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.