The Garden Of Eden

I thought I was back in Florida with all those pine trees.

I was wishing we had GANNET2 when we pulled up in our rental 4Runner and met the owner, a young Belizean called Phil. 

Go check out the river he said so we did, skirting a Belizean RV parked in space number one.

We didn’t walk to the bottom of the falls but I took a dip in the pool at the top. So did Rusty, he loved it. 

It was a ninety degree day even at 1700 feet altitude. 

When he enjoys a walk he licks my face and yesterday he let me know this was the best place we’ve been in a while. 

He wasn’t wrong. 

I didn’t want to leave. 

Phil’s dog Turbo fell in love with Rusty and they ran together. It was idyllic and once GANNET2 is back on her feet we’ll come and spend a few nights here. 

$15US per person per night, hammock, tiki hut, fire ring and water faucet included with bathrooms and showers available.  

In this vast expanse there are only five spaces so privacy is guaranteed. 

The road out here from San Ignacio used to be a rough dirt track but they have built a paved freeway along the hilltop ridges. The idea apparently is to continue the paved road all the way to Caracol, the vast Mayan ruin complex twenty miles deeper into the woods on the Guatemalan border. We plan to check that out Saturday. 

For anyone nostalgic for the old dirt track the mile long drive to the campground off the main road is still a sandy track, reminiscent of what you might see in a national forest in Florida or the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. 

The road from San Ignacio is lovely especially for someone like me who barely tolerates dirt roads but has never  reveled in it, and that was  even before we got stuck.

And guess what? We once again met the peripatetic Mario, the 70 year old Mexican vanlifer from Aguascalientes. We exchanged updates since we last saw each other in Orange Walk and promised to meet again on the road as we are both going south. 

We had left Tim and Desiree’s place (marked with a pink spot on the map above) later than planned and decided to go check out the Western Highway to San Ignacio as a closer destination than the beach. I had been expecting a steep mountain climb but San Ignacio, just nine miles (15kms) from Guatemala is at a mere 300 feet above sea level. 

On the way we stopped to pick up some “Mexican style” tacos from two nice ladies cooking roadside. They spoke English but their setup and their food was so reminiscent of Mexico and we loved stopping  for roadside food. 

Delicious break over we kept driving into the hills of Belize’s Cayo District. Spanish Lookout is a town half way up and it’s on our list. Apparently it’s a Mennonite community which operates semi- autonomously in exchange for a flourishing agriculture program that feeds Belize. I am curious to see it even though the Mennonites freak me out a bit. 

The cayo district appealed to both of us as we slowed for the endless topes and took the time to look around and enjoy the order and color and cleanliness of the villages we drove through. 

There are no place name signs along the highways. In the Cayo District there are solidly built bus stops with the community name printed on them. 

Cayo District the more we drove it seemed to represent the way you’d like Belize to be. Prosperous I dare say and we enjoyed the drive through these pretty little towns.  The gang lands of Belize City and the moldering huts lining the northern Highway were left behind. 

Not everyone lives in a modern cement home but the yards were tidy for the most part and the residents seemed to take pride in their homes. 

With Guatemala a few miles away Belize turned bilingual again. 

We also passed the Central Farm recently visited by the President of Taiwan when her motorcade messed up our visit to the capital Belmopan. 

San Ignacio dead…

…and alive. It seemed in first acquaintance to be a busy town with lots of activity. First we extended our Belize phone SIM card and the clerk was a bright spark which helped. 

We have a hotel reservation for Sunday and Monday nights (Easter Saturday the country is fully booked) at a dog friendly place on the outskirts with a pool, WiFi and the blessings of air conditioning. Tuesday we hopefully pick up the radiator and hopefully are in the road Wednesday or Thursday. A whole lot of hoping. 

After visiting the campground at San Miguel we bugged out trying to get home before dark but it is a 60 minute drive to Hattieville from San Ignacio so we were primed to fail in that regard. Especially as I was hungry functioning on two tacos all day. 

We headed reluctantly back down to the dismal flatlands of Belize from the pleasures of the Cayo District. 

“Stop!” Layne snapped the code word for roadside interest and she got this one right. A furniture shop and eatery all in one called Unique.  

They offered Chinese food and we ordered chicken dumplings and egg rolls which in Belize come with French fries. Okay then. This looked different 

The Taiwanese owner Margaret brought our drinks, passion fruit iced tea which was as delicious as the food. She has lived in Belize for nearly thirty years and loves the natural ambiance of her home with hummingbirds paraqueets and butterflies in her garden. She quit her former life as a newspaper shot of in Taipei and with her business partner set out to make a new life here. 

I am terrible at taking snapshots of people and she really is delightful and cheerful and happy. She also loved Rusty a fact her two well nourished and cared for dogs did not find attractive. 

They peered through the gate as Rusty lorded it at our table. As we got back in the rental Toyota Layne said  she’d have asked Margaret if we could park in her lot for the night had we been aboard GANNET2. That’s how comfortable she feels in the Cayo District. 

We stopped for gas, the usual fiasco at 13 gallons for $166. Luckily Belize dollars are two-to-one do we actually paid $83 in real money which was bad enough. 

Soon enough the tropical night fell over the highway, as we navigated  more unchecked bush fires pouring smoke into the sky. There are no rural public services in Belize, public works or fire departments or highway patrol to help traffic through the flames and smoke. We arrived at the store in Hattieville unscathed so I suppose no harm done but it was weird.  

This is one of the nicer stores in the coastal plain but it’s like shopping at Fort Knox. When they shut up shop at night there will be no looting. There are no windows and the main door is an armored roll up affair. Such is the confidence of shop keepers in their neighbors and police patrols. 

With these weird tiles you can’t even aerosol gang graffiti, were you minded to. 

Oh and I found an off brand lager in a can  with an old fashioned pop top. 

How cute is that?