Back From Belize, Part Three

The flight from Belize City to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye is always a trip, so to speak. We board a Tropic Air one engine twelve passenger Cessna and hold on tight as the little plane groans its way off the runway and labors to get above the Caribbean for the fifteen minute flight.

After looking at the water for a while, you quickly come to the conclusion that if you had to you could probably wade across to the island; when you see what appears to be a runway jutting out from the surrounding bars, restaurants, dive shops, golf cart vendors, and time share hawkers, you wish you had.

But it does set down quite smoothly, thank you. And then you step out into a wall of humid air and bustling Toyota vans carrying tourists to various resorts up and down the island.

Right across from the terminal is Lime, a little watering hole that used to be run by a Canadian ex-patriot. I think everything on San Pedro is either owned by an exCanadian, or once was. Lime is a good place to get a Belliken while waiting for someone from the resort to pick us up. On Wednesdays they do a Jambel Jerk Pit Chicken night. I've never gone.

The streets are cobblestone all the way to Banyon Bay. They used to be hard packed dirt, but San Pedro decided to modernize a few years ago by putting stone on all the streets. It is a lot better when it rains, but mostly it has just succeeded in making everything more congested. It is getting to the point where you'll have to rent a golf cart instead of riding a bike just for safety's sake.

I've written about San Pedro before. If you are wearing a shirt or shoes you are overdressed. It is also too hot and humid to wear anything else. Belliken is not only the beer of choice, it is the only beer one can buy. Elvi's Kitchen has dirt floors, killer drinks, and great fried chicken. The Wild Mango has inventive and delicious wraps of all descriptions. Caliente's has great coconut shrimp and remains the best vantage point for watching the Chicken Drop on Thursday nights.

We like to ride our bikes as far North as we can* and then ride on the beach back to town, stopping at palapa bars on the way. We spend one day fishing, two days snorkeling, and all the rest hanging out by the pool, busy deciding where to have dinner.

*The photo above captures the feel of the northern end of our bike odyssey.

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I accomplished two things hanging out at the pool: got a great tan; read three books.

Cold Wind by C. J. Box

This is one of those mystery novels that I look down my nose at as I am devouring every word. C.J. Box is a member of my holy trinity of mystery writers, along with Carl Hiaasen and John (I think it is John) Burdett, the author of the Bangkok 8 books. Box is probably my favorite, although nobody is funnier than Hiaasen can sometimes be, because his novels are all set in the Teton/Yellowstone area and I have been to all of the places where he sets his stories.

This one is about wind turbines.

When I drive between Laramie and Rawlins on I-80, there is a stretch of highway running between ridges lined with wind turbines that I just love. The juxtaposition is right up there with the stretch of I-70 that carves its way through Glenwood Canyon. Therefore, dedicated liberal and doomed romantic that I am, wind turbines tend to make me feel happy.

Of course, I don't have to live next door to them and listen to the constant whirring filling every room in my house. Box's novel, in addition to being a terrific mystery filled with all kinds of scenes of satisfying revenge, made me rethink my position on windmills as a viable form of restorable energy. But not completely!

If nothing more than the fact that Joe Picket is a great character, read anything by C.J. Box, especially Cold Wind.

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy's Lords of Discipline was my sure fire novel to turn a kid on to reading during the Sophomore Language Arts outside novel assignment. The Prince of Tides was extraordinarily powerful the first time I read it. My Losing Season joins the ranks of Conroy's best stuff.

The English teacher in me ranks him in a league with John Irving, maybe just a hair below, but not Phillip Roth, or Updike. Certainly, not a candidate for the pantheon on American literature. But fun to read.

My Losing Season is a memoir of Conroy's career as a pretty good basketball player. Along the way we get to hear about his dealings with his father who makes The Great Santini look a lot like Ward Cleaver. We meet his impressive mother, the source of Conroy's female characters, particularly in The Prince of Tides. We also get a close up view of cadet life at the Citadel. The fiction of The Lords of Discipline pales by comparison.

Mostly we hear Conroy wax rhapsodic about the joys and sorrows of college basketball as played in the Southern Conference. The series of memoirs present a chronology of Conroy's own coming of age that is every bit as compelling as his fiction.

I have to share one favorite impression. When Conroy was in high school in the Washington D.C. area, he had to wait after school until his basketball practice at seven. During those free hours he took his homework over to the National Gallery of Art, found a comfortable nook, and did his homework. What an image. The National Gallery of Art might by the most impressive single building I have ever seen. No wonder he turned out so well.