I'm in the office of Sam Tillet's Hotel in Crooked Tree in northeastern Belize. We've been here 3 nights and will leave for Belize City tomorrow. Steve and I had to go through the despicable george bush international airport in Houston on the detestable continental airlines. I recommend you avoid both. The airport in Houston was closed the day before we went through there due to a storm, and there was chaos for the next few days. We arrived in Belize City, and got in line with dozens of other travelers to make a lost baggage claim. None of our luggage or camping gear had arrived. We do not travel light, and feel very attached to every item in our bags. We dreaded the idea of having to buy all new clothing and camping gear. Fortunately, the guided tour doesn't start until Tuesday, so we have 4 days in Crooked Tree to wait for luggage.
Sam Tillet is the most famous birder in Belize, which is why I chose to stay here. He grew up on the property where the hotel is located. There were 11 children in his family and 13 cousins lived next door. Crooked Tree is a remote village of 900 souls located on an island in the middle of a large lake. Most of the houses are cinder block, or poorly constructed wood frame. It's not unlike the poorer parts of Tucson, except the frame houses are on stilts. It is one of the best birding spots in Belize.
The hotel is rustic, built on stilts in the old style of hairy bamboo. We have a palm-thatched roof in our bedroom, which is on the second floor off the balcony. Coconuts trees flank the stairs up to the balcony.The first night here, we awoke to the sound of growling, hissing, crashing and thrashing. Possums were doing battle on the roof. The second night, Steve woke to feel an animal on his head. He brushed it off, and it jumped back on. He got his flashlight and tried to figure out what it was. He couldn't find it. He thought it was a frog, but it may have been one of the geckos that are running around on the ceiling. They look exactly like the geckos in Tucson, but they can bark. Last night the possums were at it again. We wonder what sort of wildlife activity to expect tonight.
There is a lovely deck outside the dining room. There are picnic tables on the deck, and the field beyond has flowering plants and trees that attract an incredible variety of birds. You could spend your whole vacation on the deck and have a fabulous time. In one of the trees is a gigantic green iguana, about 4 feet long. He is bright orange, and his wife is brown, but their babies are bright green, so that is how they get their name. He is one of the most spectacular beasts I have ever seen. He has thin, 2" orange spikes coming out of his back. He has a huge black and white wattle under his chin with small grey spikes along the edge of that. He also has a few small spikes sticking up on top of his nose just for show. His 2' tail is black and orange bands. Mostly he just lays there at the top of the tree looking magnificent, but occasionally he bobs his head up and down and shakes the upper branches of the tree. He rids the tree of intruders that way. The locals eat the females ("bamboo chicken") and their eggs, but no one eats the males. No one will say why. They just repeat, NO one eats the males.
Two nights ago was the village Christmas tree re-lighting ceremony. The village’s first Christmas tree ever was installed in front of someone’s house across from the community center a few days ago. It was decorated with tinsel and strings of electric lights. The villagers awoke the next day to find that cows had eaten the first tree, and two of the cows had Christmas lights tangled in their horns and they were butting each other. Nobody knew that cows ate pine trees. The villagers tried again with a 5' pine decorated with tinsel, shiny garlands and a star. This time they closed the gates to the fence around the yard, because the cows just wander around the roads. As of yesterday, the tree was still standing. There was a skinny black Santa with a cotton beard on hand to hand out gifts to the children.
It is strange to hear Jingle Bell Rock and Blue Christmas playing real loud on the villagers’ boom boxes. Last night, in addition the possum warfare, we were entertained (not really) until about 2 AM by the sound of karaoke from the bar. Disgraceful mangling of Patsy Cline and Hank Williams tunes, plus deserved destruction of Kenny Rogers songs. The locals are descended from African slaves. They are mostly very black-skinned. They speak Creole, which is supposedly something like English, but we can rarely catch a word of it. Chewed up words and slang. For example,
"If you kyaa hear, you haffu feel"
Literally: If you can’t hear, you have to feel.
Meaning: Experience teaches those who won’t learn in any other way.
It’s fun to listen to it, and I expect the Creoles like talking about the tourists in front of us. The children learn Creole in school. If they want to go beyond 6th grade and learn proper English, they have to go to private school at the cost of US$2,000 per year. Obviously, very few children do that, so their employment opportunities are limited to fishing and raising cattle and chickens.
The hotel manager is a charming young man about 22 years old named Efrain. He was born in El Salvador, but he and his parents moved to Belize when he was an infant. He has skin the color of iced coffee, a diamond earring, and hair and eyebrows dyed orange. He's very friendly and speaks English with a nice accent. He learned Spanish at home, and Creole in school, so he switches easily between languages. He was one of the lucky ones who got to go to private school. He says the reason they don't teach proper English in the public school is the teachers are lazy, and most don’t know anything but Creole anyway. The government is too cheap to insist on hiring English speaking teachers. He says the government is no good. He also told us that when we see large, fancy houses, we can be sure they are owned by one of the following: politicians, rich Americans, or pastors.
I guess I had better try to send this before the computer crashes.
