I could easily live in Ambergris Caye. I have no reservations using a motor scooter, a golf cart, or a bicycle to get around. I imagine how fit I would be walking around the key, kayaking out to the reef, scuba diving. Writing novels. Living slow on not much money. Smoking Cuban Esplendidos. Eating Elsies delicious chicken. Visiting with people at the Rendezvous.

Not many people I know would want to live in San Pedro, despite it’s white sand roadways and island “squalor”. I say squalor because thats how I think most people would describe the colorful clutter of buildings and odd storefronts. Most would see them as unkempt. But then again, most people arrive on the Caye with their own distortions of reality and what comprises the good life. Does living in New York City intend the good life, or is the glamour just an excuse for waking in the morning amidst the noise of machinery and greed?

To me, the good life is a crystalline sea and a rising star so close you can reach out and embrace it’s coveted warmth. And when the windy season passes and the rain comes, being in San Pedro amidst it’s colorful “squalor” keeps you company when the weather refuses to kiss you on the cheek and the roads become impassable.

Dont be disappointed by the accomodations of even the most expensive places to stay. And dont come here expecting the seven mile stretch of white sandy beach like you find in Negril. You come to Ambergris Caye because that glorius reef is just an easy fifteen minute kayak to the fringe of some of the best kayak surfing on earth. Just try to get over that reef. You’ll be Tom Hanks in Castaway. And you’ll learn what it’s like to face a triangle of breakers that defy you to choose the one that wont send you face first into the coral. You’ll get ten good rides if youre lucky before one of those things rises up and dumps you and the kayak and all of your senses into the rush of a twenty knot wipeout.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 4:00 pm and is filed under My Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.