Who are those white man? (Belize)

Day 228
Km 16780

Returning to Mexico from Cuba I felt a bigger cultural chock than when I crossed the border between California and Tijuana in Mexico. Mexico looked now like a developed and modern Country.
The Cuban Airlines not only charged me an incredibly expensive charge of $70.00 for carrying my bike, but also had the audacity to lose one of my panniers forcing me to spend a whole week in what must be the less Mexican City of all Mexico: Cancun. It owns its existence as a supplier of services to the dozens of resorts located along the coast. Cancun is a kind of cloning process of an American city in the tropics that went wrong and without the colors and the character seen in other Mexican cities.
On the 5th day the pannier returned, apparently from a journey to Argentina. The long days of waiting changed my mood and I decided once more to alter my travel plans and cycle directly south towards Belize.
Three days later I was arriving in Central America. The bike Computer marked 16141 kilometers.
“Any fire arms?”-asked the border official looking at my “Burra`s” panniers. I was in the only British enclave of Central America and returning to English Spoken language. Returning to miles, feet, pounds and all those “strange” British measurements.
”Guns? No!”
He asked me to open my panniers. I took from one of them a plastic bag with half an onion that I did not use the previous night, when I camped in the middle of the jungle, two squashed bananas, a pack of pasta, a can of black beans and my spices kit. Convinced that I was not a dealer of weapons in two wheels he indicated with his hand that I did not need to take anything else from my luggage and told me to go.

I spent the two first nights in the border city of Corozal, absorbing the sounds and smells of the new country that I just entered. There was not much to do in the city other than speaking with the locals and follow the sound of Reggae music along the pavement by the water. If the wind was blowing in the right direction one could listen to a complete Bob Marley song during one’s stroll.
The River Hongo is the natural border between the two countries, and the differences between its banks are very visible. The music “Ranchera” was replaced by Reggae music, the relatively good roads of Mexico gave place to hole infested ones, and the beautiful Caribbean houses were made of wood standing on top of wood structures to protect them from the floods.

Garifunas and Creole communities, descendents of ship wrecked slaves, populate the whole coast while the Mayan descendents live in the mountains. One has the feeling that Belize was a Caribbean Island that got stuck in Central America.
There are also Chinese, Lebanese, Indians, Europeans and North Americans spread throughout the country. This mixture forms an “ethnographic cocktail” with a unique Central American flavor.
In this small country there is another group of inhabitants that stand out from the rest, at least to the visitor’s eyes. With very white skin, blue eyes, tall and strong, dressed like in the American colonization movies - they are the Mennonites, descendants of the settlers that left Germany on the 17th century. Until this days they still wear the same costumes and speak an old German dialect. There are Mennonites in the whole Continent, in particular in Canada, Belize and Uruguay.

In Belize there are three different communities and despite one of them having already embraced the technologies of the modern world, as it is the case of the community “Spanish Outlook” who use sophisticated tractors with air conditioning, for their farming (a massive contrast with the rest of the country who is still partially unmechanized), there are still those who follow strictly the traditions of their ancestors, as it is the case of the small community in Barton Creek in the Pine Ridge Mountains close to the border with Guatemala. The members of this community still use the horse as the main source for labored force; they do not use electricity, television, electrical appliances, motorcycle vehicles or anything that might be considered modern by their communities. Men build the wooden houses with their own hands and work in the farm fields. The women’s role is restricted to the house and the family. There is a third, more moderate community, which lives in the North of the Country in Shipyard. During my cycling journey in Belize I had the opportunity to know those three communities. A group of younger Mennonites, which I met on the road, seemed to be fascinated with my way of traveling.
“You are one of us”- one told me.
I knew well that it was not true, but in the days to follow I entertained my cycling thoughts imagining how it would be to live like them. Would I be able to renounce to all of the materialistic things? After all I have already renounced too many comforts and materialistic things to do this journey. While the whole world lives a blind race with technology, there are still some people who think and feel that technology is the cause of all evil and prefer to live a pure and simple life.

It is May, the hottest and driest month in all Central America. The heath is almost unbearable for a cyclo-tourist (especially those who carry 30 kilos of luggage). I opted to spend a few days resting in one of the many islands that can be found along Belize’s coast.
The Island of Caye Caulker is a small paradise, a place for backpackers and independent tourists that travel the Mayan trail between Guatemala and Mexico. It is relaxed and safe compared with the somewhat violent and aggressive city of Belize. Names like Tsunami Travels, Rasta Pasta Restaurant, Shark Tattoos and Mantra Tours, give a suggestive atmosphere to the laid back island with sand roads, where despite the inexistence of cars there are road signs saying -“go slow”. With the great Caribbean reef visible on the horizon and only 800 meters east, the snorkeling and scuba diving are the favorite activities. Many come only for a few days and end up staying for weeks.

