On the road... again

Belizean flag.

You land, after a strenuous two-day long trip, and the first thing you notice is a sticky and stifling heat. You have survived the insufferable bureaucracy of the US customs, but the best part is still to arrive: looking for the bus station, getting into a bus and staying awake till you get to the adequate stop, in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night... yeah, definitely you are on the road again!

You realize you have arrived, for the first time, to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and more concretely to Central America. My new job is in Belize, a little English-speaking country and member of the Commonwealth for having been a British colony, and renowned for its financial paradise status. But that's other story.

Belize. Important, check Punta Gorda, in the
south: my new town.

Despite its fiscal condition, Belize is still a developing country. But a high-end one, we can say. Good roads, safe drinking water easily available in any top... a country of about the size of the Netherlands, with little more than 300.000 inhabitants, covered a 60% forest cover and enjoying of a enviable 40% of its surface under some kind of official protection. It borders with Mexico and Guatemala and, even if English is the official and most widespread language, even though Spanish is widely spoken, and both of them co-existing with other languages as Garifuna, Creol, Maya, German... even Hindi.

The economy of this country relies mainly on tourism (ever increasing) and agriculture, as well as other forms of exploitation of natural resources (traditionally, timber). Also, its population increases a 3% per year, mainly due to immigration. 

This demographic growth, as well as the increase in size of the tourism in the area and the demands of international markets (which are leading to a rosewood crisis, mainly due to the influence of the Chinese market), have lead to an ever-increasing pressure on natural resources... and that's the reason I'm here (a.k.a., the reason I found a job here). But that's a topic for other entry.