south of Belize

The Strange Life in the Black Caribbean Sun


Unusual bathing
Outsiders relax on a beach on the peninsula of Placencia.
Fuel Pontoon
Pontoon that leads to a nautical fuel station in Placencia.
One more Cayo
One of the countless cayos off the mainland of Belize.
Westwind Hotel
A sign indicates the existence of vacancies in a modest hotel in Piacenza.
Sold out
Passengers on a speedboat traveling between mainland Belize and an offshore cayo.
Shaded chair
A chair in the well-drawn shadow of a coconut tree almost over the sea.
Way home
Mayan sellers travel by boat between Placencia and the mainland coast of southern Belize.
green caribbean
Snorkeler buoys in translucent water next to the second largest barrier reef in the world.
Great Caribbean
Belizeans follow the nautical action from an elevated dock.
Landing only for one
Pelican reheats on a post lost in the Caribbean Sea.
PG's little brothers
Two young residents of Punta Gorda are waiting for their parents to return from the post office.
tropical rest
Guest relax in the pool of one of the seaside resorts between Seine Bight and Piacenza.
Yooo, man.
Belizean is getting ready to leave the post office in Punta Gorda, the southernmost city in Belize.
blue sea and coconut trees
A cayo full of coconut trees off the peninsula of Piacenza.
A Brewer's Landing
Worker prepares to unload beer crates from a boat to a pub in Piacenza.
A Brewer's Landing
Worker unloads crates of beer from a boat to a pub in Piacenza.

On the way to Guatemala, we see how the proscribed existence of the Garifuna people, descendants of African slaves and Arawak Indians, contrasts with that of several much more airy bathing areas.

The vehicle's importers had not even bothered to repaint it, as was happening all over Central America. The old former US school bus hummed along the Hummingbird Highway that linked Belmopan's mysterious capital, Dandriga, a no less peculiar town already perched on the Caribbean Sea. The driver talked to passengers the entire trip and seemed to maintain the dizzying speed from a kind of brain autopilot that only turned off to pick up passengers. Even so, we arrived shortly after sunset, already late to catch a call to the south. "Here's our dandriga, fellas” announced the driver in the inevitable cavernous ragga voice as he opened the doors of the tan-yellow bus. "Love it or Leave it!"

It was under the twilight precipitation that we were able to appreciate its main street, full of shops of adventurous and opportunistic Chinese families, decorated by the headquarters of the two main political parties in Belize, among various other businesses and institutions. Around the centre, a poorly littered domain of prefabricated one-storey houses and among coconut trees give way, in a centrifugal way, to more and more stilted stilts.

Elderly people and children in their care listen to the telephone on the worn out porches of their homes. Under stakes that support others, groups of black men and teenagers maintain convivialities, games, or businesses as intriguing as the unlikely African Central America around them.

As we approach the humble inn where we were going to stay, tropical chords of Garifuna music increase in volume that seem to come from Guinea-Bissau or even Cape Verde. The historical origins of many of the residents – they were also curious about our incursion in those non-touristy places – was not very far away but was lost in time and in the complexity of the diasporas suffered by those people.

In the 2500th century, the Caribbean from the delta of the Orinoco River dominated Saint Vincent and several other small Antilles. The first genetic confluence that generated the Garifunas took place when a slave ship allegedly coming from Nigeria sank. The natives rescued many of the survivors, took them to Saint Vincent and gave them women, as it was taboo in their tribes for men not to have mates. However, the French and the English disputed Saint Vincent and the Antilles. Countless conflicts later, at the top, the British ended up separating the “pure” caribs from those already mixed with former African slaves. They determined that the latter, more independenceists, were dangerous and exiled some XNUMX of the newly named black Caribbean survivors on the now Honduran island of Roatan. Roatan proved too small for the new inhabitants. 

These soon asked the Hispanic authorities to welcome them to the continent. The Spaniards thanked the free labor and the Garifunas settled in the lands that are now Belizean, Honduran, Nicaraguan and Guatemalan through which we were traveling.

The next morning, we shared Dandriga with several hundred of the 7% of Garifuna Belizeans identifiable by their more African than Indian looks and their much more Indian than African commonplace language they use if other compatriots or outsiders do not force them to resort to Spanish or English Creole.

"You just have to go to the end of this street and take a right!" we think it explains to us, in an almost imperceptible and angry Creole, the native of a somewhat reddish black who, around noon the next day, we asked where the buses to Placencia departed.

Proud and somewhat irascible, Belize's Garifunas are not lacking in reasons to be revolted. Their communities are present almost only in the south of the nation, by decree of a British governor of what would become British Honduras. This XNUMXth-century decree determined that the Garifuna would have to stick to the “bottom” of the territory, in practice so as not to mix and destabilize Belizean slaves of only African origin.

