That Day Two Sets of People Showed Me Grace And Mercy In Belize
The sublime adventures of travel
Say what you will about Facebook, but I very much appreciate the Your Memories feature, especially in January.
Back in the halcyon pre-COVID days, I used to work remotely the first month of the year. As a freelancer, it’s fairly easy for me to work away from home for a little while, especially in a month that’s light on presentations.
So every January I have the fun of revisiting those trips and my semi-daily updates. When I’m traveling, I use Facebook like journaling-lite, sharing funny or interesting anecdotes about the place I’m visiting.
Today, the picture above popped up in my Memories feed. I’m low-key proud of it even though it didn’t take any skill to produce with today’s advanced phone cameras. It looks surreal and filtered, but it’s not. That was my view on this day three years ago.
I’d just made it to Ambergris Caye, a large island off the coast of Belize, two days before. I was still a newbie and didn’t know that a light grey cloud could turn dark grey and then burst into heavy showers in the 15-minutes it would take me to walk into town, so instead of going to the restaurant I planned on, I ducked into a touristy beachfront place en route.
The travel gods clearly had their eye on me, because there was one table left in the whole place. I gratefully sat down right as the wind picked up and the rain went into torrential downpour mode.
There was a light wind on my back caused by the open nature of the partial wall behind me, but I didn’t mind. I was in a mostly dry place and about to get seafood for dinner. All was well.
However, a nice couple from Denver noticed there were some drops of rain falling on me and beckoned me over to their more protected table. I happily obliged and while we had dinner we chatted about our lives and their trip.
They’d been disappointed by the lack of beachfront at their hotel. The beachfront has eroded on much of the island, so if you want to swim in the ocean you need to go to one of the hotel docks and venture out from there.
I told them about a beautiful secluded beach I’d found about 20 minutes walk from the main strip. A developer was building a hotel and had created a lovely white sand beach about a block long. The only thing was the hotel wasn’t yet ready for guests, so no one was swimming there.
No one but me, that is. I walked out there every morning of my month-long stay and swam for about an hour before work. The locals came to recognize me and would call out “have a good swim!” each day as I walked by.
My Denver friends said they’d check it out. I wished them a great trip as we parted ways.
By the time I was leaving the rain had cleared but the roads were soaked and hard to traverse on foot. I was headed home, picking through huge puddles, trying (fairly unsuccessfully) to avoid getting muddy.
A taxi passed me and then slowly pulled over up ahead. “That’s good luck,” I thought as I headed over. It was only as I opened the door I saw there were already two women in the taxi, heading to a club near my place. They’d spotted me hesitating along the road and asked the driver to stop and get me.
I thanked them profusely and paid for their ride to the club. The cab driver took me home.
As travel memories go, there are many more exciting and harrowing ones out there. These are everyday stories of people who saw someone navigating a few bumps and decided to lend a helping hand. I was not in any dire distress, no one needed to come to my aid, but they still took it upon themselves to make my day better.
How often does that happen, let alone twice in one day?
I shared these experiences on Facebook along with the picture. I’d forgotten both of them until they showed up just now. I’m glad for the reminder.
One of my friend’s comments became the subtitle of this post: “Ah, the sublime adventures of travel.”
A few days later I spotted the Denver twosome again. They’d found “Ellen’s Beach” (their words, not mine) and had been happily swimming there since.
I’m glad I could do something to return the favor.
Thank you for reading! Here’s the story of a much more extreme travel adventure in New Orleans
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