Belize City, the former capital and armpit of Belize is todays subject. We drove through the commercial hub of the country before I drove GANNET2 into the clay so we saw the city about ten days ago from the comfort and safety of our van. I had always wanted to see Belize City since we had sailed past in 2000 without stopping, especially as the south side has a reputation as a lawless gang infested hell hole. Sounds intriguing, no?
It wasn’t really intriguing. Traffic was gnarly so we skipped the supposedly tourist inclined waterfront as it looked like we might get stuck in some serious traffic jams.
Bowen and Bowen owns most of Belize through their subsidiary trading companies. You want it? They sell it and they brook no competition.
Officially about 62,000 people live here in a town promoted by tourist authorities as a hub of commerce with museums and other tourist attractions. San Ignacio is the second largest city with 26,000 residents and the capital has but 13,000 so you’re looking at a metropolis.
It’s not a tourist town and it’s not meant to be. Hurricane Hattie in 1955 leveled most of the city so the colony of British Honduras got a new capital, well inland called Belmopan at the confluence of the Belize and Mopan rivers.
Originally Britain wanted a foothold in Central America to export wood and you may have heard of Honduran Mahogany. The Belize River was how the loggers got their product to the sea and the river flows down the middle of the city today, separating industrial north from gangland south.
Belize’s other great product is chicle, a tree sap used to make chewing gum. And for all this industry in a horrendous humid climate they imported slaves from Africa.
Oddly enough English speaking blacks are struggling to survive the length of central America’s Caribbean coast from Panama right up to Mexico. You just need to look at a map to see English language place names and no roads connecting Spanish language capital cities, Managua, Tegucigalpa, to English speaking coastal communities like Bluefields and the Bay Islands of Honduras among many others.
Of all these forgotten coastal communities of English speaking non Hispanic blacks Belize is the only representative government. It’s an oddity in a Spanish language isthmus focused on the Pacific Coast. It’s an oddity too because this is a country that doesn’t murder it’s citizens, it just seems to ignore them. Belize confuses me.
Eventually our tour of Belize City brought us to the south side, home of eye popping poverty and Victorian slums in the tropics.
I was pretty leery of taking pictures here so I don’t know if they convey the grimness of the area but it was not great, believe me.
Statistically most of Belize’s crime takes place here and amorphous gangs take the blame for the murders and violence.
Tim told me a food delivery kid was shot on his motorcycle here a few days ago and no, I have no idea why he might have been murdered but I’m not surprised given the areas reputation.
There is a bypass so we won’t be back, not even to get better pictures!
On the outskirts of town we found a tamale stand so we were obliged to stop to see how good they really were and the young salesman claimed they were excellent. Many roadside food stands are run by children in Belize and that bothers me in a country with a high illiteracy rate.
Rusty loves the lush Belize grass which seems to flourish even in dry season so every stop he gets out and rolls around in bliss.
We can’t wait to be on the road again, everything working properly and our home fully integrated and intact. It’s been a tough two weeks which I hope has hardened us for the trials ahead. It’s been doubly difficult living in isolation from other travelers and relying on strangers for help. We are off the beaten overland path.
We stopped by the Old Belize Marina which is listed on iOverlander as a potential overnight camp in a country with no dedicated traveler campgrounds. Like everything Belize it’s pretty run down but the office confirmed we could park overnight amidst chaos and decay. The prospect was not alluring but we kept the possibility in mind in case of need. Every single place we’ve found listed as a campground is a parking area attached to a hotel restaurant or resort. Modern RV and tent campgrounds don’t exist.
A couple of hours later we got stuck in the clay and tore up our radiator in the frenzied rescue attempts (which I should have controlled) but at this point we wanted to know we had a place to stay if all else failed on the unknown road ahead.
Rusty went for an explore and we pulled out lunch.
And yes the tamales we bought by the side of the road were excellent especially with some Green Dragon spicy sauce brought from Trader Joes in Tucson.
A couple of aerial views of the marina…
…and an aerial view of GANNET2, looking good.
The road ahead with all the problems I brought down upon us.
