San Pedro Belize Fly Fishing

San Pedro is the town you will land at, boat to, eat at, shop in, meet people; in short, San Pedro Town will be a large part of most visitors' experience of Ambergris Caye. It is the transition point between dives and Maya tours.

If you're new to the island, leave about two thirds of your clothing at home, bring swim suits, sun block, sandals, and a hat. I struggled hard to find a single evening I could wear long pants in an entire two week stay. This is one very relaxed place. Most people step off the plane, and struggle for about three days to slow down. It's hot and fragrant and moist, the wind is cooling, and, well, things just don't seem so urgent.

You'll walk, rent a golf cart, taxi, or bicycle mostly to get around. There are only ten streets, and NO pavement! Most people go barefoot or sandals, everywhere. You can swim in the warm clear Caribbean Sea, protected by the reef. The color is beyond description. Many people just stare at it for hours. The water is really warm, averaging about 82 degrees year round.

The experienced Caribbean traveler will recognize San Pedro Town immediately: In some ways, it's the Caribbean of 30 or 40 years ago, before the boom in international travel, a throw-back to the days before cruise ships turned too many Caribbean islands into concrete mini-malls hustling duty-free booze and discount jewelry. There are just three north-south streets, each hard-packed sand. Wood houses and shops, painted in bright tropical colors fading quickly in the sun, stand close together. Newer buildings are reinforced concrete, optimistically girded for the next big hurricane.

Many of the hotels, restaurants and larger businesses are on Front Street. Just beyond the primary school and the bite-sized San Pedro Library (here, you don't need a library card, and even visitors can check out books, free, or a buy a used paperback for a dollar or two), you'll see Rubie's, Sea Gal, Celi's Deli, Holiday Hotel, Spindrift, home of the chicken drop, and then Jaguar Temple, Barefoot Iguana, and Big Daddy's clubs, the venerable Barrier Reef Hotel, and the Catholic church, cool and welcoming. Farther up on the right there's Fido's (FEE-dough's), the Mayan Princess, and the new Ambergris Caye Museum, cozy but full of interesting stuff. As Barrier Reef Drive peters out, dead ahead is the Paradise Hotel and Paradise Villas.

Middle Street, or Pescador Drive, the other main north-south venue, is also busy. It's home to the original location of Rock's Grocery (a branch opened south of town in 1996), Elvi's Kitchen, The Reef and other worthies. Several budget hotels are also here, or on side streets nearby.

As you go farther north on Middle Street, San Pedro becomes more residential, and more local. You'll see the San Pedro Supermarket, electric and telephone facilities, a small high school, playground, and then the San Pedro River, or "the Cut" or "the Channel." This area south of Boca del Rio got a good deal of water damage from Hurricane Mitch, due in part to the illegal cutting of mangroves; it's not nice to chop Mother Nature.

A 60-second, hand-pulled ferry will take you across to the other side. A small golf cart and walking path wends its way north, mostly on the back side of the island, past the proposed site of Reef Village, expat homes, Sweet Basil deli, and Capricorn resort and restaurant. The cart path, badly washed by Mitch, is slowly returning to bumpy normality. It ends at Captain Morgan's, where the path is blocked by a barrier erected on the beach. You can, however, walk northward, following the narrow beach to a number of resorts, including the Essene Way, with its kitchy Biblical and bizarre black-face statuary, Journey's End, at 90 rooms the largest resort on the island, and Mata Chica, new and trendy.

Had you headed south from town rather than north, you'd be on Coconut Drive, another sandy little roadway. A cluster of hotels and other businesses are near the airstrip, SunBreeze, The Palms and Ramon's, among others. You'll pass Jade Garden restaurant on your left, then, quickly, Changes in Latitude B&B, the Belize Yacht Club with its new meeting and restaurant facility, the newly repainted budget Hideaway Sports Hotel, Playador with its thatch condo additions, Corona Del Mar, Coconuts Hotel and the Lalas' little paradise, Caribbean Villas. You'll pass soft-drink and beer magnate Barry Bowen's turf, which includes Island Academy (tuition US$250 a month), one of the better private schools in Central America, and his warehouse facility. Some of the buildings, you'll note, are painted Belikin-bottle green. Here, the little road veers sharply right, past the newer Rock's Grocery II and La Margarita, a Tex-Mex place, then back left. The area west of the main drag here, or to your right going south, is the San Pablo residential area. Considerable development continues along the sea, including the new Banana Beach condotel. Villas at Banyan Bay, now expanding, Tropica, the mushrooming Royal Palms timeshare, Victoria House and Caribe Island Resort are also in this area. By this point, you're some 3 miles south of San Pedro Town. If you continue farther south, by foot or cart, you're back in a residential area, with a number of upmarket houses including one owned by musician Jerry Jeff Walker, along with shacks and other assorted digs.

Golf carts and bicycles are the principal mode of transportation. The streets are home to local and visiting barefoot strollers, casually making their way through the shops and restaurants or just relaxing and chatting with the locals who are friendly and tolerant.

A few taxis, trucks and private vehicles are in service in the growing community, and the newly formed traffic committee is hard pressed to create an equitable policy regarding importation of future vehicles.

The town is a picture postcard setting - small colorfully painted houses set alongside sand streets nestled beside the clear turquoise sea. Coconut palms sway and rustle in the gentle cooling trade winds. Low rise hotels, guest houses and bungalow style resorts, from modest to magnificent, are nestled along the coast and throughout the town.

If you want a comfortable, shorts-and-sandals seaside vacation, at a moderate price, just a bit off the beaten path but not too far, where the seafood is fresh and beer is cold, where the water won't make you sick, an island with most of the modern convienences without the plastic tackiness, with great diving, excellent snorkeling, beautiful water and beautiful white sand beaches, where local folks are mostly friendly and hablan English (though they may speak Spanish at home), with dependably beautiful weather most of the time, then I guarantee you'll enjoy Ambergris Caye.

Getting to Ambergris Caye is easy, the island is serviced by hourly scheduled flights. A short twenty minute flight from the international airport brings one to the San Pedro airport, which is walking distance to town. Ferry service is also available. San Pedro's warm friendly casual atmosphere insures a perfect holiday.

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