In Search Of The Real Belize
Sept. 18, 2008
Panama City, Panama
PLUS:
n “What In The World Am I Gonna’
Do With Her?”…
n Like
A Snake On My Stomach Spelunking In The
Cayo…
n “Don’t
Forget About Your Readers In Europe. We
Prefer To Go East!”…
n Beware
El Cepo In Antigua…
AND:
n Rent A Husband In Panama
(And Costa Rica)…
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Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter
Reader,
“What in the world am I gonna’ do with
her?”
That was Mick Flemming’s first impression
of me, he admitted years later, as I climbed
down from the four-wheel-drive jeep in my
linen suit and beige pumps.
I was 23 years old, a just-starting-out
travel writer, in Belize for the first time.
The Belize tourism board had helped to
arrange my trip and had organized, as part
of it, three nights at Mick’s Chaa Creek
jungle lodge in the Cayo.
“You should see this part of the
country,” the tourist board rep had advised.
“Everyone is paying attention to Ambergris
Caye and the other islands off the coast of
Belize City. But there’s another Belize, out
in the Cayo…a more interesting Belize.”
It turned out to be one of the most
fortunate recommendations of my career.
Mick met my jeep wearing khaki shorts and
carrying two gin and tonics, one for himself
and one for me. He ushered me to the
open-air, thatched-roof bar, and asked what
I was up for.
“So,” he said, “do you want the standard
tour…or would you like a real taste of this
place?”
I’ve never been one to settle for
standard if an option is offered.
“What do you have in mind?” I asked.
“In the morning,” Mick suggested, “I’ll
have our driver take you into the jungle to
stay with a Belizean family down on the
river. They’re friends of ours. You’ll like
them.”
I slept the next night in a lean-to
alongside the small thatched hut of Mick’s
Belizean friends. They lived quietly and
happily without electricity or indoor
plumbing. The women ground corn for
tortillas in great stone bowls and cooked
over open fires. They washed themselves and
their clothes in the river that ran cold and
clear just down the hill.
Only the 13-year-old son spoke any
English. He asked if I’d like him to show me
around. I followed him up the mountainside,
in the rain, slipping in the mud, and
hacking my way with a stick through the
thick jungle growth. He stopped near the top
of the mountain and pointed to a hole in the
ground.
Then he shimmed through the hole on his
stomach and disappeared. I was to do
likewise, I figured, and got down on my
stomach like a snake to slide into the
tunnel after him.
Just inside was a ledge…and beyond the
ledge was a great cavern…and beyond that
cavern, a bigger one…and another one…and,
finally, one with a cathedral ceiling and a
kind of altar in the center of the space.
All along the ledges along the cavern
walls were pots and pottery shards.
“Why doesn’t the Smithsonian Institute or
someone come to collect those artifacts?” I
asked Mick the next night, back at Chaa
Creek.
“There are so many caves like that one
and so many artifacts…just so much of that
stuff all around these mountains. The
Smithsonian comes down and collects pieces
and catalogues discoveries, but they’ll
never find it all.”
What were Mick and his wife Lucy doing in
the middle of the jungle in the middle of
the Cayo in the mid-1980s, before anyone
else was paying any attention to this little
corner of the world?
They’d arrived nearly 10 years earlier.
As Mick told the story:
“We bought some land with the thought
that we’d become farmers. Only we didn’t
know anything about farming. We asked our
farmer neighbors for help, and they were
happy to show us how to plant and when to
harvest.
“Meantime, we noticed that, now and then,
backpackers would happen upon us. At first,
we’d invite them to unroll their sleeping
bags outside our back door. Then we decided
to build a hut where they could spend the
night. We gave them a salt shaker and some
matches…
“Eventually, not only backpackers, but
other travelers, too, began finding their
way out to this part of the country. We
built another hut, a nicer one…and then some
more. Things developed organically…”
In the 20-plus years since my first
visit, I’ve been back to Belize at least 20
times. It’s one of my favorite places in the
world…rugged and undeveloped…an outpost…a
country founded by pirates and appealing,
still, to modern-day corsairs.
On the one hand…
On the other hand, this tiny
English-speaking country blessed with both a
long Caribbean mainland coast and, as well,
a multitude of small outlying sand-fringed
cayes, has made a name for itself among the
world’s beach-lovers and sun-seekers.
The beachfront property market out on
Ambergris went haywire. Prices catapulted
over the couple of decades following my
first visit.
But it was never Ambergris that got my
attention.
I was drawn, from that first trip,
inland, to the jungle and the Mayan ruins,
the rivers and the waterfalls, the caves and
the rain forest. This part of Belize is
largely, blissfully unchanged since I first
laid eyes on it…since, even, the Flemmings
first laid eyes on it.