Last September, the Dandriga community came together behind the official representation of their Mayor Gilbert Swazo. They took the opportunity to accuse the country's prime minister of pettiness and remind him of the discrimination they have long been victims of, all triggered by a manager of the First Caribbean International Bank having banned the use of the Garifuna language in the bank's local branch.

Other reactions proved to be much more mediatic. Shortly after the world premiere of the saga “Pirates of the Caribbean”, the Garifunas joined the Caribbeans of Saint Vincent, Dominica and Trinidad in protest against Disney for the sequel introducing them to the world as cannibals, without which, in their view , for this there are historical foundations.

Irony of irony, many Hollywood millionaires use and abuse Belize as a bathing playground. As a rule, their incursions were along the northern coast closest to the second largest barrier reef in the world. But, with time and competition, they spread to the long peninsula of Placencia, where we have moved in the meantime.

At first, this which is the most privileged coastline in Belize almost only welcomed backpackers. Until famous personalities such as Francis Ford Coppola discovered it and began to invest there in private homes and exquisite resorts where the damage caused by the many devastating hurricanes that pass through there were demanding major repairs.

We walk the beach from end to end and take a look at the Blancaneaux' Turtle Inn that the director bought and remodeled to offer his followers an alternative of equal luxury to another one. resort Coppola brand on a northern cayo (islet).

We did not detect garifunas enjoying the vast sands between the village of Seine Bight and Placencia. Instead, American and Canadian vacationers stroll and board, staffed by local guides and helmsmen, on short snorkeling excursions in the crystal clear waters offshore, or on other shark-whale shark diving excursions in the barrier reef that is some 30km away.

But this is not the time for whale sharks, and the others are too unpredictable predators for our tastes. Guaranteed the dose of maritime relaxation we were longing for, we retrieved our backpacks at the headquarters of one such Ocean Motion and got into a boat full of Mayan women who were returning home from another day of selling their handicrafts among gringos. During most of the trip, a girl follows all the movements of our, for her fascinating, photographic action, in front of the mother who is breastfeeding her youngest child. After disembarking and an additional four hours by bus, we arrived at PG, so the Belizeans have less work to pronounce on the town of Punta Gorda.

We had reached the southern edge of Belize and the damp and jungle perpetuated an alliance that no investor had yet managed to break. We were once again in Black Caribbean territory, but the location on the border with its southern neighbor gave the village a strong Belizean multiethnicity. On these sides, Americans, British and Canadians who teach or work in humanitarian organizations coexist. In much larger numbers, Belizeans Creoles, Chinese, Indians, Maya Kekchi and Mopan. We still slept a night in the peace of cosmopolitan PG. At dawn, we sailed first to Livingston, then to the Dulce River, both sheltered in a luxuriant marine nook that was already Guatemalan but, for a while longer, still Garifuna.

Island of Goreia, Senegal

A Slave Island of Slavery

Were several millions or just thousands of slaves passing through Goreia on their way to the Americas? Whatever the truth, this small Senegalese island will never be freed from the yoke of its symbolism.”

Amberris Caye, Belize

Belize's Playground

Madonna sang it as La Isla Bonita and reinforced the motto. Today, neither hurricanes nor political strife discourage VIP and wealthy vacationers from enjoying this tropical getaway.

Lake Cocibolca, Nicaragua

sea, sweet sea

Indigenous Nicaraguans treated the largest lake in Central America as Cocibolca. On the volcanic island of Ometepe, we realized why the term the Spaniards converted to Mar Dulce made perfect sense.

Cahuita, Costa Rica

Dreadlocked Costa Rica

Traveling through Central America, we explore a Costa Rican coastline as much as the Caribbean. In Cahuita, Pura Vida is inspired by an eccentric faith in Jah and a maddening devotion to cannabis.
Corn Islands - Islas del Maíz , Nicaragua

pure caribbean

Perfect tropical settings and genuine local life are the only luxuries available in the so-called Corn Islands or Corn Islands, an archipelago lost in the Central American confines of the Caribbean Sea.
four days in Antigua, Guatemala

Hispanic Guatemala, the Antigua Fashion

In 1743, several earthquakes razed one of the most charming pioneer colonial cities in the Americas. Antigua has regenerated but preserves the religiosity and drama of its epic-tragic past.
Believers greet each other in the Bukhara region.
City
Bukhara, Uzbequistan

