sea breeze

(An excerpt from a “Central America and my Own Fantastic Heart of Darkness, Pt. 1”, a blog entry written from Antigua, Guatemala on May 15, 2015.)

I checked my oil. Made sure I had some cash. Arranged my documents in their dedicated plastic bags. And off I went to the "Free Zone" to ride out of Mexico and into Central America.

Accents changed. Skin color changed. Attitudes changed. So did everything else; even the quality of the air was different as was the color of the sea. The first thing I noticed was how incredibly laid back and funny everyone was, open and ready to invite you into conversations, to get to know you as well as possible even if time was short. 

The border fumigation guy, for instance (if you ride or drive a vehicle it must be hosed down with insecticide to impede the dropping of unwanted non-native creatures onto Belizean soil). Stationed in a little worn-out hut with crumbling white paint, he sprayed down the bike, took my payment and told me the story behind an enormous cherry-stained casket occupying about half the interior of his hut/office.

"Don't worry, nobody's in there," he said. He explained, casually, that there are taxes levied on coffins as imported goods, and that the owner couldn't or wouldn't pay them. So they took the body out and proceeded into Belize, leaving the massive ugly wooden structure behind. "Someday they'll come back for it, probably," he said with a shrug.

My hotel, the Sea Breeze, was run by a Welshman and fellow drifter who put me up in his "budget room" with cornflower blue walls and bad tropical seascape paintings, a private bathroom with a hot shower and a view of the sea you could just make out if you cranked your head in the right angle. Across the street is a white painted pier that disappears into the horizon. The water beneath it feels a bit like the inside of one's own body.

I met people left and right in Corozal. Crusty expat retirees from England, Canada, Germany and Texas. A young and hysterical Rastafarian with whom I got drunk my first night in the country. A posse of guys from the island of San Pedro who practically picked me up off the street, inviting me to have lunch with them at a bar overlooking the sea. And of course, Gwynn, the owner of the Sea Breeze. He let me cut his hair. And with that came two hours of stories I won't repeat here out of respect for the man's privacy…but I won't be forgetting them any time soon.

To get to Sarteneja, you ride along 30 miles of dusty backroads that follow the winding northern Belizean coast, with two ferry crossings powered by hand-cranked moving platforms. It’s one of those rich riding experiences where the dust on your gear is worn like a badge of pride. It’s so hot and humid it mixes with the sweat on your skin to create a muddy paste. In patches, the hard-packed caliche turns to soft sand, and when a truck passes, visibility is reduced to zero…so it took me some time.

Sarteneja is a tiny fishing village on a long peninsula that projects out into the Caribbean Sea from the northern Belizean coast. The fish are dwindling, as they are everywhere else in the world - but the economy clings to life, thanks to a little bit of dry season tourism, brought by ferries that run between here and Corozal. It’s sleepy, creaky and quiet, all hand-built cabanas and thatched roofs, insects and black mold, faded peeling pastel paint, and half-built boat carcasses lounging by the seaside. I arrived on a weekday afternoon, and people were inside, hiding from the heat. But when the sun started to go down, people came out, so I rode up and down the streets and made some friends.

Estrella del Mar was the only joint I could find open. They had cold beer and of fish for sale, including deep fried barracuda (which someone told me later frequently carries something called ciguatera, which poisons nervous systems - but I’m happy to report my limbs are all still intact - and it was delicious). Here I met Leticia Paulina Alas, who’d just turned 15 - and got a motorcycle for her birthday… yeah, that’s right. A motorcycle. The ultimate rite of passage for girls in this part of the world.

Her family were all sitting around a table and were happy to talk to me about the state of things in the town. They told me a little about Belizean schools, and how hard it is for kids from impoverished families to get educations. Lety’s school, Sarteneja Baptist High School, was holding a raffle for needy kids to try to offset the high cost per year for tuition, books, uniforms, and lunches. Primary education is free in Belize. But secondary schools are private, run mostly by religious organizations - which doesn’t bode well for bringing people out of poverty.

I went looking for the high school and tacked the first piece of art for ISFB2015/3 to its front wall, on a hand-painted map of the world. Erlindo Novelo, its principal, provided me with the tacks. Who knows, maybe this thing will be worth a little cash someday, and its sale will pay for a few tuitions.

I spent my last day in Belize hauling ass for the western part of the country, eager to get to Guatemala and leave my beloved English-speaking comfort zone behind. On the way, I nearly wiped out again in a patch of sand; got lost in the city of Orange Walk, distracted by a pile of vehicles - twisted primer grey carcasses tangled in years of weeds; saw prison inmates working cornfields in orange jumpsuits, separated from the highway by one thin chain-link fence; and everyday people in stores, gas stations, or with animals on the roadside, just trying to survive the hundred-degree heat for another day.

Just trying to survive…