Dangriga Archives - Laura Zera

Travel: Gilligan’s Island in Belize

Sometimes it’s easier than you think to get away from the crowds. While most vacationers stick to the islands in Belize’s Ambergris or Central group, head a little further south and an absolute jewel awaits you. Tiny Tobacco Caye is just 30 minutes by boat from the coastal town of Dangriga, and yet to visit it feels like you’ve landed somewhere completely off the charts.

Escape!Continue Reading

From Belize to Honduras by Water Taxi

By Laura Zera Leave a Comment

And a big ol’ taxi it was: there must have been about 20 people onboard! But again, I sat down and found myself facing the ever-present sign, “In God We Trust.” I wanted to say, “Yo Captain, I’m trusting in you, okay, to get this dang boat to the other shore. Show me what you’ve got.”

Argh, it was a long travel day on Feb.4^th. This blog post is full of practical details for other travelers doing the same route, though.

The available verbal, written and online information on the departure time of the Nesymein Neydy varied between 9, 9:30 and 10 a.m. I showed up at 8:30 to get a ticket and hand in my passport for immigration. The boat, however, didn’t leave until 11:30. Apparently, that’s a normal delay.

One passenger attempted to take an eight-week old pit bull puppy with him. “You allowed to do that?” I asked, as his puppy’s head popped out between the top flaps of the cardboard box in which he was being transported. “I think so,” was the answer I got. The pit bull never made it on to the boat. I’m still not sure if that was a good thing or not: stay with clueless owner that keeps you in a box, or stay with unknown person for unknown length of time until clueless owner can retrieve you. If I was the puppy, I would have made a break for it.

We pulled up to Puerto Cortes, Honduras at around 2:45 that afternoon, and a good chunk of the passengers went over the bridge and around the corner to the bus stop. The downer about wanting to travel the northern coastline of Honduras is that you can’t! There is no road. (Same with trying to get from San Pedro Sula straight to the Guatemala border: must go through Puerto Cortes).

And hence the bus portion of the day began. I got a collectivo to San Pedro Sula (SPS), but despite many attempts at asking, it was still unclear to me from which terminal the bus to Tela left – I think there are a couple. Finally, the man sitting next to me jumped up and said, “Here!” He escorted me off the bus and two blocks down the street to the correct bus station. I really don’t know if my stop was his stop, but he sure helped when I needed it!

Unfortunately, at that time of day (about 5 p.m.), there were no more direct buses to Tela, so I had to get one bus to El Progreso, and then another to Tela. Bear in mind that these are the repurposed Blue Bird school buses, packed to the gills, and I had to stand for a long while on the last bus. I also hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so was getting a little bit weary.

Following about 100 paces behind me and my gentleman escort (who eventually went on his way) was another Canadian, a fellow named Curtis that had started out from Dangriga that day as well. Once he caught up to me, we rode the rest of the way to Tela together, arriving at about 7:30 p.m.

Our first two attempts to find a hotel room were a fail. It was Friday night, and Tela is the place where Hondurans from SPS get away for their beach weekends. On our third attempt (at the Hotel Sinai, based on our taxi driver’s suggestion), we got lucky. My room was cramped, mostly clean, and $15 USD. The rooms without private bathrooms were $12.

Curtis decided to shower and hit the sack, so I went out for a little wander to find some food. Tela has a reputation for being a little dodgy at night, so I only took a couple of dollars in my pocket and my room key, and off I went. The streets were so empty that it was a bit unnerving, and almost no businesses were open. I felt better when I reached the Central Square area and saw a group of people practicing Honduran folk dancing in the lobby of the City Hall building.

After going a couple of blocks further I found three or four basic restaurants. I bought a deep-fried thingy (have yet to find a name or description for it online) from the front counter of one and ate it as I walked back to watch more folk dancing. I was thus far underwhelmed with Tela, though, and hoped that it would look a lot more inviting during the day.

Tobacco Caye, Belize

By Laura Zera 1 Comment

Still in Dangriga, down to the Riverside Café I went, in search of breakfast, Wi-Fi, and Captain Doggy. I found him in the Café’s kitchen, making his own breakfast. We ate, waited for a bit to see if any other people would turn up for a lift to the Caye, then left mid-morning.

As soon as we cleared the shallow waters around the mouth of the river and were into the sea, Doggy asked me if I wanted to drive the boat. “Here, you go like dis, and then to speed up you go like dat, and to turn it’s like dis and like dat.” I took over control of the outboard motor and did a fairly fine job for the next twenty minutes or so until my hand started to cramp. Dats when the Captain took the boat back.

The closer we got to Tobacco Caye, the bluer the water. I got the same perma-grin on my face that I had both times that Francis and I went to Fiji; to be surrounded by blue sky and turquoise blue water makes me feel absolutely giddy. Doggy zigged and zagged through the mangroves very Miami Vice-style, which made me giggle even more. When we finally pulled up to Tobacco Caye, it was exactly what I’d hoped for: a round lump of sand and palm trees totaling 80,000 square feet. It didn’t matter where I was standing, I could see water on both sides.

I stayed at Gaviota, and scored what I considered the best cabana of all. It was built on stilts over the water and had a little porch with a couple of Adirondack chairs, and an unobstructed view. I had to use the shared bathroom, but that was okay, because for $25 USD a night, the deal included all of my meals. There were hammocks, lots of birds and palm trees, and a couple of really nice folks running the place. Happy, happy, happy.

