Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer
Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2021 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER SIX
"What the Hell is a Bot'lass"
Supposedly, Cayo District was “where the gringos were,” but there were no guarantees, and our options were diminishing. The chaos-and-humanity of Belize City had given way to a near-featureless backdrop. Did I say near-feature-less? That would imply the presence of at least one feature, and there were none. (Wait...is the horizon considered a “feature?”) All we knew was that, between the front bumper of our vehicle – and that thin, indeterminate line, out there on-the-far-edge-of-forever – lay an impossibly stark landscape of sheer nothingness.
No people. No signs of human habitation. No houses, no fences, no grazing animals. No buildings. Not even a little wooden kiosk where we could buy food. No rivers, no mountains. No vehicles. No gas stations. Not even roadside trash. Just arid, reddish-yellow, sandy soil that was way-more-sand than soil. Some sparse scrub and palmetto populated the barrens, but none tall enough to provide shelter from a blazing sun. OK, I suppose you could have technically referred to them as “trees,” but only if you were thinking in terms of campfire kindling.
There were no signs posting the speed limit. No need, as the deep potholes were the built-in determinate factors as to how fast we would cover the ground. Bang. Screech. Boom. The old top-heavy step-van lurched from side to side. We were sweaty, gritty, and dirty. The glass of the windshield magnified the heat of the sun, and again, with no air-conditioning, we had no choice but to leave the windows rolled down. The best we could hope for was to stay ahead of our own dust, and the beastly “no-see-ums” that increasingly invaded our inner space. Average speed was 18 MPH. Any faster, and the undercarriage might fall out. I poured some water onto a clean cotton diaper and sponged off my son, with special attention to his baby-fat-neck and thighs, and behind-the-knees, where a worsening heat-rash was making him miserable. I begged my husband to stop. I just wanted to get out, stretch my limbs, give our son some air, and stand in the blessed shade of the big van for a few minutes. We slowed to a halt.
Chomp. Crunch. OW! The sharp needle-pricks of the sandflies had already been intolerable, but what the HELL was that? The “f” word came to my lips, rapid-fire. In a heartbeat, these new diabolical creatures had landed en masse, dozens of them, drawn to the sweat we exuded, and the carbon dioxide we exhaled. They were much bigger than sand flies, but still tiny – their size completely disproportionate to the pain of the bite. I yelled. My husband swore. My baby screamed. The little beasties had rounded, bottle-shaped, bottle-assed, black butts, and left little red dots of blood in their vicious wake. My husband floored the gas without being told, and I snapped the diaper in the air, repeatedly, trying to dispel the bot’lass. So much for stretching my legs. I had never even made it out of the van. What was this place? This “no man’s land” of white-gringo-eating-bugs? I’d held the highest praise for the delicacies of a street food kiosk. But Belize was the first place I’d ever *been* the food. I had *become* the meat pie.
The farther we had traveled, the more grim and desolate our journey. Clang. Screech. Lurch. Bang. I looked at my little home-made, tracing-paper map, and was reminded again of the words of Aldous Huxley. “British Honduras is not on the way from anywhere, to anywhere else.” These roads, west and south, ran into virtual dead-ends. The Western Hwy would peter out at Benque Viejo del Carmen at the border. (In those days, it disintegrated at Melchior de Mencos, and did not continue on through the Peten to the rest of Guatemala.) Likewise, the road south would peter out at Punta Gorda, and beyond that lay only the deep sweltering un-navigable jungles of the Sarstoon.
What would we do if we did not find our “promised land” before we ran out of places to explore? All we wanted was to find a little homestead, a place where we could grow our own food, live a natural life, and raise our children in a clean environment. What if it simply did not exist? I felt drained, the sense of adventure and bravado gone. Suddenly, it was more than the fear that the journey might simply end in vain. Shit. We could literally die out here. Our baby could die out here. It was at that moment, I caved in completely, put my face in my hands, and cried.
Refusing to give in to despair, I chided myself, dried the tears of self-pity, and looked up. A low bank of clouds had amassed on the distant horizon, west-southwest. I looked at it. Watched it. Studied it. Curious. We drove on. As the dark silhouette grew closer, more distinct it became. It took on both shape and definition. It was green, and getting greener. And soon there could be no doubt. Those weren’t clouds. They were mountains...
There were no signs posting the speed limit. No need, as the deep potholes were the built-in determinate factors as to how fast we would cover the ground. Bang. Screech. Boom. The old top-heavy step-van lurched from side to side. We were sweaty, gritty, and dirty. The glass of the windshield magnified the heat of the sun, and again, with no air-conditioning, we had no choice but to leave the windows rolled down. The best we could hope for was to stay ahead of our own dust, and the beastly “no-see-ums” that increasingly invaded our inner space. Average speed was 18 MPH. Any faster, and the undercarriage might fall out. I poured some water onto a clean cotton diaper and sponged off my son, with special attention to his baby-fat-neck and thighs, and behind-the-knees, where a worsening heat-rash was making him miserable. I begged my husband to stop. I just wanted to get out, stretch my limbs, give our son some air, and stand in the blessed shade of the big van for a few minutes. We slowed to a halt.
Chomp. Crunch. OW! The sharp needle-pricks of the sandflies had already been intolerable, but what the HELL was that? The “f” word came to my lips, rapid-fire. In a heartbeat, these new diabolical creatures had landed en masse, dozens of them, drawn to the sweat we exuded, and the carbon dioxide we exhaled. They were much bigger than sand flies, but still tiny – their size completely disproportionate to the pain of the bite. I yelled. My husband swore. My baby screamed. The little beasties had rounded, bottle-shaped, bottle-assed, black butts, and left little red dots of blood in their vicious wake. My husband floored the gas without being told, and I snapped the diaper in the air, repeatedly, trying to dispel the bot’lass. So much for stretching my legs. I had never even made it out of the van. What was this place? This “no man’s land” of white-gringo-eating-bugs? I’d held the highest praise for the delicacies of a street food kiosk. But Belize was the first place I’d ever *been* the food. I had *become* the meat pie.
The farther we had traveled, the more grim and desolate our journey. Clang. Screech. Lurch. Bang. I looked at my little home-made, tracing-paper map, and was reminded again of the words of Aldous Huxley. “British Honduras is not on the way from anywhere, to anywhere else.” These roads, west and south, ran into virtual dead-ends. The Western Hwy would peter out at Benque Viejo del Carmen at the border. (In those days, it disintegrated at Melchior de Mencos, and did not continue on through the Peten to the rest of Guatemala.) Likewise, the road south would peter out at Punta Gorda, and beyond that lay only the deep sweltering un-navigable jungles of the Sarstoon.
What would we do if we did not find our “promised land” before we ran out of places to explore? All we wanted was to find a little homestead, a place where we could grow our own food, live a natural life, and raise our children in a clean environment. What if it simply did not exist? I felt drained, the sense of adventure and bravado gone. Suddenly, it was more than the fear that the journey might simply end in vain. Shit. We could literally die out here. Our baby could die out here. It was at that moment, I caved in completely, put my face in my hands, and cried.
Refusing to give in to despair, I chided myself, dried the tears of self-pity, and looked up. A low bank of clouds had amassed on the distant horizon, west-southwest. I looked at it. Watched it. Studied it. Curious. We drove on. As the dark silhouette grew closer, more distinct it became. It took on both shape and definition. It was green, and getting greener. And soon there could be no doubt. Those weren’t clouds. They were mountains...