Coco Beach, like most of the new building going on in Belize, is of concrete, shaped and painted as if it were soft, tan stucco. Palm trees may be picturesque as all get out, but they shed parts, and groundkeepers are out early every morning raking up wagonloads of debris. The substrate is all creamy sand. The few patches of lovely green grass are Astroturf, because there is a time when grass is well watered and a time when it’s not.
We visited during the first half of July and the weather was gorgeous every day. This was most unfortunate. Already the rainy season was over a month late arriving, and Belize’s water supply depends on rain. They build big square water tanks to store the precious stuff, but none of that stuff was falling out of the sky yet.
My sister on the front porch of our room
One component of the bird tour we took was supposed to be by boat out to some islands in a large lake where birds concentrated. No lake. We took a van along a track that was supposed to be under three feet of water by mid-July. Waterbirds in Belize, however, are patient souls, and they were all out there clustered in the puddles left over from the last rainy season. Dozens of Jabiru, a spectacular species of stork, huddled about glumly, commiserating. Limpkins and white ibis, wood storks and roseate spoonbills watched jacanas stomp around on solid ground, their long toes for walking on waterweeds getting in the way.
We did experience one brief storm. We were in the outdoor bar when one of those momentary tropical cloudbursts struck. Sheets of rain too dense to see through were accompanied by wind, thunder, and lightning as God tried to quench hell. It was absolutely exhilarating but did nothing to ease the water shortage.
The cottage we were moved to
Humid or not, the air was hot. When the air conditioner in our room made noises like someone had thrown marbles in it, the maintenance folk put us in another room while they fixed it. Room? Nay, a whole cottage. Like most buildings, it has no V-shaped eaves such as all our houses have. Regular eaves invite hurricanes to get up under and rip the roof off. The high conical ceiling was made of strips of varnished wood of many kinds; red, brown, tan, yellow…all gorgeously finished. Indeed the whole interior was of magnificent wood.
The woodwork of the house we were moved to is fantastic
Not unusual. You build cheapest by using local native materials, and Belize was formerly British Honduras. We have all heard of the king of wood, Honduras mahogany.