Doggy Dog gave me two options: come out with him and another family of six to do some snorkeling off the boat that afternoon for $12.50 USD, or wait until the next day and he’d come back to the island at around 2 pm and take me out alone for free. I said, “Let’s do both!” As it turned out, Doggy ended up taking us all out again the next day for free. This was perfectly fine with me because the family (American-Belizean husband Miles and Belizean wife Susie) had two completely adorable kids that even warmed the cockles of my black and childless heart. The kids’ granddad and his buddy were down visiting from California, and they added some interesting stories to the whole mix.

The snorkeling was great: schools of gigantic fish, lots of colorful coral, and calm and clear water.

Susie did a fine job at her first attempt at fishing, and reeled in three or four barracudas and a snapper or two on the first afternoon, all of which she cooked on a borrowed grill later that night.

When I wasn’t in the water, I spent the rest of my time either in a hammock, or on my little deck, listening to the water and to my favorite new bird, the boat-tailed grackle, master of mimicry. Meals were served at picnic tables, so all the guests (just me and the other family) ate together. I slept very soundly in my little cabana, with the breeze coming through my open windows and the Caribbean sounding just like the ocean setting on my Homedics Sound Spa machine at home.

If it weren’t for the fact that the boat from Dangriga to Puerto Cortes, Honduras only runs once a week, on Fridays, I would have stayed longer. By 4 p.m., we’d shoved off for our run back over to the mainland.

Dangriga, Belize

By Laura Zera 2 Comments

A lot of people come to San Ignacio, Belize to go on outdoor excursions, e.g. cave trips, rafting, etc. I used it only as a stopover on my way to Dangriga, on the coast. I might have stayed longer had I jived with the vibe of the place, but I didn’t, so I kept on going.

To get to Dangriga, I had to first get a bus to Belmopan, Belize’s capital city. That was a pretty short trip, maybe an hour or so. I can’t remember exactly, because I was fixated on the John Oates lookalike (circa 1984) that was on the bus. We must have had some kind of karmic attraction because we cracked heads as we were walking into the terminal in Belmopan. After that, I could suddenly remember all the words to all the Hall and Oates songs that ever got air play. It was a dream come true.

I waited for my next bus for about an hour, and it was prime people-watching time. A stout little boy of about nine or ten was circling the terminal, selecting victims to hit up for a dollar. He passed by three times before he finally asked me. I looked at him and said, “Why are you going around asking everyone for money? You don’t need the cookies anyway. They’re not good for you.” He paused for a moment, and then sidled away and on to the next person. There’s a sucker born every minute, as they say, and over the next little while I saw him stop by the concession counter three times to purchase mini Snickers bars.

Meanwhile, a Mennonite family had come in to the terminal. Talk about sticking out! Father in his round-brimmed straw hat, mother in her kerchief, and three blond tow-headed boys with their matching green shirts buttoned up to the top underneath their navy coveralls. I later learned that there’s a Mennonite community settled along the Hummingbird Highway (and probably in other places, too). They farm, and run a dairy, a bakery, and other small businesses.

My admiration for photojournalists has been steadily growing on this trip. There have been so many times when I missed a great shot – either didn’t have my camera out, or took a picture but failed to capture the moment — or haven’t wanted to try to sneak a picture out of fear of upsetting the subject or showing disrespect. But man, so many of life’s little moments are picture-worthy.

Dangriga was hot, and I had a hard time finding a room in my desired price range. Everything was either too rustic (I’m past the dorm stage of my life) or way overpriced. I stumped around to five different places before collapsing in a puddle of sweat at Pal’s Guesthouse. My $32-a-night room wasn’t all that great inside, but it was right on the beach and had a lovely little veranda from which I could take in the sunset.

The town itself was what I would call ‘authentic.’ There wasn’t much in place just for the sake of tourism, and the main street was made up mainly of grocery stores, medical clinics, hardware stores, banks, and a few basic restaurants. The grocery stores were all run by Chinese immigrants. I always find it interesting how pockets of immigrants settle in random places. I guess there are business opportunities everywhere.

When I asked around for wireless, I was told that the only option was an internet café (which I later learned was false – Riverside Café has it!), so I stopped in there at about 5 p.m., and was amazed at the length of the queue. As it turns out, it’s the place where the kids come to do their school assignments. The school teachers give the café manager a list of the current assignments, so when the kids come in, they just say, “Ms. Smith’s class, the assignment on the history of Belize,” or whatever. (Not that I could understand the Creole/Garifuna-speaking kids!). The café manager finds a file and prints it out for them. They later get it signed off to show that they were there to do the work. I also passed by some kids doing their homework at about 6:30 p.m., sitting out on the front lawn under a street lamp. It reminded me of the lyrics from the Dave Matthews Band song Funny the Way It Is – “Funny the way it is, if you think about it. One kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out.”

Walking in from the bus station when I first got to Dangriga, a guy in a white pick-up truck with some pretty fancy braids in his hair had pulled over and called out, “Hey, are you going to Tobacco Caye?” “Probably,” I said. He introduced himself as Captain Doggy, boat operator, and gave me the rundown — $35 USD round-trip for the trip out, and a place on the Caye called Gavriota where $25 would get me a cabana on stilts over the water (shared bathroom), and included all my meals. The two backpackers that Doggy was taking to the bus terminal nodded enthusiastically as espoused the awesomeness of it all, and so I said, “sign me up!”

I was to meet him at the Riverside Café later that night to finalize it, but it turned out that I didn’t need to as he passed me on the street again a few hours later and we figured out the rest of the details. The Lonely Planet described Tobacco Caye as a Gilligan’s Island, and Lord knows I sure do loves me a good hammock.