Travel to Belize City - Lessons Learned

We travel to Belize City...

During most of our online research, we read over and over again...”Don’t stay in Belize City, it’s full of crime and the most dangerous city in Belize.  This is where most of the serious crimes happen.  Of course this is grading on a scale.  So far on are adventure, we have felt totally safe in every town, village, situation, and encounter with Belizeans.  We were told not to travel at night, but we found quite the opposite.  People don’t drive too much at night because the horses and bulls can still be tied up by the side of the road (form of road shoulder mowing) and you don’t want to hit one.  We met someone who hit one.  Also, some do tend to tie-one-on a bit too much and drive home.  The majority of the roads here are two-way.  The caution for driving at night is more for one’s safety...not a security issue.  A friend in the Cayo area informed us that Belize City is fine, it’s just certain areas can be a bit shady.

As we arrived in Belize City,  we were pleased with the areas we traveled.  We found a few shady streets, which we would compare to the backstreets of downtown Las Vegas.   The population in Belize City is around 70,000 compared to the 280,000 total which live in Belize.   In comparison, the crime in Belize City is no more, and probably less than found in Las Vegas and mostly related to gangs in that area.

Again, as in Corozal area, there are no beaches found in Belize City, just seawalls.  The temperature is cooler and there are more trees than in the Corozal area.  Corozal is majority a farming district.  We are currently experiencing high temps around 86 degrees, with a good breeze, and a typical “beach city” level of humidity.

Community is “very important” to everyone here.  Community is not just a neighborhood park or an event.  It’s about being helpful to everyone that needs help, saying “Hello” and making eye contact with happy smiles to everyone who walks by.  It’s about taking interest and learning about everyone you meet.  A friend in Cayo who moved here about 25 years ago said to us (when we told him our city population is about equal to their whole country)  “Have you met half of your city?  I have met half of my country.” 

The majority of the households do not have a television.  Society is important to everyone here.  Belizean kids are happy, and their free time is spent playing outside, rarely with toys from a toy store, with the exception of the soccer or basketball.  They are creative, making up games with each other.  With lack of household televisions, there aren’t Play Stations or Wii systems keeping the kids occupied.  Every kid we have talked to has not shown “stranger danger” as we teach back home.  They have all been polite, optimistic of life and well spoken.  A few local kids ran up to our son and said “Hi, do you want to play? So off he went playing simple games. I’ve never seen my kid so happy.  He was so excited when they were finished.  He said he had the “time of his life”.

We had a long conversation with our hotel desk hop, who lives in a village about 20 miles from work in the Corozal District.  He has a wife and three kids, his youngest is his two year old is a boy.  Like many homes we found in the Corozal District, he has a water well just outside of his home.  He was proud that he has a pump for his well which provides kitchen and bathroom water via a hose to his home.  He, like all Belizeans, lights up when they speak of their families and their towns and villages.  He said, “I am so blessed!  I have a job, a home and a family.”  His statement put a lump in my throat.  I am quietly learning many life’s lessons from the people here.  It’s the simple things that count.  I guarantee tonight this man, like the majority here, will sleep in a home without an air-conditioner, and just enjoy his family and his community.

We are staying in a hotel/casino here in Belize.  It was funny to see they had a clock of a few different world locations.  The first one was Las Vegas.  Well, we are looking out at the full moon coming up over the sea, knowing many of you are looking at the same moon we are.