Mr Flowers and the bank problem

Greetings friends –

I left you just as I was about to board a flight to the little known country of Belize.  What’s the capital of Belize? That’s right – ‘B’. 

This flight was quite turbulent in places and amidst all the complimentary drinks and cute bags of pretzels, I don’t know how a huge number of spillages were avoided. 

As befits, I slept for a significant chunk of the journey – I’m great company on a journey.  This time I was not sitting beside a pilot with a sense of humour bypass.  Instead I was sitting next to a lady who smiled sweetly but wouldn’t give me any clues as to which language we might be able to even exchange a few words in – right at the end, she said ‘Taiwan’ and assured me that her mother was in Belize.  This all made perfect sense to me (!) – I think perhaps she was on a secret mission – well, it was secret.

I filled in my customs form but couldn’t work out how many Belize dollars equated to US dollars, so wasn’t sure if I needed to declare my purchases from the US – a little tank and a year’s supply of earrings, not exactly headline news, but you can’t be too careful these days.  Immigration officials around the world don’t have the best sense of humour, in my humble experience, so I didn’t even try to humour them.  Things are certainly better now than when I travelled round West Africa in 2002 – ‘Hey – I will stamp your passport if I can also take you as my wife?’ Fortunately, I was always creative in my responses, describing the house-sized husband awaiting me in whichever place I was heading to; this only got me into trouble once – in Djenné in Mali, when a full description of my husband was requested; I gave this with great certainty, then was categorically assured that no-one matching that description had arrived in the village that year (and it was August).  Fortunately two Polish men turned up, one of whom was the husband I had described.

Once I had cleared immigration, disappointed that my lovingly transported yellow fever certificate was not even mentioned, let alone requested – I found out on the way to get an updated yellow fever jab (£70) that the jab now lasts forever – so the one I had in 1998 didn’t stop working in 2008, it is still working.  The science of this perplexes me, but I won’t overthink it.  I do remember the inoculations bit of biology as that was one of the few bits that I found mildly interesting – I did wonder how the antibodies could think, “well it’s 2008 now, we’re done with this – let’s retire” - then change their minds and decide to stick around forever.  Maybe the union got involved, who knows.

I grabbed my trusty backpack, seriously impressed that it too had made its way through two flights and back onto my back. 

I didn’t really need to bring a huge backpack – I should have shoved what I need into my tiny rucksack and sent the rest home.  I went round West Africa for two months with a change of clothes, Sunday church clothes, wet-wipes, a tiny pot of Marmite, some dental floss (invaluable as stronger than cotton and also makes good washing lines) and my penknife (which I managed to accidentally leave in my hand baggage at the end of a Guide trip to Slovenia in 2017, so had to surrender it there – it had only been to 30+ countries with me, so had no massive sentimental value or anything….)  That was long before the blogging days began – back then I wouldn’t think twice about not checking e-mail for weeks – apart from the time that I went missing in Mali – which I maintain I did not realise – in my defence, at the time there was one internet café in Mali and it wasn’t working when I was there; I didn’t think much more of it.  I will never forget logging onto MSN Messenger (those were the days eh!) when I reached Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and my sister suddenly messaging – ‘where have you been?! We’ve been worried sick!’

I took a taxi to the port.  This was when I met Mr Flowers.  Mr Flowers is a taxi driver who had just come on shift – I was his first fare.  Unfortunately, his bank card seems to have been stopped and he spent most of the journey on the phone to the bank in a curious hand movement with his elbow perpendicular to his ear, via the operator, then the angry-sounding Mrs Flowers; I felt the anger through the phone and I was in the back of the car – I don’t think I’d like to meet Mrs Flowers, despite her misleading floral name.  Thankfully, the port was right next to the bank, and Mr Flowers was going to go straight there to sort everything out. 

I wandered along to the ticket office and purchased myself a return ticket to an island called San Pedro.  I had not heard of San Pedro until ten days ago, when I was looking for a quirky place to stay in Belize, which would generate a donation for easyfundraising – yes really.  Well, Sandbar Hostel and Restaurant is the place – bookable via Hostelworld.  I had booked a dorm room but decided to upgrade on arrival to my very own room which as well as having a door, has a tiny bathroom, a fridge and a coffee machine! 

The Belize Water Taxi was a quirky 1.5 hour cruise from Belize City port, and I obviously made a #WaterTaxiFriend of a similar age to me, who is mid-way through a Central American jaunt.  I was sitting opposite a lady who was carrying a bag of mangoes and a very large plastic rake – I usually take a very large plastic rake with me on my travels, but had not done so on this occasion.  I watched anxiously as a nearby local family fed their baby daughter plaintain crisps then proceeded to throw her into the air – and catch her, I hasten to add, which she seemed to enjoy, laughing and burbling – to me, the choking risk was palpable; the Guides did their First Aid badge last term, which covered choking, so I was subtly poised to swing into action but mercifully, this was not required. 

The Belize Water Taxi was a very smart and smooth operation – a team of men clad in uniform bottle-green t-shirts – almost Newstead-like (school joke that won’t mean much to most readers – apologies), so I felt quite at home.  How they got all of the luggage loaded into the boat with all of the passengers, and still managed to drive the boat, is beyond me.  There was a short safety briefing before we left, where one of the bottle-green men showed us how to don a life-jacket if needed – the jackets were wedged under two poles in the roof of the lower-deck where I was sitting – half had ‘Sally’ scrawled on them in black marker, the other half had ‘Michelle’ scrawled on them.  Bizarre.   

The boat stopped at Caye Caulker, which is another large island.  I was going to say ‘I think I’ve met her’, but have since found out that it’s pronounced ‘Kai Caulker’ and I haven’t met him.  I have seen on Twitter that there has been a Girlguiding NWE service project there in recent days – I wonder if we will coincide at some point.  I had to stop myself from packing a uniform t-shirt, just in case it was needed – I did tuck in a few promo leaflets though, just in case.   

Anyway, moving back to the present.  The place where I am staying is so close to the beach that it is practically in the sea.  It has its own jetty with places to relax, other little relaxation areas, a tiny swimming pool, and a quirky bar, which is where I am sitting now, sipping beer, which I only do when abroad, a bit like the Coke – fat Coke only when abroad – it’s the small things.

I went for a wander and it’s a great place, but the vehicle of choice seems to be the angry golf buggy – the streets are awash with golf buggy taxis; tourists can hire their own golf buggy taxi; I’ve seen whole families piled into them; they scoot at speed and hoot at anyone who gets in the way – I think the best place to walk is right beside the sea.

I went to a Mexican / Belizean place for dinner and made friends with the waiter who understood my need for the lid of a Coke bottle, because he collects corks! Ah yes, finally, a kindred spirit.  He prepared a delicious burrito for me and told me about his triathlon heroes – the Brownlee brothers.  He has competed in the Central American triathlon championships don’t you know!

I still can’t quite believe that I am here – ten days ago I was on google maps, working out what was a reasonable distance from California to have a little adventure after visiting my sister, now here I am watching golf buggies scoot past, their lights collided with that which is reflected off the water by the Falara bar and grill.  There is a curious cacophony of sounds from this and neighbouring establishments, plus children playing, clueless travellers discussing plans and tales, unfortunate karaoke nearby, a football match droning out of two screens, plus me tappity-tapping on Yoga. 

I feel that tomorrow I should do something unique which one can only do here… watch this space.