Real estate is booming in San Pedro Town.
Jack says, ” if you own real estate and aren’t keeping it rented you are doing something wrong.”
Chez Caribe is his old wood and concrete two story house. He lives upstairs and rents six small units downstairs, and, if the price is right, his place upstairs. Chez Caribe looks like it should be in a Tennessee Williams play and is shaded by towering coconut trees that drop coconuts with a thud.
Old timers here have seen the town population rise by twenty five percent a year but the total of local residents is only ten thousand. Most of the wealth is brought here by pirates from the north ; bankers, salesmen, investors, double dippers, retirees, businessmen, gold diggers, treasure hunters,divers, real estate developers and land men, con artists, ex-pats.
Tennessee Williams would have found some of his characters here but this place is not conflicted enough for his vision. A closer read for this truth would be Carl Hiasson or Jimmy Buffett where hedonism doesn’t come with a guilty conscience.
I am staying behind door number 4 – the Chez Tortuga Suite. Airbnb is a business model that lets people turn their own house into income and use space that would otherwise be wasted.
It is nice afternoons to lounge on the front porch and wait for coconuts to drop, but you need insect repellent. I felt a mosquito land on my calf yesterday and once he filled up he could barely get back into the air.
If coconuts hit you on the head they will part your hair.
Living in paradise comes with costs.
I haven’t seen many thumbs out in San Pedro Town.
There are a few people moving in the rain but most of those out this morning are laborers pedaling bicycles to work,tourists driving special golf carts, and taxi’s running people to the airport from resorts and fancy lodgings.
I want to catch a ride back to town, from the middle of nowhere, and a young man in a cart stops and asks if I want a ride.
” I’m Scott. ”
” I’m Roberto. ”
On the ride he tells me he used to be a tour guide but works for the local Department of Fisheries and has the day off. His wife works in town and he recommends Elvie’s Kitchen as a good place for local food. If I need a golf cart he can get me one for $60.00 U.S. per day and If I need a piece of land, his father in law has some for sale way out north, almost as far as you can go. Last time he went to Nicaragua he was stopped for having tattoos and had to explain he was on a Christian mission and say his prayers to stay out of jail.
It is a welcome ride and my feet thank me.
When Roberto drops me off at the gas station, a quarter block from my front door, I slip him twenty bucks.
” Take your wife to dinner, ” I suggest.
” I’ll give it to my daughter, ” he decides.
On an island with ten thousand permanent residents the chances are good you will run into everybody at least once a year whether you try to avoid them or not.
Favors, anywhere, are easy to do and not easily forgotten.
Ak’Bol was built into a business by a couple who came to Belize twenty years ago with a dream of nature, health, spirit, and capitalism. The entrance is not well announced and if you are driving you will zip right past in your sprint for bigger resorts on the north tip of Ambergris Caye. Along the new paved road north, Ak’Bol just has a simple sign, is a clearing in the jungle down a winding shady path to the Yoga Retreat.
Sitting at the breakfast bar is a mix of young and old, long hair and no hair, hippie chicks and old men with pony tails who never let the sixties loose.
I talk with a young woman who stands as she eats eggs benedict and tells me about her inner child and achieving adult battles and her boyfriend who is from Taos, likes to fish, and is on the pier in the moment.
A couple to my right are checking e mails, Facebook, Google and nursing health drinks.
The Ak’Bol menu has a section for drinks with alcohol, if you want them, and the coffee is Guatemalan. It is a natural setting and, checking their website, affordable. Visitors seem friendly to talk with like minded souls. Food is moderately priced, and judging from empty plates- good.
On my American Airlines flight from Dallas to Belize City I overheard a local telling visitors about places they might like to check out on the island.
” Ak’Bol is very good, ” he said. ” The food is wonderful and the people are nice and the pier is a good place to snorkel the reef. ”
I can see, on this visit, that reconciling your inner child and achieving adult is a herculean task for which yoga and eggs benedict is the best answer.
Martial arts has moved forward since Bruce Lee dazzled with new fighting styles and choreographed movie fight scenes that are classics.