Except that, today, you can enjoy the
Cayo in comfort.
The first few times I stayed at Chaa
Creek, we had no electricity and read by
candlelight before falling asleep to the
night sounds coming through the open
windows…
There was no telephone. Mick had a
short-wave radio in his tiny office off the
end of the bar....
There were no washing machines, no
radios, no televisions…
A stay at Chaa Creek was an absolute
escape.
I appreciate hot showers and air
conditioning as much as the next guy…but,
I’ve got to say, my fondest memories of Chaa
Creek pre-date them.
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. What Mick and Lucy have built is
nothing short of extraordinary. Today it’s
23 cottages, including 2 treetop suites, 2
garden suites, and a Honeymoon Sky Room in
the treetops. Take a look:
www.chaacreek.com.
Should you ever go to visit, please tell
them that Kathleen sends her warmest
regards…and hopes to make it back soon.
---------- Live
Tax Free In Belize ----------
Become a Qualified
Retiree Person (QRP) resident in
Belize, and live tax free. The experts at
Georgetown Trust can show you
how.
TODAY:
Along one wall of the living room of our
new apartment in Panama City are stacked at
least three-dozen framed maps, prints,
photos, and paintings. They arrived with the
other furniture and knick-knacks we shipped
here from Waterford, Ireland. That was two
weeks ago. The furniture is positioned. The
knick-knacks are placed.
But the paintings and the prints…they’re
lined up on the living room floor.
Lief bought a drill…and promised to hang
them…but he hasn’t gotten around to it.
Then, today, in El Visitante, one
of the local English-language newspapers,
the solution:
“Need a hand? Rent a husband!” reads the
headline of an article detailing the
services of Maridos de Alquiler
(Husbands For Rent), the Panama franchise
for which has just opened. Venezuelan Pavel
Molina is behind the Costa Rica company, and
he promises that his guys will do everything
and anything (almost) a husband would do:
install a lamp, fix the plumbing, repair an
air conditioner…
And maybe hang three-dozen photos and
maps in an apartment in Paitilla. I’m
getting in touch for a quote:
www.maridosdealquiler.net, tel.
391-4040. They promise to take calls seven
days a week, 24 hours a day.
What actual husband can compete with
that?
***
“I’ve learned my lesson,” writes
Guatemala correspondent Michael Sherer.
“Now, driving in Antigua, I
watch out for the faded red curbs.
“A few months ago, one sunny afternoon,
wearing dark glasses and forgetting that I’m
color-blind for certain shades of red, I
parked without realizing it in one of these
forbidden zones. I returned minutes later to
find a slip of paper under the windshield
wiper, a “Do Not Move” notice stuck to the
driver’s window, and a big metal clamp, the
Denver Boot, known locally as El Cepo,
encasing the left front wheel.
“The paper beneath the windshield wiper
explained that I should go to Room #1, the
Municipal Office, to pay my fine and have
the device removed from the front of my car.
“Off I trudged in search of someone who
knew where the Municipal Office was located.
Finally, I found Room #1, three doors east
of 4th Avenida and 4th Calle Oriente, next
to the Sanitarios Publico…which seemed
fitting…
“I paid the 250-quetzal fine, and, by the
time I walked back to my car, El Cepo was
gone.
“As I said, now I pay more attention, and
I’ve seen the process play out again and
again. A small white van with the municipal
logo drives around in search of ill-parked
vehicles, then pulls up behind. The van
driver honks his horn a few times, to try to
summon the miscreant. If no one appears
right away, out come the citation booklet,
the window stickers, and the boot…”
FROM THE MAILBAG:
“Kathleen, I am a new subscriber from
France. Why don't you guys write more about
the East. There are some
tremendous places to live in Thailand,
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam…
“It is cheap, the locals are always
smiling, even if problems, the weather is
nice during our winters...
“The answer is probably that your readers
mainly come from the U.S., and Central
America is near home. But don't forget your
readers from Europe. We prefer to go East.
“Meantime, congratulations on your very
exiting letter.”
-- Paul D., France
You’re right, dear reader, many of our
readers are American and Canadian, and, for
them, Central and South America make a lot
of sense. But we recognize that we’ve got a
strong Euro-contingency reading these
dispatches, too…and, don’t worry, we’re not
ignoring you.
Our ever-roving correspondents Paul and
Vicki Terhorst, for example, have reported
this summer from Thailand
and Oman…and, as I write,
they are headed to India.
Watch this space for their India updates.
Meantime, read their Thailand reports
here:
48 Hours in Phayao
At Home and At Peace in Chiang Mai
And their Oman reports here:
Welcome to Oman I
Welcome to Oman II
