Beyond ‘Temptation’ in Belize

I sat in the dark using a spoon to tear into a fat, juicy chunk of venison in rich black bean sauce. Alicia Sho, an 8-year-old descendant of the Mayas who reigned in the Western Hemisphere 1,300 years ago, studied by kerosene lamp nearby. Her mother, Matilde, and a 17-year-old sister formed flour tortillas over a clay hearth in the next room.

It was the end of my second day in the home of Emeterio Sho, a Mayan farmer whose wood-and-thatch house deep in the jungles of southern Belize had no electricity or running water. Earlier, as I bathed in a clear creek, I had heard mysterious sounds in the brush--were they jaguars? tapirs?--that added a bit of tension to my otherwise relaxing dip.

And the crew and cast from “Temptation Island” were nowhere to be seen.

Their loss. Belize, the former British Honduras, located largely on the Yucatan Peninsula, is more exotic and has more variety than its role as a backdrop for a “reality” TV show might suggest. Belizeans know the show portrays only one dimension of their country, but they also know it’s bringing exposure to a place that travelers often overlook. After each episode of “Temptation,” they say, Web sites for lodges and resorts record hundreds of new hits. The question the country now faces is whether it can reap the benefits of tourism without the drawbacks.

This narrow sliver of a nation, clinging to the northeast coast of Guatemala like a remora on the back of a shark, is Central America Lite: It has all the charm and culture of its neighbors without their poverty, crowds or political turmoil.

That’s what I found in four weeks traversing Belize, a country the size of Massachusetts but, with 250,000 people, less than half the population of Boston.

Few countries can claim this kind of variety: a long string of sparkling islands bordering the largest barrier reef this side of Australia, a rich forest alive with adventure activities and a fiercely protected jungle that boasts the world’s largest jaguar reserve. Yet few people know Belize. Last year the country had only 195,000 overnight visitors, compared with the 2 million who ventured down the road to Costa Rica.

The good news, for those who can’t recall their junior-high Spanish, is that English is Belize’s official language, although Spanish and Creole are also spoken here. Belize was part of the United Kingdom until it got its independence in 1981, so it’s still a young country, struggling with occasional growing pains.

I saw those growing pains on the second day when I took a 90-minute water taxi ride from Belize City, where I flew into, to Ambergris Cay, host of the “Temptation Island” cast and destination for 43% of all Belize visitors. As we docked in the main village of San Pedro, a man helped lead me to a hotel.

I didn’t have far to walk. San Pedro is wall-to-wall hotels. And dive shops. And bars. And T-shirt shops. And restaurants. Picture a scaled-down version of Baja’s Cabo San Lucas with a bad beach--a narrow strip of fine white sand leading to shallow water that’s accessible if you can squeeze between the docked boats--and you have San Pedro.

The three charming dirt roads can’t make up for the claptrap planning of a onetime fishing village that exploded with tourism in the late ‘80s. Today planeloads of Americans pour in, all but erasing any Caribbean feel. One day I walked into Fido’s, the bar-restaurant featured in “Temptation Island,” and saw two guys wearing 10-gallon cowboy hats and eating cheeseburgers.

The north end of the island, about two miles from San Pedro, is a little ritzier, and that’s where the cast of “Temptation Island” stays: Mata Chica for women and Captain Morgan’s for the men. Hurricane Keith closed Journey’s End Resort farther north, but it reopened Jan. 20.

Ambergris Cay does have its strengths. It has the best night life in Belize, and Keith (and Hurricane Mitch, in October 1998) did little damage to the coral reefs. The scuba diving and snorkeling are superb. I snorkeled at Shark-Ray Alley, a shallow reef where sharks and Southern stingrays are so used to daily feedings that nurse sharks greeted our boat like hungry puppies. I watched a 10-year-old boy snorkel among a dozen 6-foot sharks without incident. Just leave the feeding to the guides. A Japanese tourist reportedly tried it and lost a thumb.

