Transportation and photos of Punto Gorda

Since we left Copan, figuring out transportation, and figuring out a backup plan if what we thought would work doesn’t, is an adventure. Since it has all worked out, sort of, we think it’s entertaining. We’ve discovered that the pickup you schedule won’t necessarily turn up. Or, it might, but it might be 20 or 30 minutes late. If you need a round trip ride to, say, a museum, your hotel calls the cab and you pay at the end of the return trip to guarantee a safe cab and that you won’t get abandoned.  You might buy a ticket for a bus or ferry and discover it isn’t leaving until it has a minimum number of passengers. It might be built for 12 but be stuffed with 20 bodies small and large. You might assume it will stop where your ticket says, and discover that it doesn’t unless you ask. Alternatively, you might find the bus stopping for everyone who waves at it. Or not. It turns out to be important to know whether you are going collectivo, directo, on a shuttle, on an executive-class bus or ferry, or on the “local run.” If the local is a boat, it might be unlicensed and without life jackets. If it is a bus, it is likely the infamous “chicken bus,” discarded school buses from the USA that are sometimes brightly painted and fun-looking but often dingy, in terrible repair, and noise monsters as they go bumping along the highway belching polluting smoke. You can literally see the bulges in the tires sometimes, and you often see them at the side of the road with passengers standing philosophically to one side. They have a terrible reputation.

We’ve ridden every kind of transportation except for the chicken bus and the unlicensed ferry, and tomorrow we are taking a high-class chicken bus up the coast to Belize City. We intended to fly in a small, local plane, but it turns out that it sits down about as often as a bus pulls over to the side of the road, and we can imagine our faces being the colors of chicken buses by the time we get to Caye Caulker. Our decision was made easier by the unexpected tropical storm yesterday afternoon that turned the sky dark and dumped easily a zillion gallons of water on us. It was like standing under a power washer for half an hour. The wind tried to blow the house down or at least pick up a few substantial cocoanut trees. It was around dinner time but there was no way we could get to town in that, so we had a dinner of the peanuts and chocolate we had purchased to go with us on the bus or plane.

A few observations about Punto Gorda: It feels Carribean. We arrived covered with salt—me more than Mark--after an hour’s ride in a speedboat across the tip of the Caribbean sea. The sun is so hot I will miss a meal if I have to walk the 15 minutes into town to get it in the heat of the day. We hear Caribbean music pretty much all the time; the drumbeat and voices are there when we wake up and usually still playing when we go to sleep. (They stop overnight.) All the buildings are small. The ones that are in good shape are likely to be bright blue or pink or purple. Many are dingy, with paint barely there, or literally falling apart. Surprisingly, I’ve walked past some that I was certain were abandoned only to see a nicely dressed, pretty young lady come out the door. At night there are lights and laughter inside—people live there.

Stores aren’t specialized—they are small general stores with jars of buttons next to shiny silver bicycle gears next to skirts and hats.  In the mostly-grocery stores, the assortment is very small, an odd collection of mostly canned and bottled items on none-too-clean shelves. Restaurants are generally picnic tables or formica tables and folding chairs. No cloth napkins  in sight. It’s a beer-and-hard-liquor town—I haven’t seen a single menu with a wine on it and haven’t seen bottles in stores until this evening when I noticed a berry wine and a cashew wine on the shelf. 

Here are a few photos:

This is the dock at the end of a one-hour crossing that left us splashed with sea spray. Nice!!

People diversify here...the signs advertise laundry service, international airline reservations, film processing and fax service.

This is a school affiliated with Christian church across the street.

At first I thought this was a private residence, shockingly upscale, but it is an office for indigenous cultural development.

This is the building next door, so you can see why the contrast gets one's attention.

Walking down the main street towards town, this is the first view of shops and people.

Town square.Clock doesn't work.

This young man starts early, apparently assigned the task of whacking down the weeds in the vacant lot next door with his machete. HE stops at noon--thank goodness, it's hot by then.

Vie from our deck

view along the seafront leading from dock to our hotel.