A Better Side of Belize

Forget the beaches, the jungles, and the ruins: Belize’s people are its star attraction. A bizarre conglomeration of indigenous Maya, Caribbean Africans, British settlers, and Chinese grocers* in my limited experience each and every one of them is a friendly as the day us long. So here´s my way of thanking (and remembering):

• Melva, who walked with my from the bus stop to the hostel because she was sure I wouldn’t be able to find my way [in the end she was right: I wouldn’t]
• Daniel the ferryman who ferried me, alone, across the Mopan river so I wouldn’t have to walk the extra mile and a half to the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich
• Philip, Michael, and Jan, a couple of locales I met at the swimming hole in Guanacaste Park near Roaring Creek
• The unnamed man who gave me a free lift in the back of his truck to the Belize-Guatemala Border. [Consider that my first and hopefully only experience with what was inadvertent hitchhiking].
I can honestly say that these are some of the nicest people on earth and I´ll be sorry to see them go. Still, their country, beautiful though it may be, is much to expensive for little ol´ me so Guatemala here we come!


*If you think the United States in the midst of a linguistic identity crisis, you should come on down to Belize, where everyone tries to speak the official English when necessary but normally uses some combination of it, Creole, Spanish, and Chinese!