The resort and casino are on the north side of Ambergris Caye and you get there in a taxi by the new road, or a water taxi with Coastal Express, or catch one of the resort’s own shuttles that bring guests to and from their accommodations.
This time of year the resort is not bustling. Saturday’s guests are off doing tours or sleeping from too much sun, too much party, too much jet lag, too much culture shock.
Captain Morgan was, by most accounts, successful. He was a privateer rather than a pirate. He was authorized by the Queen to steal Spanish gold, sink Spanish ships, kill Spanish seaman and citizens. Pirates steal from everyone, have no allegiances, and are enemies of the state.
Captain Morgan was a clever fighting man and retired in Jamaica where he amassed land, riches, and died in his own bed. There is a rum named after him and on the walls of this resorts guest houses are wood planks with names of fellow privateers that prowled the Caribbean.
Captain Morgan’s spirit is still lurking in these islands and who knows when he will swoop in to the casino, draw his broadsword, load guest valuables into his large brimmed hat and finish a bottle of spiced rum before disappearing into the seas on a full moon night with the prettiest girl under his arm.
The biggest news is the casino doesn’t open till six in the evening.
If he had it to do over, Captain Morgan would run a casino instead of pirating
With gambling you don’t kill your customers.
Lodgers left and leave the only key where Jack can’t find it.
” I only have one key, ” Jack explains, as he takes a hammer and knocks apart the dead bolt. ” I don’t want to be accused of taking any ones stuff. ”
It only takes a few seconds of hammering to knock the dead bolt apart and open the door. The door handle has already been picked.
The only difference between breaking and entering, and getting a place ready to rent, is intent.
Growing up in the landlord business, with a dad who had more than one property, this is just a small irritation. With a new deadbolt, lock set, and key, the new renters will never know the difference.
They will get their only key and everyone will sleep like babies.
There is street food in San Pedro Town.
This little enterprise, ” La Taqueria “, opens at seven thirty each morning on Coconut Street where the road turns towards the Average Joe Bar and Caribbean Fuels gas station, and turns again past the S & P Hardware store to points south.
The taqueria’s, chicken or pork inside a small rolled corn tortilla, are three for a Belizian dollar. For six U.S. dollars you can buy fifteen and a drink and not have to eat the rest of the day.
On one of the stand’s windows is a business license and hot food is in slowly simmering pots. A short woman, with a fork, scoops meat out of a pot of your choice, spreads it on a tortilla, then rolls the tortilla and wraps them in foil for take out. You can have onions and a local hot sauce for no extra charge. Her husband sets up folding tables for dine in’s and puts money into a little metal cash box.
This morning I wait for a man ahead of me who orders twenty one.
Street food gets a bad rep. These kitchens are cleaner than some restaurants here plus you get to watch your meal being prepared.
Licking hot sauce off my fingers, that oozes out of the taqueria, as I bite, gives this trip panache.
Dog lovers often bring their dogs on vacation with them.
This little guy runs down the beach and his owners tell us, as we pass them, that he will swim out to get birds all the way to the end of the pier.
Down the beach, only moments ago, Rabbit and I met a local woman with a pooper scooper who said she was watching for the dog that poops on her yard each morning. She also tells us, matter of factly, that she has a loaded shotgun and would love to make her day and shoot the dogs owner first.
You Tube is where aliens can go to get a good read on our planet.
This little dog needs to be careful about his business.
Shotguns can take you all the way out of this life even if the human who pulls the trigger is half blind and drunk as a skunk.
In San Pedro Town this afternoon, after school, a couple of boys come up with their own game. Tarzan’s jungle can be any place on the planet as long as there is a little boy who puts two and two together.
One of the boys grabs one end of a dangling palm branch, holds on, then swings himself out over the beach and water and back to dry land. The branch might break and send him crashing but it is a risk worth taking.
While he swings, the other boy waits his turn.
A couple of girls, outside the picture, shake their heads and call the boy’s crazy.
And, we are.
There are at least two hundred invited guests but anyone can join this wedding..
Wayos is a popular beach bar in San Pedro Town and Wayo, pronounced Y -oh, is a popular owner.
When the groom arrives in a black golf cart limo, there is applause and cheers. As always, his bar is open and weather is uncooperative. It rains in spurts and people crowd under tents, roof overhangs, and in the bar to escape another torrential downpour.
