tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10000116.post114659247956301844..comments2023-10-15T06:37:38.980-06:00Comments on Back to Living in Paradise: Hopkins Village, Then and NowCaribbean Colors Belizehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16192486050254343647noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10000116.post-1147561939677117382006-05-13T17:12:00.000-06:002006-05-13T17:12:00.000-06:00Previous comment sadly true. I crossed the island ...Previous comment sadly true. I crossed the island (Jamaica) last month to visit the north coast. I was shocked to see how exclusive the all-inclusive resorts were. Completely isolated, the tourists never venture outside, or if they do, it's by chauffeured car/bus to a safe excursion spot.<BR/><BR/>Outside the resorts, there are dusty, run-down road towns.<BR/><BR/>g2g ...cooking!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10000116.post-1147131273379254282006-05-08T17:34:00.000-06:002006-05-08T17:34:00.000-06:00I often feel bad for tourist destinations. The to...I often feel bad for tourist destinations. The tourists bring the money, which brings about economic growth, but eventually they just develop over everything that makes it beautiful. Once the beauty is gone the tourists simply drift off to a new destination like a swarm of locusts.Rainypetehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01415282957997196121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10000116.post-1147082986600513302006-05-08T04:09:00.000-06:002006-05-08T04:09:00.000-06:00The very small island I live on has changed alarmi...The very small island I live on has changed alarmingly in the past 10 years. Buildings are sprouting up everywhere, tourists are flooding in. Noboday seems particularly concerned with maintaining the character of the place, though you don't have to look too far before it starts looking just like your photos. Yet.hobbeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11504018553406721626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10000116.post-1146694974863950902006-05-03T16:22:00.000-06:002006-05-03T16:22:00.000-06:00About cashew nuts -- about 20 years ago, in my fir...About cashew nuts -- about 20 years ago, in my first trip to Belize, I tried biting open the shell on the cashew. Within minutes, my lips were blistered, burnt, oozing. It was really painful for days, and I expect I'm really lucky I didn't get an infection from it. There is some kind of chemical in the shell or skin on a cashew nut that is very strong (I think it's an acid?). What I remember is that they burn off the outer shell and in the process roast the nut.<BR/><BR/>The other thing I remember was how huge the frult is, how tiny the nut is, and how many cashew trees there must be in the world because it just didn't seem possible that a single tree could produce one little bag of nuts, so it must take millions of trees to produce all the nuts we see in the market around the world. And I wonder what happens to all the fruit? It can't all be made into cashew fruit wine...<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the photos of old Belize. I think it was about 1986 when I made the trip to Placencia. I was visiting a peace corp friend and we hitched down the hummingbird highway with a resort developer from Costa Rica who was looking at whether he could build a huge Cancun style resort down at the bottom of the peninsula. We were horrified! I'm glad it hasn't happened yet. Back then, there were so few cars in the country that you quickly knew who all the drivers were, making it feel relatively safe to hitchhike.<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/>CarrieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10000116.post-1146676272023624872006-05-03T11:11:00.000-06:002006-05-03T11:11:00.000-06:00You do realize that your posts about Belize makes ...You do realize that your posts about Belize makes plenty of us the urge to visit Belize, don't you? But at least from my part you can rest assured, I'm not the big bucks kind of tourist...DCveRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13968186371733793050noreply@blogger.com