Belize is a Beautiful Bust
I had been looking forward to our stay in Belize both for the farmhouse we had booked through Airbnb and for the opportunity to visit parts of the country we hadn’t reached on our vacation here about five years ago. Our previous trip had us visiting some of the Caribbean islands off Belize’s coast as well as the mountains in the west, not far from the Guatemalan border. This time we would be more in the southeastern area. Sitting on the scenic Hummingbird Highway about thirty minutes west of the coastal fishing town of Dangriga and about fifty minutes east of the capital, Belmopan, our Airbnb was well positioned to allow us to continue to enjoy a tropical jungle environment. Most importantly, it was reasonably close to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary.
Cockscomb is also referred to as the world’s only jaguar preserve and is home to the highest density of jaguars worldwide. While we didn’t see any jaguars on our hike up the tiger fern trail in the preserve, we did come across a fresh jaguar print on another trail just a few kilometers from our house. The tiger fern trail did end at the edge of an overlook with some outstanding views of the basin that all these jaguars call home. It also led to a pair of waterfalls that look like they came right out of a fairy tale.
Beautiful stone wall with built-in rock shelves in the bathroom. It may be rustic but it has a lot of character!
Despite the enjoyable hikes we had in our first few days here, we’re moving on after just a week. Our expectations for the house we rented turned out to be much too high. The house itself is very charming with lots of character. It’s small but comfortable and certainly adequate in size. However, this 1960’s-built home feels like it was constructed much longer ago, at least by US standards.
We knew the house would be rustic when we booked it and we weren’t expecting luxury by any stretch of the imagination. However, the house is built in a way that precludes any effective means of keeping pests out. Any house in the country—whether in Belize or Colorado, as we can attest—is going to struggle with pests. However, we weren’t prepared for the volume of crawlies we’ve encountered. One of Carrie’s first attempts at cooking dinner nearly ended in failure due to her constant battle with them. I’d guess that she must have squashed more than a dozen while trying to prep and cook the meal. Although that was the worst we’ve experienced here, we regularly come across roaches and other bugs all throughout the house.
To be sure, we’re not generally scared off by a few bugs, even roaches, now and then. We loved our place in Costa Rica in spite of spotting a millipede almost every evening and encountering two scorpions during our stay. But the frequency we’re seeing them here is indicative of something more than just “it’s an old house in a rural area.”
Good morning Mr. Cockroach. Sorry, I’m not sharing my coffee with you.
There are many other quirks that we ordinarily would chalk up to being part of the adventure of our travels: hot water only in the shower, a difficult to operate oven, a toilet you have to hold the handle down for ten full seconds to flush, etc. There’s a good chance we would have powered through these issues if not for Carrie’s bug-battle-over-dinner and our biggest concern: privacy.
Our electric shower head: the only source of hot water in the house. You control the temperature with the speed of the water flow. The more water pressure you give it the colder the water is. So we had slow trickle lukewarm showers.
Because of the climate and lack of air conditioning when it was constructed, there’s no insulation on the house anywhere. The siding on the outside is also the interior wall. In the places where cracks or small holes in the boards have formed over the years, these peak directly outside or into the neighboring room. All the windows have insect screens, but some of the windows have only simple wood slat covers that are nowhere near airtight. Other windows just have a reed shade that can be lowered over it. As a consequence, every sound outside is easily heard on the inside—and vice versa. This includes the regular passing of cars and trucks on the Hummingbird Highway no more than fifty feet from the front door.
Between the time that our host took the photos for the listing on Airbnb and our arrival, he built a small studio underneath the back half of the house, where he lives when guests are renting. In addition, he has a tenant in a small shack about twenty yards from the back door. While they are both very nice people, having two strangers in such close proximity is uncomfortable for us. It’s not that we feel like they’re spying on us or necessarily even interested in what we’re saying or doing, it’s just very odd for us to have strangers within earshot at all times and to hear their conversations as well.
To be fair, this is a ten acre farm and both of them are frequently elsewhere on the property. But we never really know where they are, so their presence is always looming. We’re not privacy fanatics, but this is definitely a level of closeness to our neighbors that we weren’t looking for!
After a lot of discussion between myself and Carrie, we decided that if we were here for a week or so on vacation, it would have been fine: we wouldn’t be cooking as much at home and we’d be out and about every day packing in the sights. But living for six weeks here simply wasn’t going to work for us. We considered our options and decided we had to go. Indeed, we decided to leave Belize altogether.
The car we’re using here is actually rented to us by our host. We felt it would be awkward to leave the house but keep our host’s car; however a car here is an absolute necessity for us. Yes, there’s a bus system but we really prefer the freedom to make our own schedules and there are many places we’d want to go that aren’t well serviced and Covid makes public transport less attractive. Renting another car would require a two-hour drive back to Belize City and would be obscenely expensive for five more weeks ($50/day or more).
We sat down with our host and explained our concerns to him and told him that we would be leaving much earlier than expected. He was very kind and understanding, genuinely wanting our honest feedback. In fact, he had already planned to go spend time with his partner in Colombia starting February 4th and offered to leave much sooner if that would help. But with his tenant here and the combination of all the other things, we still felt it best for us to move on.
Where to go? We still wanted to avoid large cities, of course. Initially, Panama felt like a good alternative. However, they require a negative Covid test for entry. With limited testing in Belize, this would have meant flying to Miami or Houston and spending three or four days there waiting on a Covid test result before moving on. Costa Rica was certainly calling us back: they still don’t require a test and we were still basking in the glow of the wonderful experience we’d just had there. We spent quite a bit of time exploring options there and I think that if the place we’d just left were available we’d have gone back!
Ultimately, we decided to move on to Mexico instead. It was already planned as our next destination and would save us from having to buy an extra plane ticket. They’re also not requiring a Covid test and we found a short non-stop flight making it an easy connection—virtually any other flight between Central American destinations requires a stop in Miami or Houston, usually with an overnight layover!
By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be settled into our new home between Playa del Carmen and Tulum on the east coast of the Yucatan and only a couple hundred miles north of where we were in Belize. And on the plus side, we’re staying in a very nice penthouse apartment for about the same price as our rental home in Belize!
You win some, you lose some… and I think we both feel pretty grateful we are able to be flexible and roll with the punches the nomad life throws our way sometimes.
