You'd Better Belize It!

This is the tale of One Spenst and five Gilmours (Kevin, Erica, Nikki-9, Neve-7, Sadie-4) who traveled to the far reaches of civilization seeking high adventure.

From Ice Box to Frying Pan

And We're off!

The freezing Winnipeg winter weather that drove Erica to discover a little village school in the hills of Belize has suddenly transformed from a vague notion into an intense reality before us.  Just getting here we have discovered sleepiness, pain, adventure, heat, people and sights.  As with all good adventures this one started with its share of problems.  3:30 AM on our first morning Kevin was loading two taxis with all his family’s worldly belongings, when he tripped and dropped two steps with a 49 pound bag in his hand and landed on the concrete, bleeding with a badly twisted ankle.    As it turned out pushing Kevin around in wheel chairs helped us jump the queues (leave it Gilmour to find a way).   However, we caught two planes only to miss our third.  While the airport dude was wheeling Gilmour around, mocking him for faking his ankle to pick up girls, the valve on the airplane broke and they had to find a new plane.  This actually worked out well as we enjoyed a mini vacation in Huston compliments of United airlines.  We were all happy to catch a breather because no one slept well the night before.  The next morning we started with a Starbucks breakfast picnic on the airport terminal floor due to Kevin’s mobility issues.  It only cost us $45 for our airport coffee and muffins but luckily the airline was paying.

The Belize River looms large below as we come in for landing

Through the Looking Glass

So one day later than planned but feeling much more rested we made the last leg of our trip out over the Gulf of Mexico and finally the tropical rain forests of Mexico and Central America.  Who knew what all the research, stories and expectations would finally turn into?  The couple next to me on the plane said to be sure your car insurance is always good because there are police checks everywhere and no insurance means you go to jail.  This latter proved to be a fact.  Our first authentic experience came no later than our customs check where the guy decided that our 16 bags were worthy of a random search.  The end of this painstaking half-hearted process came up clean but then we were required to surrender our baggage carts and pay the porters, a minimum of 2$ according to the sign, to reload them on new carts and take them from there.  This translated into a ten meter walk through the next room to the curb  where the bags were dumped outside the airport so we could wait for our pick up.  Oh, and the 2$ was per bag not total.   Kevin ended up paying the grumpy porter something in the middle of his expectations and ours.  We had only minutes to take in the wall of heat now descending upon us, the mix of people, the sounds and smells before our hosts found us and welcomed us to Belize.  Rodney and Margaret from Blue Creek helped us load those 16 bags into two vehicles and we were off.

A Tale of Two Cities

It quickly became clear that we not in Kansas anymore as we drove past the racial mix of people living in everything from stilted hurricane shacks to charming tile roofed castles.  Taking the Northern Highway, which happens to be the only highway, road or path, Rodney frequently slowed his little pickup to a crawl for the non-stop speed bumps in every village and town we passed through.  This annoyed Rodney because his A/C only really works well when he has the truck up to 70 miles an hour.  I wasn’t sure that the speed bumps were as much for safety as to aid the local vendors in selling their wares.  They set up ramshackle huts selling everything from roadside tacos to a fine collection of well used clothing.  Vendors and hitchhikers.  Every other speed bump had a scruffy looking dude or dude with his family looking for a ride.

The Gilmour's front porch

John and Annie's coconut trees

A quick stop for lunch in Orange Walk, 2 hours quick, we’re on Caribbean time now, and we were heading down the last stretch to Blue Creek.  This road was awful.  But potholed, wash boarded and narrow, didn’t stop Rodney from flying down it to keep his A/C going, as he explained that the European Union has provided a grant to pave it but corruption has stalled the project with a lawsuit.  One hour, fifty kilometers, five poverty ridden Spanish villages and one sore spine later the undeveloped flatland savannah opened up to the lush cultivated hills of Blue Creek Belize.  To say the transition was dramatic would be an understatement.  First the pavement started.  The community paves its own roads.   As we climbed, climbed, climbed the escarpment we passed the mini hydro dam made by one of the farmers from the engine of a crashed airplane.  It used to be the only electricity in town.  School, church, a general store and many homes sit atop the hills to catch the breeze that rises from the plains below.   These neat white homes may not have been much in Canada but after what we’d just seen they looked the essence of civilization.  My hosts Annie and John live in a two storey home with a veranda wrapped around the second floor.  The view from the balcony outside my bedroom is nothing short of spectacular as the lights of San Fillipe and the Mexican village L’Union,  across the river, glow in the darkness down on the valley floor.  The biggest disappointment about Blue Creek might have been that, no, there isn’t so much as a puddle actually named Blue Creek?!!!

Ahhh, serenity.  The view from the veranda of my host family