25 YEARS AGO ON AMBERGRIS CAYE   BY ANGEL NUÑEZ

Only 1 Vehicle in San Pedro - WOW!


I
f you cannot imagine San Pedro without any vehicle, I mean not even one. Well, I can. All of us who have lived here in San Pedro for more than 60 years actually lived in a vehicle free village. In the 1960’s there were no vehicles on the island. Zero! Caribena Fishing Cooperative was registered and founded in the year 1963. When it commenced the exportation of rock frozen lobster to the United States, it needed a vehicle to haul the cargo from the processing plant to the main pier, to transport fish and lobster and ice to and fro. And with that Caribeña brought the very first vehicle to the Island. It was a green army type land rover jeep and it was the very first vehicle to start killing the grass on the sand/grass streets of San Pedro. Everyone was excited about the idea of San Pedro having a jeep. I mean everyone wanted to have a little ride. The children were so excited that they actually used to run behind the vehicle expressing delight, enthusiasm and happiness to see a vehicle. The children would run behind the jeep and jump in for a free ride as is done even today by children and tourists riding about in golf cars. Caribeña also used this vehicle to transport 300-pound blocks of ice from the ice plant to the pier where boats loaded with ice to go on lobster fishing trips.

Caribeña’s Land Rover.
It was a British make Land Rover, very sturdy with standard transmission. I think a few of the very first drivers on the island at the time working at the lobster processing plant were don Alberto Nuñez, Reynaldo Muñoz, and Oscar Aguilar. They were seen with admiration for they could do what most Sanpedranos could not-DRIVE. In those days, driving was like having super powers. Yes, I even remember the enthusiasm expressed by children and even adults as we neared Belize City by boat and saw the cars driving by Foreshore. It was like you were seeing Superman.

Working the wheelbarrow.
In those days, as I have mentioned before, all the cargo from the main pier used to be transported by shoulder. The Elsa P charged 25 cents per box. Stores paid 5 cents for shouldering boxes to their site. Wheelbarrows were used by fishermen to transport large quantities of fish to their home for salting and drying. And yes, it was a child’s delight to get to own a wheelbarrow and be able to DRIVE. In the mid 1960’s when the first tourists were arriving for our pioneer hotel on the island, Holiday Hotel, some of the guides there like Abel Guerrero and Lucilo Guerrero used the wheelbarrow to carry the luggage from the airstrip to the hotel. There was no taxi fee, but a good tip.

In the days before taxis, those who did not have a wheelbarrow had a device called in Maya a Shoo Shak. Its frame was make with bush sticks and it was covered with crocus bag. The Shoo Shak was carried on the back and supported by the head. With a Shoo Shak a coconut farmer could carry from 50 to 75 coconuts, and his hands were kept free so that he could pick up coconuts from the ground.

With no traffic, our San Pedro streets used to be covered with grass, even Barrier Reef Drive. The center of the streets was sandy and the people were called upon by the “alcalde” or village chairman to trim their grass and keep the streets clean. It was very romantic to see women placing their white laundry on the grass of the streets to bleach them overnight in the “sereno” or night’s dew. I also remember villagers taking a siesta on a shady patch of grass on Pescador Street and Barrier Reef Drive.


When it rained, there were no puddles because the sand immediately absorbed the water. There were no broken bottles on the streets for there was no traffic. Occasionally when rude children broke a bottle, the neighbor would quickly pick it up and give the child such a good scolding that he would not want to break a bottle for the rest of his life.

That was San Pedro 25 years ago - quaint, peaceful, romantic, picturesque and undiscovered. It took a strong wind to raise some sand. Today it takes a vehicle to raise up the dust. When it used to rain, it dried in hours. Today we have puddles, which are the result of your vehicle and mine. Yes, we love progress but it has its share of problems. We have 1500 vehicles, but would we want to go back to the days when we had only one?


Back to 25 Years Ago Main Page


Commons Island Community History Visitor Center Goods & Services Search Messages AIM Info



Copyright by Casado Internet Group, Belize