Today has been noticeably quieter in San Pedro, as we arose at 6:45am we watched the first melancholy tourists lining up at the Water Taxi pier ready to embark for their journey back to their ‘real’ lives. It made our steps as we strolled out this morning much more buoyant, as we laughed with each other about how good it felt to be staying on this little island. This morning we decided to walk as far South as possible to fully explore this end of the island. We followed the only main paved road in San Pedro out of the town towards the South, curious as to why this paved road ran South of town when all the development seemed to be North. We found out why…..despite many more large resorts out to the South of town, we found that the paved road terminated whereabouts the water depot was. No wonder this road was prioritized for surfacing! It certainly appears that the South of town was once a more lucrative real estate area, but sadly in addition to many closed businesses and abandoned development, most of the property is for sale or up for lease. We also discovered San Pedro’s closed down casino, and even more supermarkets…..bringing us to the conclusion that Ambergris Caye certainly is a “nation of shop-keepers”!
However, these shop-keepers are multi-tasked enterprises where skills or commodities seem juxtaposed….take for example ‘Nora’s Property Management and Nora’s Laundrette’. For many of the locals this seems the ‘norm’ and it is not uncommon to see ‘shared’ business signage.
The business signage itself here is quite incredible, and warrants some photo-evidence to truly appreciate its uniqueness…so Nick has been out snapping pictures of the real ‘marketing’ face of San Pedro. Many signs are hand-painted giving them a very organic and un-corporate feel. In fact, San Pedro is covered in signs…they are everywhere as everyone is vying for that all important $!
We stopped and had a coffee at Banana Beach Resort, and decided we could avoid paying for the coffee if we enquired about long-term rentals. Part of mission in exploring the South this morning had also been about scoping out accommodation. Success on one score……..we didn’t pay for the coffee! Side-effect……I think we may be tempted to make this a means for procuring our morning coffee break!
The day was beginning to warm up now and we were beginning to feel a little walk-weary and mildly irritated at the influx of bugs at this point, so we turned back towards town with an aim to hitch a lift back! We scored on the second golf cart and got a lift back to town with an American couple living out here.
Knowing that tomorrow brings in the start of the first working week of the new year, we do the only thing to do today……… go ‘island time’, go sit on the pier and chill.
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