Belize City

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. 

Placencia And The Coast

We visited the coastal town of Placencia on our cruise up the Western Caribbean twenty three years ago and we were curious to see if the town was what we remembered. Silly us, of course it wasn’t! 

They’ve built Cape Coral in Central America in the intervening quarter century. Placencia is the epicenter of foreign residency in mainland Belize, no surprise then the sleepy beach town we saw in 2000 has transformed itself into coastal Florida in 2023. 

We visited Placencia on Good Friday and the town was crowded on the first day of the four day weekend. That the holiday coincides with US Spring Break just increased the crowded feeling so we made a drive through and didn’t stop. 

There wasn’t much to stop for as businesses not serving tourists were all closed. Bars and restaurants were packed as you might imagine and progress was slow down the one street town. 

Placencia is set on a sandy peninsula  ripe for close inspection if not destruction by hurricanes in the Western Caribbean. The lagoon inside the peninsula gave the original Mayan residents the opportunity to pan for salt here. Then with the arrival of Europeans the Puritans of all people settled on the beach. The wars of independence in the early 19th century frightened them away from “Pointe Placentia” pleasant point, and eventually when Britain established control Scottish traders settled here. 

When you hear tourists talking about Belize they usually mean the two best know coastal communities, islands to the north called San Pedro and Caye Caulker  (pro: “key corker”) both of which we visited previously by boat. The most touristy area on the mainland is right here. 

Everything is for rent or for sale. 

The main road runs down the middle of the peninsula a block from the sea and there is no obvious beach access if you aren’t a resort guest or property owner. 

Private property signs are everywhere. I missed Florida’s beach access parking lots which exist by state law as everyone has a right to enjoy the beaches. In Belize’s libertarian nightmare there are pitiful public services, low literacy and no beach access guaranteed. Bummer! 

The airstrip forces the road round the end which is a driver’s first view of the water coming into town.

Interestingly enough there is a local’s section of Placencia still intact and functioning as well as can be expected in a tourist economy of expatriates like this one. 

With a sense of humor too, or perhaps nostalgia for Florida. It was closed obviously but I doubt the interior resembles the clean orderly abundance of an actual Publix. 

To drive from our host Tim’s bush camp near Hattieville to Placencia via Belmopan is a three hour jaunt. I keep hoping the Belizean countryside will reveal itself as beautiful and lush and so forth but mostly it’s scrub. The roads are pothole free which is wonderful but the speed bumps are omnipresent. 

We stopped at the only visible functioning roadside food stand in Belmopan for breakfast. It was the usual dour uninspired transaction with a seller who seemed to enjoy his business as little as we have come to expect in this unhappy country. The tacos were cold corn tortillas which had never come close to a grill for a chance to get blackened, they came with a smear of shredded chicken in a delicious spicy curry sauce. Three for fifty cents US, they weren’t expensive but it was obvious they were made with no love at all, and they certainly didn’t come with a smile. Sigh. 

The Hummingbird Highway from Belmopan to Dangriga on the coast is winding hilly road with some lovely views and as we aren’t allowed to drive the direct coastal road by the car rental company, we enjoyed what may be the most scenic road in Belize. We did take the forbidden coastal road home as there was nobody out and about and we figured we’d be fine taking the shortcut. It’s actually a good road but nowhere near as scenic as the Hummingbird Highway. 

There were lots of orchards in the plains between the weird karst hillocks that form the mountains here. 

The road quality is excellent but I find it odd that there is so little agriculture with so much land not being exploited at all. 

The tiny breakfast tacos in Belmopan had held the wolf from the door this far so when we spotted an open food stand we pulled a quick u-turn, much easier in a Toyota 4 Runner than in GANNET2, and lined up to see what was what. 

Once again we were greeted with mournful stares so I started in with my patter going they were having a good morning and how nice of them to be open. Nothing. We’re used to Mexicans being genuinely curious about where we’re from and going to but had we landed in a flying saucer dressed in tin foil we’d have got no reaction. I can’t imagine what conversation is like around the dinner table in these homes. 

“Some aliens landed in the field at lunchtime and ordered Italian sausage in a tortilla” 

“That’s nice. Pass the Marie Sharps hot sauce dear.” 

And it wasn’t bad either but it comes with a sausage in the lovely fluffy Belize tortilla that tastes like naan bread with no condiments or lettuce or tomato or anything. We scarfed them down as we drove. 

China is selling lots of vehicles in Belize, the Wingle pick up trucks and Yutong coaches that are identical to the Canadian Prevost coaches that we are used to seeing on our roads. And it turns out the Futon passenger van bears a startling resemblance to a Mercedes Sprinter! 

We drove into Hopkins the other beach resort in central Belize, but there wasn’t much there to see. Again, no obvious beach access but lots of bars and drinking and hanging around. Not our scene. 

Anyway, I’m recovering nicely from my stress induced head cold. Layne took good care of me while I was coughing and sniffling and I’m getting back on my feet. She is a really wonderful nurse which of course worries me because if she gets sick I am unable to care for her to the same level. She whipped out tonics and vitamins and fed me boosters until I got well.

We have been here eight days with Tim’s family in the bush and he is a sweet Englishman, a contradiction in terms! We are ready to be driving again and we hope against hope we’ll have the correct parts in our hands this Tuesday and have a functioning van shortly thereafter. Keep your fingers crossed for us please.