Now, real fighting happens on cable TV and the ancient ” Friday night at the fights” has been trounced by MMA cage fighting. This remains the most brutal action available and those stepping in the ring seriously have to know that if they are not in the shape of their life the other guy or girl will clean their clock.
This morning in San Pedro Town a lesson is in progress. Fighting still happens here and issues are resolved the old fashioned way.
This maestro explains theory, then shows it. Watching, it is clear he knows what he is talking about, takes his art serious, and gives good knowledge. He doesn’t look in the best shape but I wouldn’t want to mix it with him.
There is talk of physics, motion, momentum, following your punch or kick, spinning and deflecting, picking your spots, defense, body weak points, take downs, not hitting and backing away to give your foe a chance to regroup, using elbows, knees and skull, twisting your knuckles as you strike.
Fighting is an art, but, bottom line, it is avoiding confrontation, and, when you have no other choice, taking your opponent out quickly before he does you damage.
Holly Holm, the preacher’s daughter, just put Albuquerque, New Mexico on the map in her title bout against Ronda Rousey.
This martial arts lesson has my full interest.
It turns out to be a good hike.
There are less than 10 walkers this morning but numbers will grow to over twenty five as tourist season picks up.
One of the most difficult tasks is learning names of the group so I make myself crutches. Dean has a goatee, Dale has a pony tail, Charlie has sand flea bites, Eric smokes a cigar, John has big glasses and likes to tell jokes, Scotty brought his dog and is sometimes called Eric, Dino walks with a limp and has to ride a golf cart, Larry has a blue baseball cap, Rabbit looks like he just came out of Alice in Wonderland. Alan is a quiet guy with a mustache.
This expedition the pace is slow, you drink at your own speed, people talk about who is on the island, who is coming to the island, who left the island. There is discussion about a man who got himself stabbed to death but it was ruled an accident, officially. Unofficially, he slept with the wrong someone. There is talk about how cold it is in Canada, appointments to get wi fi, prices paid to rent on the beach so you get a good breeze and don’t need air conditioning. Sports is covered, politics is quickly dismissed as a fool’s game, and your personal issues remain fair game even if you don’t bring them up.
We leave at eleven in the morning and don’t get back till five in the afternoon. We walk more than two miles, visit four bars, have lunch at one, and all hands are safely accounted for.
I’m going next Wednesday and will wear my official T shirt.
I don’t have to read newspapers to learn news that counts in San Pedro Town.
I’m not a Canadian but this bar sounds crazy and who wants to sit in a bar that isn’t crazy?
As spirits flow, you want to be carried along in a stream of conviviality, experience bursts of laughter, hear jokes you never heard before that are really funny, and only fall down once or twice on the way home with someone,you, at least, get along with.
Crazy Canuck’s Bar was mentioned in Trip Advisor so I make a pilgrimage.
Sitting at the counter for happy hour, several patrons use free wi-fi and have Belikin beer, the national beer of Belize from the Mayan Temple. I like to hear bald faced lies and a bar is the best place to hear tall tales, ghost stories, gossip and real island news.
At Crazy Canuck’s the weekly schedule runs the gamut from crab races, to trivia, to karaoke, to live reggae.
After a half hour at the counter, bar regular Alan shakes my hand and tells me about a weekly Wednesday event that will happen Tuesday this week because elections are Wednesday and the bar is closed on election day.
” We call it the Walkaholic Walk, ” he explains. ” We take a hike down the beach, without stopping. Then, on the way back, we start drinking…… ”
” I’ll go, ” I say, ” What time? ”
” Eleven. ”
Drinking and walking is more healthy than drinking and driving.
Whether it is Saint Thomas, Saint John, Dominica, Grenada, Bequia, Boca Del Toros, or San Pedro Town you see Caribbean similarities immediately.
Ambergris Caye is off the coast of Belize and runs along the second biggest barrier reef in the world with tourism its primary income stream.
There are foreigners here who make their retirement dollars stretch but opportunity is in a rising real estate market, a chance to open a business where locals don’t have the money, education or desire to start one of their own. Waiting at the airport, the sun is dropping and I can hear reggae on boomboxes in little neighborhood bars where men play domino’s and women complain about other women.
