BELIZE -- CAYE CAULKER

 

 

There is absolutely no reason to stick around Cancun.  So it is straight from the plane, to the all-night bus headed south along the Yucatan to the Belize border.  Luckily, it is not crowded. Sleeping conditions are still difficult.  I befriend a young man from Belize City returning to open his grandparents home for refurbishment.  Litz requires the use of arm braces to walk, having been nearly crippled in a car accident seven years previously.

 

I trade my strong back and weak mind for his scouting reports, guide services, and stories about home.  So he gets his bags carried, and I get through customs when I would ordinarily get stopped and questioned.  All is well.  Among many others, Litz directs me to Caye Caulkner – an island not far off the coast of Belize City.  “I live in Belize City, man, but you don’t want to stay there.  They have guns.  It has the 5^th highest murder rate per capita in the world.” 

 

The road south is actually very high quality.  The bus is air conditioned and has an airplane style lavatory and is as good as any found in Seattle.  The driver is not overly careful, and despite what seems like thousands of speed bumps, we make excellent progress and excellent time.  By 4 AM, the Belize border awaits.  The crossing is casual.  Guards see me carrying water for Litz, and merely wave me through.  We are however, held up by a Mexican couple coming south for three days without luggage that trips the interest of border authorities on the Belize side.

 

Mexico is of course completely hypocritical about immigration.  They expect their citizens to be able to pass north or south without complication.  But should citizens from points south transit through Mexico (let alone without luggage), let us just say our amigos below the Rio Grande do not extend the welcome of health care, housing assistance, welfare benefits, birthright citizenship, jobs, and so forth to their temporary guests that they expect of us.  Jail or a detention center is more like it.

 

Having said this, I recognize that history wouldn’t be history without mass migrations, trans-Pacific exploration, conquest and envelopment, DNA mixing, and movement of peoples to new locales as a constant in life.  Mountains thrust up from tectonic plates and then degrade into hills.  Streams work their way to rivers and then to the sea.  Herds work in a similar fashion, thinning as they migrate.  Imbalances are evened out.  Life finds a way.

 

The main highway into Belize strikes me as if it is a B road leading to an unheard of resort far out on a lonely peninsula.  Speed bumps sprout like Parrot Heads at a Jimmy Buffet concert.  The landscape is flat, the housing roughly colorful Caribbean, and most of the buildings are on stilts.   Scrub vegetation and mangrove swamps appear as if a flattop marine haircut to either side.  We arrive by 8 AM, and go to breakfast immediately at a diner close to Litz’s home.  I can order bacon and eggs!  It is the first time in nearly two weeks that rice and beans has not been a staple of my meal.

 

Belize – formerly British Honduras -- is highlighted on its Caribbean side by Cayes (prounounced Keys), islands and islets that provide R & R opportunities in the most relaxed of settings.  It is known primarily for its world class diving and tourist industry.  Just outside the north-south arc of Cayes, is the world’s second longest reef.  The breakers cresting over this protective barrier show up as an endless white foamy line and are visible from space. The passage over takes approximately 45 minutes on the Caye Caulkner Water Taxi.  “No worries, Mate” telepathically streams through your head.

 

Overnight space is limited, this being the perfect weather season for tourists tired of northern snowstorms and driving sleet.  So it is difficult to find housing.  I am lucky to land at the Plaza Hotel on Caye Caulkner.  The island itself is about five miles long, up to 1.5 miles wide in spots, and has no name for its primary habitation.  There are also no street signs.  As if in Dublin (Ireland), one navigates by the “corner pub” or “corner store” system.  If you are not visually oriented, there will be many, many course corrections!  Every single one of them is fun.

 

Within thirty minutes of arrival, I am situated at the far north end of the island, happily parked at a favorite local bar  called “The Lazy Lizard” with a rum based elixir called the Green Lizard (makes the tongue green) and then a similarly concocted Panty Ripper.  The bartenders are informed that further north, these coconut and rum delights are known as “Panty Droppers.”  They think that to be a better name.

 

On the way back to the hotel, streets are criss-crossed to gain knowledge of all the best spots to drink, dine, and enjoy music.  Along the way, some transplant name Charles with a Rastafarian hairdo and beard from New York is cooking right out ont he beach chicken curry, lobster bisque, and several other seafood delicacies in large Dutch oven pots.  The price is unbelievably cheap.  Approximately $3 for a full lunch (including rice and beans) -- but sans salad.

 

An election is made instead for ceviche.  Something every beach in the world seems to offer in variation.  Finely diced white fish, mixed in with lobster and conch, then bits of cucumber and tomatoes and celery and marinated in lime juice.  Eaten at a beach chair with the sun overhead, feet nearly tickling the surf, this is one of those zen moments.  Not a cloud mars the sky.  There are few dishes in this world that – no matter the preparation or the locale – are so wonderfully and consistently pleasing as this.

 

Of course, no ceviche is worth its salt without accompaniment from local libations.  Mine consist of a mixed fruit daiquiri, and a Caipirinha.  Some of you may remember the latter as that penultimate-moment Brazilian national drink that earned my hefty accolades as “lending grace to my days.”  Sounds like a lot of alcohol.  But this is, after all, Caye Caulkner.  And the heat makes it pour right through you.  .  My situation purposefully mirrors that of a famous Corona beer commercial, where the liquor is hoisted, glasses clinked, the setting is pure Hollywood, but not a single word need be uttered.

 

Also along the way, a young local obviously recruiting diners lures a group of us in with a pitch to help him celebrate his birthday later in the evening.  He offers up a combination plate of whatever we want to eat – lobster, conch, shrimp, pork, chicken … you name it.  So I point out that this is very generous for the number of people being invited. He ignores me.  So I go on to clarify further.  “Can you make a combination plate?  And what will it cost?”

