Money Talk

Sea-Rious Tours Taking a tour to the mainland

Nov 24, 2015 | 2 comments

There are as many tour companies in San Pedro Town as there are bars, restaurants, or lodgings. The day tour from San Pedro Town to the Mayan ruins at Lamanai on the Belize mainland, including drinks, transport , food, a guide and park fee is $150.00 U.S . We are gone an entire day, from 7 in the morning till six in the evening and see Belize by boat, foot and bus. Our trip starts as a tour boat picks up guests at the end of piers where they are staying. There are twenty of us,this trip, young and old. The boat captain is Erin and our guide is Gustavo. On the way to the mainland we get educated about mangroves, weather, ecosystems, navigating sand bars, pirates, and answers to any questions we ask. As often is the case, guests are not asking questions but Gustavo tells us history and habits of those who live here. He makes himself available but not obnoxious. A good guide opens the book and points you to good parts, explains, but doesn’t read the words to you. Even though this is a Sea-Rious tour we all go home, at the end of the day, smarter than we started and with smiles on our faces.

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Palapa Bar and Grill A San Pedro Town Institution

Nov 24, 2015 | 1 comment

A palapa has a thatched roof that lets rain run off it like water runs off a duck’s back. The shape and structure of these traditional island buildings is functional, not complicated to build, and uses local materials. In a big wind the whole thing creaks and moves because wood and thatch are flexible. High ceilings catch cool breezes and hold them. You can see this well known San Pedro Town palapa at the end of its own pier from land, water, or sky and it is always a crowd favorite. On Sunday afternoon, on a road trip north driving our borrowed golf cart, Rabbit and I visit the Palapa Bar and Grill for a look even though we have beer in our cooler for emergencies. The Grill has been here as long as most can remember but it has been recently sold and the old owner is opening a smaller place in town. The new owner has already been labeled “aggressive.”. Apparently the right price was paid, and it must have been good, because this place is packed this balmy Sunday afternoon. The Palapa Bar and Grill incentives are cool breezes, no mosquitoes, inner tubes to float on, good food and plenty of drinks. The place looks and feels like a great location for a beer commercial for a postseason NFL football game. When you are in San Pedro Town longer than a few days, you grow tantalized by gossip, rumor and speculation. It is the quantity and quality of gossip that keeps glasses filled, entertainment flowing, and customers sitting on their bar stools. The ladies in inner tubes are combining the best of drinking, tanning, socializing, and gossiping. Civilization is out there somewhere. We all wave as it sails past.

Wheels in the shop In the shop in Belize

Nov 24, 2015 | 0 comments

Golf carts are in, in San Pedro Town. Some of the carts are old; others are new. New ones cost from nine to fifteen thousand U.S. dollars depending on what they have under their seat, and, while the carts aren’t complicated mechanically, mechanic shops around town are busy. Unpaved roads and cobblestone streets play hell with front ends and suspensions. Rabbit’s cart was loaned to him by a female friend going back to the states for a month. On the way to the airport it broke down and they had to get a taxi and she missed her flight. Her mechanic towed it to his shop and when Rabbit picks it up it still doesn’t seem right. When you push the gas pedal the cart hesitates before engaging in gear. ” It’s a solenoid under the gas pedal, ” Rabbit says, and, not being a mechanic, I can’t say that isn’t the problem . When you ride in a golf cart here, you have arrived. Knowing they are an expense, and continual problems, you are still glad to have one. When you got wheels, women find more to recommend you Bicycles beat walking and golf carts trump bicycles. If this baby breaks down again, you can bet his woman friend is going to pay the bill and we are going to drink all the beer.

Belize Bike Ride headed south

Nov 23, 2015 | 4 comments

Ambergris Caye is not wide but it is long. From one end to the other, head to toes, is over twenty eight miles. San Pedro Town is in the middle of the island and holds most of the business and population. The island’s one improved road, to the south and north,is functional. Once off the pavement though, small tributary roads are potholed, dirt, muddy in wet weather, often difficult to navigate. As you walk south or north,homes become more private, isolated, and there is more open landscape between them. There are resorts all along the main road and some accommodations have ” Beware of Dogs ” signs on their front gates, security cameras and barbed wire, swimming pools, tall fences you can’r pull down or climb over. These expensive Caribbean bungalows are nestled next to bare wood shacks where a single electric pole runs twentieth century technology to seventeenth century shacks to keep a refrigerator and lights running. Along the bike ride. I hit a place called ” Hotel California ” that makes me hum the Eagle’s top hit. There are plenty of escapees from cuckoo California in Belize. Californians like to run but they always bring their state, and it’s ideas, with them. A sign on the Hotel California’s fence says, ” Trespassers will be shot first, and then shot again if they survive. ” At the end of this bike ride is a knot of construction men digging a hole with shovels and a backhoe to install PVC pipe to hold electric wires that will supply electric to a future gated community for escapees from America and Europe. In paradise, someone still has to mop floors, fix broken pipes, babysit, build, take care of the needs of people with money from abroad. On the ride back to Chez Caribe on my borrowed bike, I visit the Marcos Gonzalez archeological site, going back thousands of years. The world has been full of people for a long time and people still don’t clean up after themselves, leaving clues behind about what they were up too. Going from this site to Hotel California is an incomprehensible leap in time and technology, lifestyle and mindset. I hide my bike in the bushes because I don’t want it to disappear. A bicycle in Belize is a poor man’s Cadillac and plenty of poor people would borrow this one for free if they had an opportunity. Taking precautions might be tedious, but I don’t want to walk home and have to explain a bad outcome.. I doubt the residents of Marcos Gonzalez were any more honest than those in San Pedro town today.