On land, though, it’s hard to find Belizean culture. One night I went to a local hangout called the Shark Bar when the St. Louis chapter of the Jerry Jeff Walker Fan Club arrived and asked the bartender to put on country-western music. When the local reggae returned an hour later, the Americans left.

The next day, so did I.

T o see the real Belize, I hopped a bus in Belize City and headed west to San Ignacio, the capital of Cayo District, where the Maya Mountains and the 600-square-mile Mountain Pine Ridge Forest provide a playground for adventure sports.

The nation’s bus system is cheap, efficient and clean. My two-hour ride from Belize City cost $6, but the scenery was worth much more. I passed through grassy slopes toward a craggy mountain range where the palm trees grew bigger and thicker the closer I got to my destination.

Here is where you can canoe, swim or tube through caves, kayak down rivers, hike among Mayan ruins and ride horses in the mountains. And it was here that I made my white-water kayaking debut. Four of us joined guide Gonzalo Pleitez, who runs River Rats, on the Mopan River, where we launched kayaks on the forest-green water. If you know your left from your right, the kayaks are easy to maneuver. Even better, the inflatables are as comfortable as sitting in an inner tube.

As I shot through a wicked rapid, I saw a snowy egret and a crane fly over my bow and flashed past a tree where iguanas lazed on the branches; below them, locals did their wash on the riverbed. It was the consummate Kodak moment.

San Ignacio is the epicenter of Belize tourism. Here I met nature buffs, bird-watchers, even medical students following the herbal medicine trails, all passing one another on the town’s quaint streets or the forest paths.

The Mopan is a good example of how Belizeans value tourism: River guides hold regular meetings with villagers to discuss the importance of conservation. On my eight-mile trip down the Mopan, I saw exactly one piece of trash: a lone bleach bottle lodged against a rock.

The Belize Eco-Tourism Assn., or BETA, even has people cleaning up the highways. “It’s a voluntary thing,” Gonzalo said. “It’s about realizing the benefit of keeping your country clean. People in the Cayo District, I must say, are very in tune with their environment.”

From San Ignacio, I tracked back to Belize City, took a short flight to Dangriga and then a two-hour boat ride past the barrier reef to a tiny speck of an island called Southwest Cay at Glover’s Reef Atoll. This is the home of Manta Resort, a 12-acre island ringed with palm trees and a spectacular coral reef.

In my 18 years of diving, this was the best week of my life. I saw sharks, 9-foot moray eels, lobsters fighting, stingrays mating, puffer fish in full flight and an octopus. It was like a weeklong trip through the Discovery Channel.

After a morning of diving, I would sit in the hammock of my comfy cabana, which had two double beds and air-conditioning. Or I would play volleyball with the local fishermen or sit on the white, sandy beach. Of the half-dozen or so resorts in the keys, this is one of the best and certainly one of the most remote.

I could have stayed, but I still had one more stop before running out of Belize to explore. I bottomed out in Punta Gorda, about 20 miles north of the Guatemalan border, where I met Alfredo and Yvonne Villoria, a Hawaiian couple who set up Mayan home stays through their organization, Dem Dats Doin.

This sounded like an ideal opportunity to see Belize through its people, so I signed on. They gave me a few Mayan do’s and don’ts (do eat whatever is put in front of you, don’t take pictures without permission), then put me on a bus from Punta Gorda that sent me high into the lush jungle. In two hours the bus, half-filled with colorfully clad Mayas, dropped me off at a junction in the middle of nowhere, and the driver pointed the way up the dirt road.

I lugged my heavy backpack half a mile and soon came across a collection of a dozen large huts. This was Na Luum Ca--Mother Earth Village in Mayan--population 224.

A gaggle of turkeys and chickens greeted me at the Shos’ home, where I spent two days doing everything Emeterio, his wife and six children did: I bathed in the creek, used a crude cement latrine behind the house, slept in a hammock and ate their food (heavy on rice, beans, tortillas and eggs). Although the house was only about 20 by 50 feet, it never seemed crowded.