The wedding ceremony is short and the couple recites handwritten vows under a big tent overlooking the Caribbean Sea.. They promise to honor and cherish and encourage and support each other, and, in front of important people in their life, draw a big heart in the sand with their names inside it.
Before, during, and after the ceremony, people re-connect. It is a close knit group on this Isla Bonita and meeting people is not difficult here. When people come here they cast time and routine out of the boat and lifting anchors that hold them elsewhere.
It is a good wedding and a happy time.
Nature isn’t co-operating but another lady well wisher, standing next to me, tells me it is good luck to be married on a rainy day.
If that is so, this couple will have enough luck to take care of all of us.
Two popular pastimes in San Pedro Town are Karaoke and Drinking.
Since bars open early and close late, there is always a lot of drinking going on. Likewise, when karaoke starts and participants pick up a microphone, the singing, good, bad, and ugly, picks up like an afternoon squall.
There is an undercurrent here where what you think you hear is not always what you hear, what you see is not always as you see it, what you assume is often erroneous, what you plan goes astray. Poker cards in the hole are held closely and opportunities to leap without looking are always at hand. There are Spanish gold doubloons in a shipwreck out on the reef and all it takes to get them is a hundred thousand of your money.
Wade, owner of Road Kill Bar, is painting this morning and his orange Karaoke sign advertises fun.
Karaoke is a sign of our times where audience participation is the real star of the show.
Make Believe is definitely more fun than not.
The difference between coming to Belize with money, and living here without money, is substantial.
Belize has staggering statistics.
It has the highest incidence of HIV in Central America. It has twenty to thirty percent unemployment. The doctor per patient ratio is among the worst in the world. 30-40% of the population lives in poverty and is dependent on agriculture and fishing for subsistence. Crime is familiar. Infrastructure is minimal. A high birth rate is matched by a high infant mortality rate. Housing and public utilities sputter.
Still, people from worse economies in Guatemala and Nicaragua come to San Pedro Town to look for work.
San Pedro Town has the barrier reef, tourist accommodations, things to do, an influx of money. Ambergris Caye, economically, supports the rest of Belize on its long narrow shoulders.
As a tourist, good overcomes bad. As a resident, bad is what bites at your heels.
Visiting and staying here are different as dogs and cats.
From eleven to twelve, the Walkaholics stroll from Crazy Canuck’s to Wayo’s without wetting a whistle.
From twelve to four, on the way back, there are stops at the Sandbar for drinks and lunch, Licks, the Runway Bar and Crazy Canuck’s for more drinks and toasts.
The sun and surf and sky give us a show.
We are numbers in a mathematical equation, written on a chalkboard, described by Einstein and Newton, buzzing in time and space like sand fleas on a great sand beach. The equation looks like a bird nest.
There are times when the universe’s mystery puts your skull in a nutcracker and cracks your head wide open until the confetti inside is picked up by the afternoon breeze and scattered.
On Tuesday nights, at 6:30 pm, featured entertainment at Crazy Canuck’s is crab races. The races are a fundraiser for local schools and charitable groups and give locals and visitors another reason to drink, dance, socialize, relax.
Number 57 is halfway across the obstacle course on a prison break before Kevin, our master of ceremonies, wearing a red crab hat and holding a microphone, catches him and carefully slips him back under an upside down champagne bucket in the center of the ring.
The first race begins late, after announcements, when Kevin lifts the upside down champagne bucket again and the crabs move, from being under the bucket, towards a rope perimeter that forms a circle around them on a big plywood game board resting on the sand.
The crowd is excited and some gamblers rush the platform to support their pick.
It is illegal to touch or step on the board but you can yell, flash lights, move hands and arms up and down to influence the race outcome. The winning crab is the one who crosses the rope at any point in the rope circle around them.
At the end of this first race, Daryl provides live music while losers come up with a different strategy for the next race and try to handicap the crabs that will be running next.
It is all in good fun and none of the crabs, tonight, end up on anyone’s plate.
Number 57, my pick for the first race, never crosses the rope line, and, as far as I’m concerned, can go into tomorrow’s soup.
If I were really lucky, Stephanie Kennedy, the ” Belizian Temptress ” would come through the door and try her temptation on me.
My defenses have been pretty weak the last few days.
Every Anthony has his Cleopatra.
nnnnnn.
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