Basking in Belizie

You’ve gotta love a country where the post office doesn’t sell stamps. Being a good friend/tourist, I’d bought post cards the day after I arrived in Belize. I am still to send them – though not for a lack of trying.

Staying on a tiny Caribbean island about an hour’s boat ride from Belize City, I was in heaven. Caye Caulker is made up of about 5 or 6 sandy streets. Most wooden hostels and hotels are on the beach, and many – like mine – have a few hammocks under palm trees where you can take a rest from the 10 metre walk from your bed to the ocean.

The attitude reflects the island too. “You’d better Belize it man” is the nation’s tourist slogan, and they really are that cool. ‘Hey mun, you’re in paradise mun’ a cool as f*@k Caribbean man greeted me as I stepped off the bus in Belize City. He was right too – the reggae beat to the nation reflects the laid back attitudes, and somehow adds to the beauty of the place.

The laid back attitudes do extend to service though. I don’t like to admit it, but I’m really not patient enough to handle backpacking in random places sometimes. (Liz, maybe I could attend teacher training with you to grow a bit of patience??) After years of travel, I’ve trained myself to expect bad, slow, or non existent service. Drinks can take half an hour to arrive, food – sometimes and hour and a half. You can’t really complain though when you’re sitting on a swing under a palm tree as a gentle breeze tames the harsh Caribbean sun.

What I’ve never come across, in all my years of travel to random corners of the globe is a post office that doesn’t sell stamps. That’s taking ‘laid back’ to a whole new level. Trying to be organised, I bought a few post cards and wrote them while I waited for friends to finish shopping. As they were clearly going to be a while purchasing random stuff, I thought I’d wander up to the post office. After strolling a couple of blocks in the harsh midday sun, I was glad to find the small door covered in lists of names of locals who had mail to pick up. When I wandered in and asked how much a stamp costs, the one staff member simply shrugged and said “We don’t have stamps. We might get some in a few days, I dunno”.

Usually that lack of organised service would piss me off. But in Belize, I found it so ridiculous – so in tune with the atmosphere of the island – that I started laughing. And the lovely Caribbean lady joined me for a giggle too.

As you may be able to tell from reading this, I did very little in Belize. Most of my time was spent lying around. Number one location for lying around was ‘The Split’ – a point where the island was ‘broken’ in half by a hurricane about 40 years ago, and now is the best swimming beach on the island, complete with bits of concrete to sunbake on (I think it was an old pier), or jump off for a swim if you felt the sunbaking was getting a bit too much.

Number two location for lying around was one of the many hammocks scattered around the island. It’s very possible to spend your entire day in a hammock on Caye Caulker. You can go to restaurants with hammocks, bars, even laze on a hammock tied to a pier above the warm, pale green seas. A good book is necessary of course, but what I found most enjoyable about the place was the friendliness of everyone. I met two cool chicks (22 and 24 year old commercial pilots … made me feel a bit inadequate) within about 20 seconds of arriving, and the rest of the time was spent just hanging with awesome people.

As I write this I think I might chuck in my plans for Canada … Belize sounds much more fun.