One morning, Emeterio and I walked 30 minutes through steaming humidity to San Jose, the only village in the area with a telephone. (The phone is solar powered; there’s one refrigerator in town, and it’s powered by gas.) This trip was comparatively short for him. He walks an hour to his farm each day.

Somewhere between my first luscious bath in the creek and a look at the sun setting over the jungle hills, I felt a pang of guilt. In a country so proud of eco-tourism, I had to ask: Won’t tourists eventually rub away the Mayan culture? My bill for two days’ room and board was $20. I asked Sho, a short, stocky 43-year-old with a stylish haircut and a quick smile, about this, and he shook his head and replied, “We have to make a steady living.”

I thought about this as I walked back to catch my bus back to Punta Gorda and, later that night, my plane to the U.S. The Mayas survived nearly 2,000 years, but can they survive this new wave of tourism? Perhaps that wave, with all it implies, is the price for tempting the world.

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GUIDEBOOK

Sampling the Variety of Belize

Getting there: From LAX, American, TACA and Continental fly nonstop to Belize City. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $460.

Where to stay: In Belize City, I stayed at the Great House, 13 Cork St., telephone 011-501-233-400, fax 011-501-233-444, Internet https://www.greathousebelize.com. A double at this classy colonial building on the harbor is $110 a night.

In Ambergris Cay, I stayed at the Spindrift Resort Hotel, tel. 011-501-262-174, fax 011-501-262-251, https://www.ambergriscaye.com/spindrift, in the middle of San Pedro. Doubles begin at $53, without air-conditioning.

In Cayo District, the Lodge at Chaa Creek, nine miles from San Ignacio, tel. 011-501-922-037, fax 011-501-922-501, https://www.chaacreek.com, is a luxurious resort spread over lush green grounds complete with spa. Prices begin at $165 for a double cottage. Jungle casitas are available for $50 a night.

In the mid-range, Maya Mountain Lodge, tel. 011-501-922-164, fax 011-501-922-029, https://www.mayamountain.com, is a quiet, low-key spot in the mountains with individual cabanas and well-lighted common areas with hammocks. Rates are $89 in a cottage with porch and $49 for rooms in a common building with private bath.

For budget travelers, Parrot Nest Lodge is tucked away in the jungle near the tiny town of Bullet Tree Falls. It has recently had phone problems and its telephone, 011-501-937-008, may not answer. Best bet may be e-mail, parrot@btl.net. Also check its Web site, https://www.parrot-nest.com. Individual huts on stilts in the trees with shared bath range from $25 to $37.50 a night.

In the southern cays, Manta Resort, tel. (800) 326-1724, fax (206) 463-4081, https://mantaresort.com, on Southwest Cay at Glover’s Reef, has packages ranging from $750 for kids younger than 12 to $1,295 a week for adult snorkelers, $1,495 for scuba divers and $1,995 for fishermen, including the respective activity and meals and snacks. Three- and four-night packages also are available.

For a Mayan home stay, contact Dem Dats Doin, P.O. Box 73, Punta Gorda; tel. 011-501-722-470. Cost is $5 per night and $2 per meal plus a $5 village registration fee.

Where to eat: In Belize City, try Fort Street, 4 Fort St., local tel. 230-116, for excellent Caribbean food served on a veranda in a colonial house. On Ambergris, I liked Mangoes, which offers daily seafood specials and has a lengthy menu of smoothies. In San Ignacio, I tried Serindib, 27 Burns Ave., tel. 922-302, which has Sri Lankan cuisine (the place is known for its curries), cheap prices and terrific service. Also in San Ignacio, Eva’s, 22 Burns Ave., tel. 922-267, has authentic Belizean dishes in a casual atmosphere and an international clientele.

For more information: Consulate General of Belize, 5825 Sunset Blvd., Suite 206, Los Angeles, CA 90028; tel. (323) 469-7343, fax (323) 469-7346. In Belize, the tourism board address and phone: New Central Bank Building, Second Floor, Gabourel Lane; tel. (800) 624-0686 or 011-501-231-910, fax 011-501-231-943, https://www.travelbelize.org.