Among the Minarets of Old Turkestan

Situated on the ancient Silk Road, Bukhara has developed for at least two thousand years as an essential commercial, cultural and religious hub in Central Asia. It was Buddhist and then Muslim. It was part of the great Arab empire and that of Genghis Khan, the Turko-Mongol kingdoms and the Soviet Union, until it settled in the still young and peculiar Uzbekistan.
Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beaches
Cobue; Nkwichi Lodge, Mozambique

The Hidden Mozambique of the Creaking Sands

During a tour from the bottom to the top of Lake Malawi, we find ourselves on the island of Likoma, an hour by boat from Nkwichi Lodge, the solitary base of this inland coast of Mozambique. On the Mozambican side, the lake is known as Niassa. Whatever its name, there we discover some of the most stunning and unspoilt scenery in south-east Africa.
Hippopotamus displays tusks, among others
safari
PN Mana Pools, Zimbabwe

The Zambezi at the Top of Zimbabwe

After the rainy season, the dwindling of the great river on the border with Zambia leaves behind a series of lagoons that provide water for the fauna during the dry season. The Mana Pools National Park is the name given to a vast, lush river-lake region that is disputed by countless wild species.
Aurora lights up the Pisang Valley, Nepal.
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 3rd- Upper Banana, Nepal

An Unexpected Snowy Aurora

At the first glimmers of light, the sight of the white mantle that had covered the village during the night dazzles us. With one of the toughest walks on the Annapurna Circuit ahead of us, we postponed the match as much as possible. Annoyed, we left Upper Pisang towards Escort when the last snow faded.
Alaskan Lumberjack Show Competition, Ketchikan, Alaska, USA
Architecture & Design
Ketchikan, Alaska

Here begins Alaska

The reality goes unnoticed in most of the world, but there are two Alaskas. In urban terms, the state is inaugurated in the south of its hidden frying pan handle, a strip of land separated from the contiguous USA along the west coast of Canada. Ketchikan, is the southernmost of Alaskan cities, its Rain Capital and the Salmon Capital of the World.
Aventura
Boat Trips

For Those Becoming Internet Sick

Hop on and let yourself go on unmissable boat trips like the Philippine archipelago of Bacuit and the frozen sea of ​​the Finnish Gulf of Bothnia.
Parade and Pomp
Ceremonies and Festivities
Saint Petersburg, Russia

When the Russian Navy Stations in Saint Petersburg

Russia dedicates the last Sunday of July to its naval forces. On that day, a crowd visits large boats moored on the Neva River as alcohol-drenched sailors seize the city.
Singapore, Success and Monotony Island
Cities
Singapore

The Island of Success and Monotony

Accustomed to planning and winning, Singapore seduces and recruits ambitious people from all over the world. At the same time, it seems to bore to death some of its most creative inhabitants.
Fogón de Lola, great food, Costa Rica, Guápiles
Lunch time
Fogón de Lola Costa Rica

The Costa Rica Flavour of El Fogón de Lola

As the name suggests, the Fogón de Lola de Guapiles serves dishes prepared on the stove and in the oven, according to Costa Rican family tradition. In particular, Tia Lola's.
Dances
Culture
Okinawa, Japan

Ryukyu Dances: Centuries old. In No Hurry.

The Ryukyu kingdom prospered until the XNUMXth century as a trading post for the China and Japan. From the cultural aesthetics developed by its courtly aristocracy, several styles of slow dance were counted.
Sport
Competitions

Man: an Ever Tested Species

It's in our genes. For the pleasure of participating, for titles, honor or money, competitions give meaning to the world. Some are more eccentric than others.
Mount Lamjung Kailas Himal, Nepal, altitude sickness, mountain prevent treat, travel
Traveling
Annapurna Circuit: 2th - Chame a Upper BananaNepal

(I) Eminent Annapurnas

We woke up in Chame, still below 3000m. There we saw, for the first time, the snowy and highest peaks of the Himalayas. From there, we set off for another walk along the Annapurna Circuit through the foothills and slopes of the great mountain range. towards Upper Banana.
Tatooine on Earth
Ethnic
Matmata Tataouine:  Tunisia

Star Wars Earth Base

For security reasons, the planet Tatooine from "The Force Awakens" was filmed in Abu Dhabi. We step back into the cosmic calendar and revisit some of the Tunisian places with the most impact in the saga.  
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio

days like so many others

Kronstadt Russia Autumn, owner of the Bouquet
History
Kronstadt, Russia

The Autumn of the Russian Island-City of All Crossroads

Founded by Peter the Great, it became the port and naval base protecting Saint Petersburg and northern Greater Russia. In March 1921, it rebelled against the Bolsheviks it had supported during the October Revolution. In this October we're going through, Kronstadt is once again covered by the same exuberant yellow of uncertainty.
Key West Wall, Florida Keys, United States
Islands
Key West, USA

