Chicken Bus Tour of Belize

It was great to get out of Mexico! I bet there are beautiful parts of Mexico filled with very kind people. However, the Yucatan strip of beaches from Cancun to Playa del Carmen-Cozumel and beyond was really not that enjoyable or an authentic cultural experience. More like resort strip hell. Mexico´s biggest industry is tourism and they are professionals at milking every gringo for as much as possible. The friendly people were usually doing so to exploit you later. This lack of trust of everyone got real old real quick.

Belize put our Mexican experience into light. The tourism industy is growing fast and they are learning the gringo-milking skills but there is a little more trust. Perhaps because they speak English for the most part, it was easier to get to know how these people live their lives. We opted to stay away from the big resort areas and chose Tobacco Caye to spend a week on the beach. This was a 5 acre island 20 km off shore. We chose this place because of its size-intimacy but also because the snorkeling was accessible right off the beach. We were in the middle of the second largest natural reef in the world and as soon as you stuck your head under water you knew it. We enjoyed the biodiversity of fish, coral, rays, dolphins, sharks, and creepy crawly invertebrates much more than our Mexican adventures. And it was reasonably cheap.

Rachel and I showed up on the island without making prior reservations and quickly found out there were no vacancies. THANK GOD FOR OUR CAMPING GEAR. We even brought over food and water supplies in preparation for such an event. One of the locals, who had grown tired of pandering to all the tourists, had set up his place for self-sufficient people. The island is so small that there are no restaurants and most people have all inclusive deals... meals and lodging. So we scored some points with our self-sufficiency and gained access to the local community. We gained so many insights... it will be hard to recount them all. One biggie, which relates to our experience in Mexico, involves the conflict of local sustenance, ecotourism, and biological preservation. These people live off the sea. Few of them snorkel for fun. They hunt for their food and eat most meals directly from the sea. Thus, they have a very different relationship with the ocean than tourists. We began to understand the reason why the experience was so cheap... these people don´t completely rely off the tourists yet! They can fish and do just fine. And really, if they didn´t have to feed all the tourists, the system would be a lot more sustainable. They wouldn´t need to harvest so many fish. So in essence we felt like we were witnessing the early stages of the evolution of the Cancun and Cozumel we didn´t enjoy so much. As soon as the government starts restricting the fishing (the wheels are in motion) the more the people will rely on sucking the blood-money of grigoes.

On a happier note, we became such good friends with our host that he gave us the keys to his house for three days. Mr. P was a farmer back on the mainland and had to check on his crops and family. Mr. P shared a vision of good neighboring and community involvement that I had only read in books. Indeed, the more we travel the more its like going back in time... when the communities were more interwoven and people relied on each other. Mr. P would bring his crops on the island and gave them away freely. He would also share some finances from his gringo visitors. In exchange, his neighbors would give him extra fish when they brought in good yields. Rachel and I caught onto this vibe and wanted to contribute something. We had brought along some walkie-talkies and decided to give them to Mr. P. He said that such things are hard to come by and very expensive in Belize and that they would be helpful on his farm. In exchange for our kindness, he surprised us later in the week with the keys to his house and thus water supply (water is the big commodity on the island as they have a narrow window to collect it off their roughs during the rainy season). Later in the week we found out his neighbor was an old-school cottage industy doll maker and so we commissioned a doll of Mr. P as a parting gift.

"Señor P"

Other crazy Belize stories largely revolve the madness behind the bus system. The chicken buses didn´t really have chickens much to our disappointment... but they did pack the people on them like hen house chickens. We quickly found that the early bird gets to sit down on the bus. When the bus arrives to the bus station, it becomes a free-for-all to get on and find a seat. Rachel and I ended up sitting on top of our luggage in the very back of the bus and were lucky at that. We would continue to place wagers of how many more people could fit on the bus at each stop and were amazed at how all the people standing up in the aisle of the 1970´s school bus would crunch together to create a little more room. As soon as the bus starts rolling... the reggae stats pumpin´ and all is good, mon.

This doesn´t begin to show the madness...

Adios until Guatemala...