Southern Belize Real Estate

After an uninterrupted ten years of travelling freely around the world pretty much at my own set pace, eventually making my way in and out of the border towns of more than eighty countries worldwide, I came looking for my own personal paradise to settle upon, right where my journey began, right here in Belize.

The truth of the matter is that it was not until my eighth visit to the Central American country of Belize, that I finally took time aside to checkout the Toledo District firsthand.

Although I had travelled unscathed throughout the districts of Belize many times as previously mentioned, in all my adventuring from the Cayo to the Cayes, I had never once ventured south of Monkey River Town. Somehow I always got caught up in Placencia. To this day the place and the people still have a way of doing that to me.

Seemingly I too was concerned about guidebook stories of torrential rainfall, of an overly abundant insect population laying in prey for the new arrivals, not to mention the sheer realities of the remoteness of the region. That of course was way back when the entire length of the Southern Highway was a lonesome dirt road.

The inspiration for me to act came one day while lounging between the surf and the lone hammock at Miss Wende’s ‘Pickled Parrot Bar & Grill’, a place I’ve been lost in time a time or two in my wanderings, a place all tucked safely away under the shade of a sand floored thatched roof pallapa.

Toledo District, Belize

The way it all started this particular day, as I tossed out my form of horse rhetoric about nothing one morning with Wende the Pickled Parrot’s owner and instigator, somewhere in there I accepted a dare to put myth and remoteness and fear of un-chilled beverages aside. Before I could pay Miss Wende my tab I was airborne, a solo passenger on a one way flight to the land of the Maya. As I searched my memory banks for where in the world I had left my last Belikin, I was gazing down from my window seat vantage point, smiling out loud suddenly realizing, all that I’d been overlooking all these years.

As far the eye could reach some two thousand feet below me, a pristine bright green rainforest sparkled, a lingering reminder of a passing morning shower. Below me miles and miles of white sand beaches twisted south, occasionally split in two by rivers curling their way down from the hillsides of the western Mayan Mountains, eventually draining out into the emerald waters of the Bay of Honduras.

Flying over Punta Gorda,
Toldeo District Belize

The Mayan Air pilot looked back my way smiling through his Ray Ban aviators announcing that we would be landing shortly. He then banked his turn for the final approach landing at the Punta Gorda airport. That’s when I was realized I was hooked a Snook on this magical world of Southern Belize. I am happy to report that I have been ever sense.

The really good news is, in time, I have found all those tales of swarming sand flies and Mosquitoes attacking under the constant downpour of incessant rainfall to be true, though greatly exaggerated.

I’ll also admit that when the rains come to Belize each year as they ultimately always do, there really is no escape from the mosquitoes that’s why they have air-conditioners, indoor mosquito netting, and Zebra brand mosquito coils.
I have seen it rain for a month straight, when the road from Seine Beight to Placencia was under water completely. And still, the bus made the daily stealth running of the route on time, about an hour and half later than the posted time.

The last unpaved miles
of the Southern Highway

Today the roads leading south from Belize City to Punta Gorda are almost completely paved. As of this writing, there are less than about ten miles of the Southern Highway remaining to be surfaced. Indeed, changes are in the wind, even the guy who writes ‘The Rough Guide to Belize’ has settled on Southern Belize.

All in all, the point I guess I’m trying to make is that there probably is no escaping the fact that in the end your own personal paradise still comes with a fair share of rainy days. That’s why everything is so beautifully tropical green. Maybe the real art of living life to the fullest is how one manages all the clouds.

Snake Caye