ROADS

Most of the roads in Belize are made of “marl”, a decomposed limestone which makes up the substrate of all of the coastland.  With grading and wetting, it turns into a fairly smooth roadbed during the dry season.  (I will tell you later what it’s like during the rainy season – I suspect that it’s slippery.)  Under heavy traffic, it develops ruts, washboard, and potholes.  For that reason, it’s easier to drive in the daylight, when you can pick your path.  I have discovered that I can drive the Scout with right wheels on the shoulder and the others on the slot between the tracks where most drivers travel, but I have to keep my eyes peeled for big boulders.

The two best roads in the country, the “Northern Highway” and the “Western Highway” are about like a paved county road in Colorado or Texas.  Ten or fifteen years ago, these roads would have been adequate because there were relatively few cars in the country.  Today, there are ten times as many cars and countless trucks and busses.   The roads were built for cars, but they are dominated by the trucks and busses which (surprise!!) are demolishing the roads.

There are exorbitant taxes on gasoline which go into the general fund rather than a specific highway fund.  (Same as Mexico, eh?)  I don’t know where those funds go, but they don’t show up in the roads.  (I have an idea where they go, but I don’t want to get political.)

TOPES (pronounced "Tow - pays")

We call these speed bumps, but ours are molehills compared to the mountainous topes they have in Mexico and Belize.  Originally, I was prepared to hate them, but I understand now that topes, which are also called “sleeping policemen”, are the only way to control speed in this part of the world.  The huge Mexican topes are well marked by a traffic sign with three bumpys on it.  The Belizean topes are smaller, but frequently unmarked. 

DRIVERS

All of this is prelude to my main theme, which is the behavior of male drivers in this country, and I imagine, in most third world countries.  The machismo behavior of Italian drivers is well-known.  Ride in a cab in New York city, and you will probably puzzle, as I do, why it is so important to beat the other cabs to the next red light. It is machismo; the idea that your masculinity is reflected (or perhaps even defined) by the way you drive. 

In Belize, this behavior is carried to suicidal extremes.  Any slow-moving vehicle becomes a challenge to pass, regardless of curves, villages, bicycles, oncoming traffic, whatever. 

There are no speed cops here because there are no (repeat NO) speed limits in Belize. [NOTE: (May 2002) There is a national speed limit of 55, and town limits of 25.  They simply are not enforced.]  The Northern Highway should have a speed limit of 45.  So, I drive that speed, or perhaps a little faster, and become a challenge to at least 50% of the other drivers on the highway.  They have these little overloaded, under-powered pickup trucks, and they have to start passing a half-mile back.  I can see a little speck in the rear view, back there about 6 or 8 blocks, with their left turn signal on, out in the oncoming lane, getting up speed to pass me.  Sometimes, just for grins, I speed up.  (That big ol’ 345 V-8 in the Scout is just loping at 45 mph, and when I tromp it, it puts me up to 70 in about 3 seconds!)  Of course, by now, the overtaker has his mental pass switch on, and he’d rather put his wife on the auction block than admit that he can’t pass me.  Since I have nothing except my life at stake, I slow down and let them pass.

Time out for a factual interlude.

    “Former Minister of Natural Resources Eduardo “Dito” Juan narrowly escaped being killed in a traffic accident shortly after 9 Wednesday morning near mile 22 on the Western Highway.

    “Rescue workers had to lift a loaded ten-ton gravel truck which had crushed his Toyota Hi-lux Pickup, to get to him and his traveling companion, Martha Molina.  Both were rescued alive, but Leopold Pascasio, who was traveling in the back of the pickup truck, was fatally crushed and died hours later at the Karl Heusner Hospital.

    “Frank Trapp, the driver of the gravel truck, told police that the pickup’s driver was trying to overtake him in the face of oncoming traffic.  While overtaking, the back bumper of the pickup snagged the front bumper of the truck. 

     “The tie-up caused both trucks to run off the road and the bigger truck to tip over and fall on top of the small pickup, trapping all three occupants.

    “Hospital reports said Juan suffered multiple fractures to both legs but Molina suffered no broken bones.”

Can’t you visualize Dito, trying valiantly to pass this gravel truck (which he probably hoped would slow down a little) worrying more about what his “traveling companion” would think of him if he backed off?  Of course, after my trip to Sarteneja in the back of a pickup, I know how Leopold felt.  “…died hours later” – probably screaming “Kill me, kill me.”

This macho driving goes on in Corozal Town.  About three or four of the city streets are well-paved.  The bypass (my name for it) carries the thru traffic around the downtown, including a 10 to 50 ton truck a minute, day or nite.  These trucks are tearing up the bypass.  I can get ‘way over on the right, one wheel on the shoulder and miss the bomb-crater potholes, but even then, I’m probably driving 30 or 35.  There are 50 cabs (about 40 too many) in our little town, and <surprise> they are the worst kind of macho drivers.  They have these old beat-up 70’s American cars and they try to pass me whenever they can.  Of course, if the road warrants it, I will go faster than they can.  When it gets really bad, I get over on the shoulder and let them pass me.  They will fly over these pot-holes, gripping the wheel and staring ahead defiantly, while the road tears the bottom out of their car. 

When I slow down for a tope, they reflexively pull out and start to pass me. (Yes, even in the face of oncoming traffic.)  Of course, they have to slow down for the tope themselves, so I gun the Scout, now over the tope, and leave them sitting there on the wrong side of the road.  I think they’re beginning to understand that I’m not macho, just plain mean. 

For those of you who never saw it, the Scout is white, with red and blue stripes, part of a special edition of 2500 called “the Spirit of 76.”  The townsfolk call it “the mail truck” and I respond in typical Redneck fashion with “it weren’t no female truck, that’s for sure.”  In general, women don’t drive in Belize, and so the sight of Charlotte driving that big ol’ SUV is mind boggling to the Belizeans.

Last month I ran over a bicycle, and had to buy it. (Somebody parked it just to the right of my right front tire, and I ran over it when I adjusted my parking attitude. (I had planned to buy one, but not one that was crushed like this one!) I’m sure the news traveled like wildfire in this little town, and I’m worried now that someone will intentionally put a bicycle in front of the Scout so that I have to buy them a new one. 

Later,

Sr. ric