much it would be to join the group.  A figure is mentioned, a note changes hands.   He’s good but very fact rich and it’s impossible to take it all in.  He points out a crocodile but doesn’t do as one of the other guides did who told his group that the crocs are vegetarian.

This temple complex has 5 main steep sided, stepped pyramids with many other structures dotted around and the visitable site is about a kilometre by a kilometre.  The number of structures still hidden under  over a thousand years of jungle growth is unknown but probably a lot more than one.  Even what we see now  only began to be excavated in 1956 following the first photographs taken of it in the 1880’s.  The lot were  abandoned long before the Spaniards arrived and the scale of the buildings is awesome.  All constructed by hand, they didn’t even use the wheel.  Apparently they knew about it because wheeled toys have been discovered but the wheel  was a sacred shape and could not be used.  That’s religion for you.   This is a wonderfully atmospheric place with man-made mounds covered in undergrowth and towering limestone temples pushing through the treetops.  We finish by climbing Temple IV, built around 750 and 230 feet high.  I don’t know if there were any man-made structures anywhere in the world higher apart from the Egyptian pyramids at the time.    By around 900 it had been abandoned.  From the top of Temple IV we look across the forest canopy and see the tops of other temples breaking the treeline.  It is very impressive.   This was a culture of human sacrifice, usually defeated enemies but they also had something called the ball game which seemed to be about keeping a ball in the air using hips and feet.  The winners got to decapitate the losers so I guess arguments about ‘offside’ tended to be fairly vigorous affairs.

If we had to choose between them we think Tikal has the edge over Cambodia’s Ankhor Wat.  It’s more mysterious because it is in the jungle whereas  Ankhor Wat is essentially in the middle of cultivated farmland, huge though that complex is too at about 40 square miles.  There were fewer visitors at Tikal and there’s always the knowledge that there is lots more ‘out there’ somewhere.   

On our return we go in the Maya Mall shopping centre to get supplies for tomorrow’s bus ride, 5 hours (allegedly) to Belize City.   The supermarket is like supermarkets worldwide in their dedication to stocking local produce;  the oranges are from the USA despite the fact that they grow locally.  Looking at any of these towns I’m reminded yet again that corrugated iron shares would be a great investment.   On the other hand, paving slabs for pavements not so good.  Like all third world, although we’re supposed to say ‘developing’ countries these days, the pavements are unbelievably bad, broken cement, holes, missing grilles, narrow, cables cemented into them, posts blocking them, uneven and never an unbroken run.  Back home people couldn’t even cycle along them.   There’s a relatively new causeway to the island and the pavements are too narrow for a pushchair.   However, we like Flores, it’s fairly quiet and restaurants look across the lagoon for the setting sun so we have a sundowner in a first floor restaurant where a cat sits on a stool  at the bar and drinks from a glass. 

  

Cool damp Coban to hot Flores

13 February – Coban

We like the idea of being what are called independent travellers, going where the mood takes us, choosing as we go, free and easy.  Of course it’s all an illusion, we’re really all a bunch of plastic ducks in a river, pitching up occasionally in an eddy, caught in the reeds for a while before we move on.   We all seem to move in the same direction and we meet the same people in different places hundreds of miles apart.   There don’t seem to be too many tourists here, or travellers, as we like to call ourselves but we do keeping meeting up..

Coban is even freer of tourists and a reasonably pleasant place to be,  not much to see but a bustle about the place with lots of locals, a small street market, where we buy some oranges, and the ugliest edifice  in a central square I’ve seen anywhere.   Very difficult to adequately describe but it’s a vaguely pastel coloured two storey concrete structure with a curving open sided staircase leading to a first floor open circular area like a bandstand.   Oh and built right in front of the big church in town.   They’re building an underground car park here too which seems totally pointless in this town but at least it’s not more European Union money, or at least it doesn’t say so anywhere.  For the oranges, I hold up two and the stall holder, well not a stall, it’s all on the floor on a cloth says three and a half, I hold up a five and she nods.  I haven’t a clue whether I’ve negotiated and saved two or been done out of one and a half.  One quetzal  is worth about 8p so I don’t break into too much of a sweat about it.   It’s afternoon and at this point we are due to leave in the morning, we have no hotel booked and the agent we hoped to get a ticket from is now no longer in town.  Could be a bit of an irritation but we tend to the Micawberish in these situations.   Something’ll turn up.

I like photographing people but don’t like either sticking a camera in people’s faces or asking.  So I take candid shots from a vantage point.  Near the edge of a café looking out or from a raised area are both good or I take shots of H with a wide angle and get the real shot of people on the periphery.    Some of the old people have faces that look like contour maps of hilly areas but they’re  often looking  down and are difficult to get shots of.

We meet two Americans from Washington State at the hotel who suggest having dinner together, something we would never think of asking.  I suppose that’s just us uptight Brits for you.   The best restaurant in town is where all four of us go for a really good meal.  I manage to knock a glass of beer over David before any food arrives.  He has a mind like mine, full of useless information and he’s very well  travelled and informed.  He describes himself to us as ‘just a simple country lawyer’ which causes H and me to laugh like drains. 

An almost imperceptible light drizzle being to drift down and gradually increases as we head back to our hotel.  We’re due to be picked up at 10.00 for the journey to Flores, gateway to Tikal, the famous Mayan city remains.  At 10.30 to their credit the shuttlebus company phone to say 11.30.   When we speak to one of the other passengers about the delay it was a lorry broken down in the middle of the road that no one could get past.   This was Tommy, half of Nina & Tommy, a Swiss couple we’d been on a bus with 3 days previously and were to see again as we drove past them at 5.00am waiting for a bus two days later.  All ducks.

Shuttle booked via internet and series of emails, hotel ditto.  Micawber wins again !

!4 February – Flores

However, our late booking almost didn’t work here.  Flores is an island on a lake joined by a causeway to the mainland and according to the net was all booked, so we had to stay on the mainland although it was a very smart hotel with a pool, a Jacuzzi and an armed guard.  Armed guards are everywhere here.  We’ve seen them outside hotels, inside a TV shop and bizarrely, at a diabetes clinic.  The uniform is military style with trousers tucked into high boots set off with a belt of shiny cartridges.  The guns are always the same, a shotgun with a handle like a revolver.  This not at all the sort of hotel with suicide showers but towels twisted into decorative shapes on the beds, dogs one day, frogs the next.  I suppose somewhere there’s a hotel  maids (plus whatever a male maid is called) course called “Towel Sculpture - everything you need to know.”