Belize - Web
"Last night I dreamt of San Pedro................................................. Warm breeze carried on the sea ......................................................... He said to me........................................................................ ........................ Te dijo, te amo .............................................................................................. It all seemed like yesterday.................................................................... So far away ......................................................................................... Tropical the island breeze ..................................................................... All of nature wild and free ................................................................. This is where I want to be ....................................................................... La Isla Bonita..."
I remember Madonna singing these lyrics in a candlelit Spanish castle, she danced in a red velvet dress and I was sure that she was in the South of Spain, not on the Belizean island of Ambergris, the one they nickname La Isla Bonita or refer to its other name San Pedro. As La Isla Bonita disappeared behind us in the wake of a high speed water taxi, we realized too that Madonna must have been thinking of another San Pedro; Belize had belonged to the British crown and not to Spain.
At first glance, it may not seem like such a big deal that the little strip of land to the east of Guatemala belonged to tea drinking Brits, but the culture is truly Britanic, or Carribean-Britanic. English is the official first language and just to confuse everyone, road signs are in miles instead of kilometers, and in true American or Anglo-Saxon form, prices were high (very high) and completely non-negotiable. After 2 and a half years of living in Mexico, and 4 months of traveling throughout all of Latin America there is rarely a night that goes by that I do not reduce our hostel rate by at least 10%. I tried to negotiate with the hotel manager in San Pedro for 30 minutes, using every technique I knew, with absolutely no success. I tried other hotels on the island with the same results. We figure that the Belizean strategy to maximize profits is that all hotels must have agreed not to negotiate with tourists under any circumstances.
Despite the high prices, Belize is one of the least developed countries of our tour; even on the island of Ambergris (the most touristy), the roads are sand and the two main forms of transportation are golf carts modified with off road tires and one-speed beach bicycles. We rented bicycles and headed up and down the island in search of a beautiful wide white sand beach. This should have been an easy task, since Ambergris is a long and skinny island that is nearly all beaches. But the great reef that is a few hundred meters offshore complicates things somehow; the beaches are white, but skinny and scantly covered with sand. The water breaks far offshore hinting at the presence of corral below. Furthermore, the corral is just far enough offshore that you have to take another boat to snorkel. So we indulged instead in eavesdropping on the local's conversations. This was a fruitless activity too, since they speak so many languages and one person would begin a sentence in English and end it in Spanish, and then turn to address another person in Creole.
When it comes to scuba diving and snorkeling, Belize is really worth the visit. We made a typical tour, first to the Hol Chan Reserve, an underwater zoo, where thanks to the protection afforded by the title "Reserve", there are thousands of fish, from the very small, to the very very big! We stopped next at Shark Ray Alley, where we were to dive with Nurse Sharks and Stingrays. Even though we had been assured that the sharks and rays were not only harmless, but were supposed to be quite friendly, I was first surprised to see them race toward our boat, one shark sliding over another one in order to be the first to grab the morsel of fish that our guide was throwing overboard. Once sure that the sharks were well fed, we threw ourselves in the water with them! The sharks swam right up to us and let us touch their backs and bellies that feel a bit like Nerf Footballs. Beneath us flapped dozens and dozens of what looked to be human-sized earlobes, but were stingrays that were as willing as the sharks to be played with. The contact that these animals have had with professional divers and tourists who have visited this area for the last few years has made the animals people friendly, and afforded us with a spectacular snorkeling experience.
We left Belize pretty happy, and Enric planning a return someday to dive the Blue Hole. We will have to miss the rumored spacious white sand beaches on the southern coast of Belize. Instead we head north into México, reminding ourselves that we cannot see everything. xxxx miles separate us from our final destination - and we have just 14 days!