A Good Place to Stay Good value in San Pedro Town

Nov 18, 2015 | 2 comments

According to Rabbit, retired bartender, Ramon’s Village is one of the better values in San Pedro Town. If you are coming to Ambergris Caye for a week and want to have convenience, service, good food, security, access to the water, a good home base for your explorations, nice accommodations, for a good price, Ramon’s is the place for you. The resort burnt down several years ago and was rebuilt with work going twenty four seven. Ramon didn’t want to re- open but did anyway. His resort has an international flavor, and, unlike many lodgings on the island, is maintained by a full staff of worker bees. Ramon’s is maybe not the best way to get to know the island, close up and personal, but lots of people visit San Pedro Town with no desire to move here and want the island to be accompaniment to their vacation instead of the melody. Even Ramon himself, greeting breakfast diners, asks me this morning how I am doing? I compliment his hotel and listen attentively.. Maintaining and managing a profitable business anywhere is worthy of respect.

Sunday Fundraiser San Pedro Town.

Nov 16, 2015 | 2 comments

The grills are fired up and chickens are the topic of conversation. A local Hispanic church is doing a fundraiser selling food, used clothes and donated items outside their little church in San Pedro town. ” Jesus es la Repuestra ” the marquee says and they are doing brisk business this Sunday at lunchtime. I have barbecued chicken and rice with slaw, sit on a bench as a cluster of volunteers praise Christ, pack orders to go, and celebrate. A boombox, on the wall next to me, plays Cuban salsa. It feels like home to be hearing Spanish and even though New Mexico just got snow, which I know because I checked with the weather lady on the internet, I’m not ready to run back home just yet. There are rubber bands tied to my ankles that want to snap me back to the Land of Enchantment when I have pulled them to their maximum stretch. The rubber bands are extended, right now, almost to their maximum length. Jesus motions for us to follow, but some insist on putting toes in the water before their feet go in. Humming ” Amazing Grace “, sitting on a rock wall, the water is already up to my knees.

Is a Church More than its Members? Belize Satellite

Nov 16, 2015 | 2 comments

This church rents a shut down movie theater on Sundays for two services -8 :30 and 10:00 am. The mother church is in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Sagebrush, I have been told by an Albuquerque friend who is a member, is on Albuquerque’s west side and has locations in other New Mexico cities. Sagebrush Belize is raising money in San Pedro Town to build a new facility, over the bridge, in sight of this movie theater, right where a wood sign now sticks in a sand lot. There are questions raised by church members about spending a million dollars on a building but the official answer is that it is expensive to rent and the church needs room to grow. What began as a Bible study in an upstairs room has become more. Belize has pressing needs. Churches serve more quickly, economically, and responsibly than government. Having a million dollar temple is not going to get you closer to Jesus, but it isn’t going to hurt recruiting.

Captain Morgan’s Resort and Casino privateers and pirates

Nov 15, 2015 | 2 comments

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.

La Taqueria street food

Nov 15, 2015 | 0 comments

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.

School day San Pedro Roman Catholic Primary School

Nov 10, 2015 | 3 comments

Kids go to school to learn, all over the world. This Monday morning is a new week at a local primary school. Some kids, I observe, are smiling while others are not overjoyed, but most children all over the world go to school where they grow up and are introduced to what is necessary and proper to become functioning adults. Cursory research states that 2/3 of the population of Belize are teens or younger, education is compulsory to 14 years, 70% of the teachers have professional training , a sizable minority of children don’t go past primary school. The best schools are run by the Catholic church who, some say, should never be allowed around kids. Education opens futures for people, but the future here favors well financed foreigners with MBA’s who take calculated risks, have financing, study trends, and use money to make money. Poverty, limited finances, and lack of education are all legs of the same creaky stool that keeps people depressed for a lifetime. These kids, from where this ex teacher sits, look content,are sent to school with backpacks, a clean uniform, and, hopefully, homework done last night before bed. While school tries its best to civilize them, there is little doubt that parents are still the prime reason behind kid’s early success or failure. Those kids who succeed here, at this school, will stay in school longer and won’t stay on this island long. In a world economy, good jobs seem to naturally go to the most skilled.