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| Written by Elizabeth Pridgeon |
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[Orange Walk – where East and West, sweet and sour, black and white all meet and combine …] A Stay in Orange Walk Whatever time you awake from your restful slumber, you’ll be sure to arise to the sound of street vendors promoting their fresh produce, to children on bicycles racing to buy their morning groceries, to busses hooting to alert of their imminent departure, and most of all to incessant chatter among Kriol, Mestizo, Mayan, Garifuna and Mennonite groups – all ages and all colours meeting as one to discuss the day’s events.
Your senses are buzzed to life almost immediately by the sweet smell of sugar drifting in through the open windows from the nearby Tower Hill sugarcane refinery, mingling with the savory texture the air holds from the abundance of local vendors selling breakfast including tacos, burritos or (more traditionally) tortillas with refried beans, all washed down with freshly prepared watermelon, pineapple or orange juice. Who could ask for a better start to the day? Once refueled and rearing to go, each and every direction will take you on a new adventure. You could choose to head out into the nearby villages to appreciate all the hard work that goes into the largest industry in the northern districts: meet the cane-cutters who travel from afar to help with the highly intensive harvest of the sugar cane crop. You could explore (or even unearth!) ancient Mayan ruins that surround many of these northern parts, and as yet are largely unexcavated. You could head out northwards, towards the crystal clear sea at Corozal for a locally brewed Belikin beer in the cooling breeze. You could travel to the local Mennonite villages where electricity and conventional modes of transport are largely frowned upon, and where traditional horse-and-carts are used to transport produce from their highly productive farms to the wholesale vendors in town. Or you could simply choose to while away the time in Orange Walk town itself. Why not amble the streets of the town, find shade among the friendly stall-holders at the market, join in cheerful banter in the park, stroll down to the New River (keeping a watch for crocodiles!), or rent a bike for an hour or two and just do as so many Belizeans do – circle around until (as surely it will) something of interest takes your fancy? As Aldus Huxley famously said about Belize, that it is “not on the way from anywhere to anywhere else”, the same can hold true for Orange Walk. And surely it is partly because of this that it has managed to hold on to the culture of its multi-ethnic background, its laid-back Caribbean pace of life, and above all, its general charm and charisma. Orange Walk is the only place I know where I can just ‘be’ – where I can forget about the stresses and strains of everyday life elsewhere and cherish each and every moment, never knowing what is around the next Orange Walkanean corner. |