 

“Of course,” Terry replies, ignoring the full implication of the query.  “I need you here to help me celebrate my birthday.  I’m forty-one years old today.”  I ask again: “Are you sure beer is all I need to bring?”  He indicates once more just to bring beer, or another alcohol of choice.  “This is to help me celebrate my birthday,” he affirms.  “That is all.”  I sense a vague pattern.  My memory is tripped.  This tv screen is wavy.  Seen this play before.  But, what the hell … this is Caye Caulker and it is already clear, THIS is a very special place.

 

There really are no “streets” on Caye Caulker.  There are pathways of varying widths, made up of clay, sand, and dirt.  They roughly intersect at right angles, as if aspiring to streetdom.  Nothing is paved.  Exploring these byways is a pure joy.  Instead of cars, we get golf carts.  Our civilization has evolved, from the majestic horse culture of the American plains to the auto culture of American suburbia to the golf cart culture of the Caribbean Keys.

 

Now, it has long been rumored that Americans – and men particularly – use their vehicle for the same purpose that wolves piss over a wide range of turf.  They do it to establish dominion.  They are marking their territory.  It is widely observed as a corollary then, that the French use their motorized deployment as an aide in their sexuality.   The Italians use their vehicle, as an extension of their penis for the same purpose.  The British, of course, are said to use their vehicle as a complete substitute for their member.

 

Where is all this purely scientific observation going?

 

Quite simply, that  men used to dominate driving.  Controlling the steering wheel was their birthright.  Almost like controlling the remote control switch on the family TV used to be (before kids learned how to counter-program it behind your back).  Being behind the wheel of a 360 horsepower Dodge Charger meant power, privilege, and esteem.  You ruled the roost.  “Roll on, Britannia!”  Or “Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead!”  Or"Go ahead, catch me copper, if you can!"

 

But on these islands, nobody gives a rip.  There are next to zero cars.  You can’t wave your hose around or rev your engine and pretend to be a man.  Families ride these things like it is the sleep inducing Alice in Wonderland Ride at Disneyland.  Frequently, they let the kids drive.  They seem to be so laid back as if to be soporific.  You have to take their pulse to see if they are truly operating their 1- cylinder gas powered … uh … vehicles. Only the smiles on their faces give them away.     

 

Prior to New Year’s Eve celebrations late, I circumnavigate the island.  In flip flops.  My journey is perhaps ten miles in length.  I take in the charming commercial district, the makeshift cooking pods along the eastern beach areas, the poverty-stricken shanty town close to the island’s power generating station, and the “no fly zone” tony residential area at the southern tip of the island where residents have four-story castles and spend perhaps ten days a year in residence.

 

Along the way I see countless riotously contented musicians, cooks offering every permutation of seafood and pork, a set of pigs being roasted on a spit turned by an auto steering wheel, a large group of domesticated tarpon fish, and tourists from half the western countries in the world.  Only the Chinese it seems are absent.  But they run the local business scene irregardless of this.

 

My cell phone charger has bitten the dust.  My God, how will I replace it here? Verizon can’t even replace it back at home in the US!  “Too out of date,” I am told.  But damned if the Chinese in a store specializing in low-cost food for backpackers, can’t come up with a solution.  It costs me $12 in US currency, about $24 in Belize dollars.  Who would have predicted this?  [ I think about going to the Chinese after this for investment advice, also ].

 

Later on, we stop in again at Terry’s place.  He has forgotten our names already.  But he is still polite as an English butler.  He luckily remembers faces.  That suffices for the moment.  It is New Year’s Eve and there is a high level of anticipation.  We sit and watch old Bob Marley retrospectives on TV.  The food is slow in coming.  We drink the beer he asked us to bring earlier in the evening.  And watch more Bob Marley.  Again.  Occasionally the host appears.  Finally, some food follows.

 

I am doing the “horse trading” thing, where plates are shared.  The jerk chicken is out of this world.  The combination seafood plate is passable, but cold.  The conch is almost tasteless and is rubbery in texture because it has cooled too much.  No more of that.   Despite the numerous shortcomings of the meal, Terry presents us with a bill.  So much for the alleged birthday party.  Suspicions confirmed.  Next time, I will clarify with even more insistence.  Perhaps even in writing.  There is n such thing as a free lunch (or dinner) in Central America.  Also.

 

Pressing on, we all retreat once again to the Lazy Lizard.  It has a full bar, natural dance floor, a shallow water adjacent sit area with drinking slides and teeter totters, and a fractured breakwater that looks like the dance spotlight circle on the old American Bandstand program hosted by Dick Clark in years gone by.  The troubled concrete breakwater is a lawyer’s wet dream.

 

It has exposed rusted rebar in the ultimate stabbing position in about twelve different areas.  It is tilted madly.  There are missing chunks.  Miss your step, and you are in the surf.  Or have twelve broken bones.  But it is a superb platform for riding the razor’s edge while dancing.  You really get to heighten the moment while trying to boogy on such an exposed and perilous stage.  And so I did.  Never had that much fun dancing on New Year’s Eve, ever.

 

2013 is reined in quietly.  I am back at my hotel room before midnight, and watching the local fireworks from the hotel’s 4^th floor roof.  Missing so much sleep from the Mexico crossing from the night previous, I am gone in seconds once my head hits the pillow.  Don’t think I even got to watch the ball drop in New York, even if the TV was on for awhile.  Much the same as when I missed all the American football bowl games the following day, I remain good with it.  Things change.