Belize is a steaming gumbo of cultures, ethnicities and heritages.  It's a dilemma, an enigma, an exception to most of the rules of its region:  an English-speaking country in a Spanish-speaking world, a British colony in an Hispanic area, a Caribbean culture in a Latin society.

With a stable, democratic government, Belizeans treasure their freedoms, but politics is intensely personal and often nasty.  Belize is usually safe and friendly, but it can be dangerous; there are sharks on land as well as in the sea.  Belize is a little country with big problems to face.  It has both corrupt politicians and proud bureaucrats who expect respect, not bribes.  It's a poor, developing country, but even so it seems to pay more attention to the environment than do its richer neighbors to the north.

Belize is a nation in the making, but it's also a land with a four thousand year history of achievement.  When Europe was huddling in ignorance in the Dark Ages, Belize was the center of an empire of wealth and sophistication, a land of a million people, four times the population of the country today.  The Maya were mathematicians, architects and theologians of great skill, who erected buildings that remain today the tallest in the region.

Belize is probably not like any other place you've likely ever been.  Despite the palm trees and the frost-free climate and the slow pace of daily life,  it's not a land where the living is always easy.  It's cheap, or it's expensive, depending on how you choose to live.  You can't just move to Belize and vegetate in comfortable retirement or hide behind the gated walls of a housing development for expatriates.  It's not a place in which to make easy money, and it's all too easy here to lose the money you have.

Take a little bit of Africa, a little of Europe, a little of the Caribbean, a little of Mexico and Guatemala, a little of the United States, and you almost have Belize.  Yet Belize is more than that.

Belize may not be for you.  But, then, maybe you are that one person in ten who will fall in love with Belize, with all its failings and frustrations.  You won't find it paradise.  You won't find it perfect.  But you'll wish you'd found it sooner.

Word of mouth about Belize