This week we’re reminding ourselves—and you—of some of our favorite things about some of the places we most enjoy spending time.
From Paris to Panama to, today, Belize…
Three very different places, each offering its own irresistible abundance of wonders and delights awaiting discovery.
Expat friends in Belize … from Cayo to Ambergris Caye… have helped us recall the things we most look forward to every time we are able to engineer a reason to return to this country…
- The space… lots of wide-open breathing room…
- The peace and quiet… something increasingly difficult to find in our age…
- The randomness and things that make you go “hmmm”… nothing about Belize makes sense and often that’s the best thing about Belize… from half-empty buckets of paint for sale on hardware store shelves to horses left unattended in the most unlikely places…
- Forgetting to worry about your appearance and whether you’re appropriately dressed for the occasion… in Belize, anything and everything goes anytime, anywhere…
- The array of hot sauce options… you’ll find four, five, or six different kinds of hot sauce on restaurant tables everywhere…
- Chalkboard signs advertising daily menu specials that feature iguana, snake, and rodent…
- Signs written in Kriol…
- Swimming across the split at Caye Caulker to reach a scraggly tree that’s perfect for climbing and remembering unashamedly what it’s like to be a kid again…
- Full-service gas stations where the attendants are happy and friendly and wash your windows, adjust your tire pressure, and replenish your fluids with a smile…
- Feeling the troubles of the 21st century recede with each passing mile as you drive from Belize City to San Ignacio…
- Cocktails on the deck bar at Chaa Creek Jungle Resort… where some of my favorite Belize memories are based…
- Kayaking the Macal River…
- An ice-cold Belikin beer… the original Belize beer… refreshing and delicious even if you don’t drink beer…
- Passing a horse-drawn buggy carrying a Mennonite family to or from San Ignacio town…
- Stopping for lunch at the “Jew Boy” restaurant in Belize City… where it’s fun to watch the looks on the faces of first-time visitors trying to wrap their heads around the fact that this “Jewmaican” restaurant serving curried goat and jerk chicken has no Semitic connotations… Belize is the least-prejudiced place I know…
- Star-gazing while lying on the top of the Cahal Pech Maya temple at midnight…
- A cold coconut water from the Dickhead Shop… I’ve passed this place at the roundabout in Hattieville by the Burrell Boom cutoff for years… it’s a little shack with “Dickhead” spray-painted on the side… a friend and I decided recently to stop in and were met by a shiny black guy with a huge smile who greeted us with, “Welcome to Dickhead”… we chatted and laughed with the guy like long-lost friends while sipping our fresh coconut water…
- Smiles and waves of recognition from everyone you pass… including folks you’ve never met…
- Tamales for B$1.50 at Bertha’s Tamales at Mile 29 on the Hummingbird Highway… and homemade tortillas from the stand in Santa Familia village for 50 cents…
- Being served a Belikin from the drive-through window at Sergeant Peppers in Santa Elena… just because you can…
- Celebrations, parties, and festivals… concerts, steel-drum bands, barbecues, and school children on parade… Belize uses any excuse to stage a parade …
- The flight to Caulker or San Pedro… for the best aerial perspective of the lay of this land…
- The split at Caye Caulker… the world seems to stop here…
Kathleen Peddicord