Coming back to the Caribbean is like coming home.
Jack, my host, doesn’t get to the airport to pick me up but a taxi dispatcher at the airport uses his personal cell phone to call Jack since my cell phone doesn’t have service here. Jack asks him to call Orlando. The taxi dispatcher calls Orlando and Orlando picks me up in fifteen minutes and delivers me to the Chez Caribe.
” Glad to see you, ” Jack says, sitting on a couch on the bottom floor front porch in a T shirt, levis, flip flops and shaven head.
I sit and listen as he practices ” La Bamba” on an old acoustic guitar and then get introduced to my room. It has a yellow green color scheme like my own house in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. It is small but will do fine.
Being picky usually doesn’t have good consequences.
I come from a land of manana, and, making the most of where I find myself is my normal plan of any day.
Music is accessible.
You can be wearing a tuxedo and tails, coveralls, golf shorts, uniforms, diapers, or your birthday suit, and it sounds great. You can be wearing a wedding dress, a pearl necklace, spiked heels, a flimsy cocktail party dress, cowboy boots, turquoise earrings or a bikini and it sounds great. You can be white haired, bald, or a long hair and enjoy. You do not need to know how to read or write to get the rhythm right.
This afternoon a little girl stands in front of the Band with her father’s approving look and does an impromptu dance.
She can do worse than hang out with serious musicians wearing suits and swinging with intent.
There is her future ahead.
Possibly she will fall in love with a man who fits her and walk down the aisle with her father holding her arm to be given, with her father’s blessing, to a lucky guy? Possibly she will have happy children and a family? Maybe she will fall into a career that fits her abilities and interests?
This afternoon the band plays and people move into and out of the picture. Some tarry. Some show appreciation. Others barrel through the moment like ordnance in World War 1. Some try to avoid the camera.
Music speaks across place, time, people and ideology – in its own voice.
Sitting in this Albuquerque McDonalds feels like sitting inside the Diner in the 1942 Edward Hopper oil painting – ” Nighthawks. ”
Early this morning, Javier is busy cleaning this fast food franchise made of glass, plastic, tile, low voltage lights, lightweight chairs and tables, all under the ubiquitous corporate logo – M.
Javier works diligently, methodically, pulling tools out of his maintenance closet by the soft drink machines where homeless fill up yesterday’s paper cups with today’s free soda. He greets us in Spanish and opens the door at five when we queue for coffee.
Javier soaps his windows,then carefully uses a squeegee to remove the soap from the glass. He cleans his squeegee with a rag he pulls out of his back pocket. He looks for imperfections as he goes and his windows are a work of art.
Big business, some say, is good for America.
Big business, others say, has turned us into a plutocracy..
Edward Hopper’s painting seems comforting this morning, less stark than our present situation.
Clean windows in a dirty world are a thing of beauty.
When local rancher Mack Brazell found extraterrestrial debris on his ranch and reported it to the local Sheriff a Pandora’s box was opened.
The local Sheriff called the local Air Force Base and a whirlwind of misinformation, disinformation, cover up was begun.
The Roswell Incident is known around the world, and, at its epicenter, Roswell has a museum dedicated to UFO’s and alien visits from that summer of 1947.
On Sunday, when people should be in church, inquisitive souls browse this museum, watch a Hollywood movie on ” Roswell “, snap pictures to post to their Facebook page.
The story, as told, is one of an alien crash and dead alien bodies. Mack reported strange metal scraps strewn over the desert with strange inscriptions that were impervious to destruction and, when squeezed, returned to their original shape. A mortician reported small bodies with four fingers and large eyes. There were sworn deathbed statements that documented unearthly events.
Official reports promoted weather balloons.
It is a question of faith in the absence of facts. Participants in the event have died, committed suicide, or told survivors what they saw, or did, or knew.
I wrestle with thinking versus intuition.
The explosion of technology, after 1947, is significant. The automobile was still a youngster on the block.. Television was barely into living rooms of the most wealthy. Then, after 1947, you get exponential scientific breakthroughs.
What our government is working on, in secret, is beyond this planet.
Did Einstein sit up nights discussing the universe with green men?
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