On Caye Caulker, “Go slow” is beginning to sound like a plea rather than a way of life

Leaving San Pedro for Caye Caulker. I can’t help it but there is an emotional tug every time I leave the shore of Ambergris Caye — even if I am heading off on a fun adventure, like Monday’s.  It is not just that I’m leaving home.

 

So Monday was a national holiday — Labor Day. Lots of our favorite places are closed for the day, and some, like The Truck Stop and Casa Picasso for the entire week. And there is family in town.

So, naturally that calls for a water taxi ride to Caye Caulker.

Shockingly, neither Rose nor I have been to that island since last year’s Lobster Festival. And “shockingly” doesn’t begin to sum up the changes that have taken place. The island mantra — Go slow — now feels more like an admonition.

The sign is everywhere. Now though it feels less like a statement of “this is who we are” as a warning to”don’t forget who we are.”

Hotels and dining spots seem to be popping up everywhere. So do golf carts and testosterone-fueled all-terrain vehicles, more than ever.

Still, for a holiday, the island was refreshingly uncrowded.

The biggest difference from a year ago? Caye Caulker has a real beach front. The island has added tons of sand, turning once-scrubby waterfront into languorous stretches of white sand and palm trees. The vast tracts of beach tend to minimize the impact of rising new concrete bunker hotels, set back well off the shore.

Animal watching can take many forms on Caye Caulker. This is one of my favorites.

There remains that fragile balance between laid-back identity and the celebrity of being the Next New Thing.

Buildings are still painted in the brilliant citrus colors of a 12-year-old princess’s bedroom. Signs are still hand-painted and quirky. Rasta lads are still hustling trinkets, conch jewelry and curios and CD’s, paintings and weavings. They still want you to pay them for taking their picture, which I now see as a badge of pride rather than a hustle. You’d grow weary too of a hundred iPhones being pointed at your face every day.

Caye Caulker is preparing for lobster season. Old traps are being refurbished. New ones are being built. It is a waterfront way of life largely unchanged by all the tourism and commerce growing around the fishermen.

Backpackers still seem to outnumber Silicon Valley vacationers. The Split is still filled with the languid young and beautiful, lolling on the docks like white beached seals, rapidly morphing from pink to scarlet. The Lazy Lizard has endured just enough spiffing up to stay fresh while keeping its funky vibe. It remains the best place to jump into the water and let the current sweep you away when you are done basting on the dock. Still, it must be feeling the heat from the citrus wonderland that is Mara’s Sip and Dip, just down the beach. And new restaurants like Paradiso and Pizza al Taglio, pressing from within The Split compound.

“I should charge you fro that picture!” the guy shouted at me. “I admire your sense of balance,” I called back. Let’s call it a draw.

Farther down the road, The Fair with its hand-held carnival eats and neighboring Margarita Mike’s are the freshest new darlings on the main road.

The farther away you walk from the Split, the less changed the island seems. Many of the same art stores and restaurants and gift shops remain south of the water taxi depot.

On the whole, the Go Slow vibe lives.

Caye Caulker, I really really like what you have done with the place.

The new beachfront on Caye Caulker:

The folowing pictures will try to grasp the scope of change along Caye Caulker’s waterfront. So much more space — carpeted with welcoming white sand!

 

Rose (at right) with her cousin Coco (left) and her friend Paty (center) on the beach in Caye Caulker. They are “from Philly way” (as they wrote on the wall at the Palapa Bar and Grill in San Pedro after we returned from our day trip to Caye Caulker.

Basting in the tropic Caye Caulker sun:

Docks still remain popular places to stretch out in the sun on Caye Caulker, especially here at The Split, although the beach is now just beyond beautiful.

Basting on the beach on Caye Caulker.

More scenes from Caye Caulker, no words required:

Some parts of Caye Caulker remain refreshingly untouched by progress, though ravaged by time.

The Lazy Lizard has added bodega tables both in the water and up on land.

People go to many resort area for “the waters”– their mystical, curative, refreshing, invigorating properties. Well, OK. That’s pretty much what I still see in the waters of Caye Caulker.

As long as there are crudely drawn and artfully painted signs for commerce on Caye Caulker there is hope that “Go slow” will remain a way of life and not an urgent plea.

Back home in San Pedro. Kids doing what island kids do best. #islandlove