The reefs reaches as far as Mexico to Honduras on the Atlantic coast of Central America. It is the biggest coral reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Backpackers, package tours tourists, sailors on sailing boats, cruise ships, millionaires looking for the perfect private island or even the odd cyclist, are all attracted by the magnetic appeal of the dozens of small islands that populate the Caribbean Sea in Belize’s coast.
On the islands the populations is largely Garinfuna or Creole and the Rastafarian culture and habits are still well alive. To listen to Reggae and smoke Ganja seem to be the favorite ways of spending time only surpassed by “Hammocking”, the number one “national sport”. The favorite places for “hammocking” are in the shadow underneath a three or under the houses built on stilts. However anyplace with shadow and a cool breeze seems to do the job. I once saw a truck driver stopped on the side of the road with his hammock stretched between the wheels of his truck having his nap. A few days before, another truck overtook me revealing on its back another “hammocking player” with his hammock placed between the roof on the back of the truck where a load of oranges was being transported. I could also see in the front, inside the cabin an enormous fan that resembled almost like a turbine of an airplane. It is certainly a more comfortable way to travel than seating in a load of oranges through a dusty road full of holes, where the drivers reach amazing speeds, however it requires a lot of practice to ”hammocking” so as not to be “spat out” of the truck!
Three days later I was on the road again. I was heading south trough “Manatee highway”, a road of red dust that crossed immense areas of jungle and the occasional farm land. The traffic was very sporadic, however, every time a truck drove by a cloud of dust would rise so high that everything would become invisible for a few seconds. The layers of dust were accumulating in my sweaty body and the infernal heath (43 degrees Celsius)caused an unbearable discomfort, I thought I would not be far from hell was it not for the soft breeze that blew at times.

That night I camped in the jungle. The further south I travel the jungle becomes denser, greener and bigger. The amount of sounds and noises during the night was overwhelming. It is purely fascinating to fall asleep inside my tent staring at the stars and to listen the sounds of nature (my tent has a window created by the mosquito net).
After two days eating dust in the roads of Manatee I arrive in Dandriga – a city with a port, just on time to catch the only daily boat to the small island of Tobacco. It was the return to the reef islands; however the small island of Tobacco was going to be unexpectedly different.
“Are you sure you want to take your bike?” - asked “Captain” Crock, the owner of the small motor boat.
“You can keep it in that house” – he said, pointing to a wooden house near the dock.
I knew that there were no roads on the island but I was not planning to separate myself from my travel companion.

Cayo Tobacco is a small paradise. A small island that rises from the reef barrier with two hectares of sand, two metres above sea level, covered in palm trees and with a dozen of wooden houses, most of them built on stilts. The 50 inhabitants come from 6 families and are all Garifunas. There are no shops, restaurants or grocery shops. There is one bar built above the water and were it not for the palm tree brunches you could enjoy a 360 degree view of the Caribbean Sea.
“Are you planning to go far with that bicycle?” –One of the locals that swung himself in a hammock hanged between two palm trees, asked.
With half of the island residents laughing on my account I pushed the bike through the sand, then I left it by a palm tree and went on by my own feet to explore the island.
I have visited many islands but I never had such a strong feeling of actually being in one as here. From the centre of the island there is a clear area with netball stringed between two palm trees. It did not matter what direction I took because it would not take me longer than 3 minutes to reach the sea. When the supplies of water, stored from the rainfall in massive black containers, ran out, “Captain” Crock would bring more from the city of Dandriga, as well as foods and other goods.
During the hurricane season (between June and October), the island is sometimes evacuated, one of the residents of this small paradise told me, since the waves submerge the whole island, as it happened with hurricane Mitch in 1998.
The “burra” seemed to be suffering of Agoraphobia and on the second day we returned to Dandriga and to the dusty roads.

A few days after I was cycling in Belmopan - the capital. A village with 8000 inhabitants lost in the middle of a plateau warm and dry, inside the country. It is a strange capital without character and with a deserted feel to it.
I am now in San Ignacio, a city located on the border with Guatemala. Soon I will be changing direction and cycle east.
I had enough of heath and beaches; I am ready to face the Mountains of Central America with its mild climate and altitudes above 2000 metres.
See you then, at the great volcanic mountains of Guatemala!

Nuno Brilhante Pedrosa
San Ignacio, Belize