HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
FEBRUARY 2013
91
BELIZE
||
THREE PERFECT DAYS
DAY ONE
| You wake up in your villa at
Blancaneaux Lodge
,
set high in the moun-
tains of western Belize, just in time to
meet the man bringing coffee, fruit, fry
jack (friedbread) and jamto your door. The
grounds of this remote resort, owned by
renaissancemanFrancis FordCoppola, are
all sunshine and bird cries, lush greenery
and craggy cliffs overhanging a lazy river.
You take your breakfast in a hammock on
the screened porch, then get dressed and
head to the main lodge to meet Jorge de
Leon, your ace guide for the day.
As youbarrel down the reddirt road ina
four-wheel drive, Jorge—nicknamed “The
Lion” in his native San Ignacio—tells you
about his grandfather, the
chiclero
.
Back
before the dawn of synthetic chicle, the
harvesting of sap for use in gum was big
business in Belize, and the
chiclero
made
money in vast quantities and spent itwith
ferocious abandon. Even today there’s a
Belizean saying invoked by a seller when
a buyer blanches at a steep price: “That’s
nothing for a
chiclero
.
”
You stop at a military checkpoint,
then proceed to the
Rio Frio Cave
.
Belize
is riddled with caves, many of which con-
tain human remains. The Maya would
perform ritual sacrifices in these places
because they believed they were portals
to the underworld, throughwhich the Sun
God, in the form of a jaguar, would travel
at dusk. The Rio Frio Cave is open-ended,
BELIZE BY THE NUMBERS
NUMBER OF YEARS
SINCE COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED
31
POPULATION
356,600
NUMBER OF VISITORS ARRIVING
BY CRUISE SHIP ALONE,
JANUARY–AUGUST 2012
441,443
SIZE, IN SQUARE MILES
8,867
RANK AMONG
CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES
IN POPULATION DENSITY
7
(
THE LEAST DENSE)
PERCENTAGE
OF FORESTED LAND
61
PERCENTAGE
OF PROTECTED LAND
36
MILES OF ROAD, TOTAL
1,868
MILES OF ROAD, PAVED
357
NUMBER OF CORAL ATOLLS
3
(
OUT OF FOUR TOTAL
IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE)
NUMBER OF NATIONAL ANIMALS
2
(
BAIRD’S TAPIR AND
THE KEEL-BILLED TOUCAN)
