Writings By Location| Boats, Planes, and Chicken Buses: Getting Around in Belize | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
However, this is an island frequently ravaged by hurricanes, and so golf carts can't take you everywhere. For those times, you need a bicycle. Bikes are quite common, and inexpensive to rent, albeit you only get a primitive zero-speed without seat padding, and working brakes cost extra. There's also the occasional all-terrain vehicle or motor scooter, but I only mention these for completeness; we were never on one. Besides, an ATV doesn't sound like a logical mode of transport on a flat island consisting solely of sand, but after a few days of rain, it starts to make sense, when the roads get so gutted that a short ride to the grocery store can amass hundreds of dollars in chiropractor visits.
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| Hand-Drawn Ferry at North River Cut |
With a bicycle or ATV, you can get to the far northern reaches of the town, on the other side of the "north river cut", which is what we did one day. This twenty-foot wide swath of water was created by Hurricane Janet in the early 60s, and to this day, prevents golf carts or other large modes of transport from getting across. But in the center, it's about four feet deep, so walking or biking across is unlikely to be productive. The Belizians answer to this is the hand-drawn ferry. For two Belizian dollars, which you only pay one way, two dark-skinned natives, who were most likely drinking too much the night before, will guide you onto a raft that looks about as sturdy as something built by Tom Sawyer, then grab a rope tethered to a tree on each end of the stream, and pull you across. The entire trip takes only a few minutes, but it's highly effective, unless you're the guy pulling the rope.