The Tropical Wild West of the USA

We've come to the end of the Overseas Highway and the ultimate stronghold of propagandism Florida Keys. The continental United States here they surrender to a dazzling turquoise emerald marine vastness. And to a southern reverie fueled by a kind of Caribbean spell.
Boats on ice, Hailuoto Island, Finland.
Winter White
Hailuoto, Finland

A Refuge in the Gulf of Bothnia

During winter, the island of Hailuoto is connected to the rest of Finland by the country's longest ice road. Most of its 986 inhabitants esteem, above all, the distance that the island grants them.
Baie d'Oro, Île des Pins, New Caledonia
Literature
Île-des-Pins, New Caledonia

The Island that Leaned against Paradise

In 1964, Katsura Morimura delighted the Japan with a turquoise novel set in Ouvéa. But the neighboring Île-des-Pins has taken over the title "The Nearest Island to Paradise" and thrills its visitors.
Soufrière and Pitons, Saint Luci
Nature
Soufriere, Saint Lucia

The Great Pyramids of the Antilles

Perched above a lush coastline, the twin peaks Pitons are the hallmark of Saint Lucia. They have become so iconic that they have a place in the highest notes of East Caribbean Dollars. Right next door, residents of the former capital Soufrière know how precious their sight is.
Girl plays with leaves on the shore of the Great Lake at Catherine Palace
Autumn
Saint Petersburg, Russia

Golden Days Before the Storm

Aside from the political and military events precipitated by Russia, from mid-September onwards, autumn takes over the country. In previous years, when visiting Saint Petersburg, we witnessed how the cultural and northern capital was covered in a resplendent yellow-orange. A dazzling light that hardly matches the political and military gloom that had spread in the meantime.
Rancho Salto Yanigua, Dominican Republic, mining stones
Natural Parks
Montana Redonda and Rancho Salto Yanigua, Dominican Republic

From Montaña Redonda to Rancho Salto Yanigua

Discovering the Dominican northwest, we ascend to the Montaña Redonda de Miches, recently transformed into an unusual peak of escape. From the top, we point to Bahia de Samaná and Los Haitises, passing through the picturesque Salto Yanigua ranch.
Lonely Walk, Namib Desert, Sossusvlei, Namibia, dune base acacia
UNESCO World Heritage
Sossusvlei, Namíbia

The Namibe Dead End of Sossusvlei

When it flows, the ephemeral Tsauchab river meanders 150km from the mountains of Naukluft. Arriving in Sossusvlei, you get lost in a sea of ​​sand mountains that compete for the sky. The natives and settlers called it a swamp of no return. Anyone who discovers these far-fetched parts of Namibia always thinks of returning.
now from above ladder, sorcerer of new zealand, Christchurch, new zealand
Characters
Christchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand's Cursed Wizard

Despite his notoriety in the antipodes, Ian Channell, the New Zealand sorcerer, failed to predict or prevent several earthquakes that struck Christchurch. At the age of 88, after 23 years of contract with the city, he made very controversial statements and ended up fired.
Balo Beach Crete, Greece, Balos Island
Beaches
Balos a Seitan Limani, Crete, Greece

The Bathing Olympus of Chania

It's not just Chania, the centuries-old polis, steeped in Mediterranean history, in the far northeast of Crete that dazzles. Refreshing it and its residents and visitors, Balos, Stavros and Seitan have three of the most exuberant coastlines in Greece.

Maksim, Sami people, Inari, Finland-2
Religion
Inari, Finland

The Guardians of Boreal Europe

Long discriminated against by Scandinavian, Finnish and Russian settlers, the Sami people regain their autonomy and pride themselves on their nationality.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
On Rails
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
Tombola, street bingo-Campeche, Mexico
Society
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Casario, uptown, Fianarantsoa, ​​Madagascar
Daily life
Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

The Malagasy City of Good Education

Fianarantsoa was founded in 1831 by Ranavalona Iª, a queen of the then predominant Merina ethnic group. Ranavalona Iª was seen by European contemporaries as isolationist, tyrant and cruel. The monarch's reputation aside, when we enter it, its old southern capital remains as the academic, intellectual and religious center of Madagascar.
Masai Mara Reservation, Masai Land Travel, Kenya, Masai Convivial
Wildlife
Masai Mara, Kenya

A Journey Through the Masai Lands

The Mara savannah became famous for the confrontation between millions of herbivores and their predators. But, in a reckless communion with wildlife, it is the Masai humans who stand out there.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.