Photos of old Caye Caulker, 1980's. Rainbow Hotel, Oceanside nightclub, Middle Street by Caye Caulker bakery, aerial, and more!
Top photo: Oceanside Nightclub
Time traveling to an earlier version of Caye Caulker Village, 1987
by Jayson Forman
The enchanted island of Caye Caulker
Growing up in San Pedro, it was inevitable that at some point in your life, you will end up visiting there whether it was planned or not.
I was made to understand that if you want to travel back in time to what San Pedro was like 10 years ago, just take a trip to Caye Caulker. I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived there but after walking around, it did indeed bring up eerily familiar memories.
When asking for directions to anyone’s house, the answer was “Go 3 houses past Reina’s restaurant and you’ll see the house with the red roof on the left”.
Their streets had no names back then. Much didn’t change after the grand opening of the airstrip either.
“Take the main road from the airstrip going south and make your first left and it’s the 3rd house with a blue barrel in front of it”.
Inevitably, we’d get lost half way there and would ask the neighboring house. The adult in the home would assign the youngest son or daughter to walk with us to the house we’re looking for and we’d tip him or her $1.00 for their kindness. That was a practice that I was assigned to when I was in my single digits as well. I highly doubt that custom lives on today.
The highlight of that trip was always to end the day by taking a dip at “The Split”, a channel that splits the island in 2 where the water was always aquamarine blue & green.
Caye Caulker indeed was like stepping back in time. The pace was significantly slower and relaxed. The other noticeable difference to me was the population of Rastafarians compared to San Pedro. There were many of them everywhere you looked. Even kids had the signature dreadlocks.
I couldn’t help but notice that most of them had glowing brown skin with the lightest green or gray eyes. Reggae music ruled the air and even non-Rasta locals seemed to gravitate towards that type of music more than in San Pedro.
They mostly seemed to be selling handcrafted items such as beautiful wood carvings from Mahogany, black coral jewelry or knitted tams caps (Rastafarian caps) in their signature red green, black and yellow colors.
I can only remember a few Rastafarians in San Pedro. “Sugar” was the most popular one. He was my neighbor and worked as security at Ramon’s Village. He was quite a character. The only “issue” we ever had with him was when he’d get “inspired” and would play his music very loudly for too long. My neighbors would sometimes yell at him and many times I would do the same.
I used to laugh when it was my turn to yell at him because I had a clear view to his apartment from my balcony. When I’d yell to get his attention, it was obvious that he couldn’t hear me because of the volume or it would take him a while to realize that the voice calling out his name was not coming from the music. But my favorite thing was that after I asked him to turn it down, he would sheepishly apologize, turn to go back in his apartment and I could clearly see that halfway through his living room he’d stop and try to remember what he was about to do. If he’d turn around and see me still waiting from my balcony, he’d say “Oh yeah! Sorry!” then he’d turn it down but if I weren’t waiting, the music could go on until it’s someone else’s turn to ask him.
That was really the only “issue” we ever had with him. For the most part, he seemed like a jovial and peaceful man. He looked intimidating but was really polite to my family.
Years later when I revisited Caye Caulker, I could still attest that it kept being “10 years behind San Pedro” and the locals liked it that way. They were proud of the fact that they maintained a “village life” and their motto was “no shoes, no shirt, no problem”.