Gentle's Cool Spot

GENTLE'S COOL SPOT

We were bumping and bouncing around Belize in Azul Grande, the big blue van we'd driven from California. My husband, Gene, and I, our thirteen-year-old son, Gino, and our brother, Michael, were looking for archeological ruins and wildlife.
A fellow traveler told us a man in Gale's Point could show us the rare manatee. We got out our map and found Gale's Point to be a little finger of land at the southern end of Manatee Lagoon, south of Belize City and north of Dangriga. According to our guidebook, the only place to stay was an expensive fishing lodge, but, since we'd been roughing it, we were ready for a hot shower, a private bath, or both.
The many glowing articles we'd read before our journey about ecotourism in this Caribbean country hadn't prepared us for the wobbly nature of their tourist infrastructure. With a few exceptions, nice comfortable accommodations were expensive. There was usually no range of choices. Travelers like us with more of a sense of adventure than a bankroll became intimately acquainted with threadbare linens that are not turned down at night or made up in the morning. We often felt in Belize that we weren't getting a good lodging value for the money spent, but there were always compensations. Seeing an anteater on a sunrise hike in Cockscomb made up for the ferocious insects that swarmed our ankles as we walked from the bunkhouse to the outhouse. Swimming with spotted eagle rays off South Water Cay made up for the lack of electricity and hot water in our $100 a day beach cabin, but it wasn't until Gale's Point that we realized how much our travel dollars were buying. We paid more than at a camp site, but we didn’t have to set up a tent or blow up an air mattress, and we got to see fabulous wild life and beautiful places.
The village had no telephone service, and there was no answer on the lodge's two-way radio. We decided to take a chance on arriving without reservations and pointed Azul Grande toward the manatees.
We were on a trip back in time. The road to yesterday was hard and slow, unpaved, unsigned, with a river crossing that didn't include a bridge. Grass grew between the two dirt tracks that bisected the peninsula of Gale's Point. No need to worry about street names. There was just the one road with humble homes on stilts scattered along either side. Electricity to the village had only been operating one month. There was no restaurant, no store, and, as it turned out, no lodging. The fishing lodge had closed. It was 5:00 p.m. and hours from anyplace else to stay. Azul Grande would sleep three but not four. We had sleeping bags but no tent. None of us wanted to sleep on the ground because since we'd been in Belize, we'd already seen two of the most poisonous snakes in the world: a colorful coral snake at Crooked Tree and the venomous viper with a lance shaped head, the fer-de-lance, near the Thousand Foot Waterfall. No. We didn't want to sleep on the ground.
We retreated to the only commercial establishment in the village, "Gentle's Cool Spot." A cool spot in Belize is an informal cafe. "Gentle's" had six tables with chairs in an open-air area with a roof. Like everything else in the village, it was on that one unpaved road. Most cool spots serve food and drink, but "Gentle's" only served soft drinks and Belikans, the beer of Belize. No place to stay and no dinner either. We were all hungry and disappointed, but only Gino and I whined. Mr. Gentle said there was a man named Chip who had two beds we could probably use. "How will I find Chip?" asked Gene.
"He's a tall dark man,” said Mr. Gentle. Gale's Point is a community of blacks, and all the men, and women too, are tall and thin. So we drove along asking every man we saw if he was Chip. Since the population was less than 300, we found Chip. He agreed to rent us his beds. Gene and Michael, ever gallant, wanted Gino and me to have the beds, but we chose the van. We didn't inspect the beds and then make the choice. Perhaps we preferred the van because it was more familiar, almost a home on wheels.
Mr. Gentle's wife had agreed to serve us "tea" when we returned. Instead of seating us at one of the "Cool Spot" tables outside, we were ushered into the family kitchen. Rather than tea, she gave each of us a cup of boiling hot instant coffee. Gino looked at me questioningly. I shrugged slightly. I wasn't going to fuss at him if he didn't choose this time to start drinking coffee. In the center of the oilcloth covered table, she placed a bowl of pureed corned beef and a large round loaf of bread that she'd baked herself. They called the bread a "Creole bun." It had coconut in it and was delicious. I wondered if Mr. Gentle's large family had to forgo this tasty treat in order to feed us hungry travelers.
It wasn't a great surprise to find out that Mr. Gentle was the manatee man. He agreed to take us out in his boat early the next morning. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that we'd see them.
Chip's place was across the road from the town pier. We took a bottle of chilled California Chardonnay from our ice chest out to the end of the pier and settled down to watch the night. With places to sleep, food in our stomachs, and a promise of manatee sightings, our spirits were lifted. Now we noticed how magnificent the coconut palms and spreading mango trees were, with more fruit than the inhabitants could consume. Every home had a view of the lagoon, a lagoon so shallow there'd never been a drowning in Gale's Point.
Now we could appreciate that Chip would give up his own bed for the night and sleep in a hammock. The other bed he was renting us belonged to their Peace Corps volunteer who was away. They were crazy about their Peace Corps worker in Gale's Point. She was teaching them that protecting manatee rather than eating them would help attract tourist dollars to their village, a hard lesson for a poor fishing village to learn considering a male manatee may weigh over 1,000 pounds. That's a lot of food. Our presence was proof that the Peace Corps worker was right.
The United States Peace Corps, the Audubon Society, and the World Wildlife Fund have all been instrumental in educating the people of Belize in the advantages of ecotourisim. Mr. Gentle was in the process of building a very basic cabin to house future tourists. The people who stay in that cabin will pay for more than marginal accommodations. They'll be contributing, as we were, to the survival of a special spot and species. If the tourist dollar helps Belizians protect their monkeys, coral reef, pyramids, birds, jaguars, and manatees, then the traveler has a bargain, and so does the environment.
We watched a full mango moonrise. The reflected moon quivered on the still waters of Manatee Lagoon. Silence settled on us like a soft feather comforter. It was the quiet of the wilderness, those places far from televisions, VCR's, tape decks, dishwashers, cars. Azul Grande was the only car in town that night. Soon the accouterments of electricity would be there too. We weren't really in the wilderness. We were in a place caught between yesterday and today, and we felt fortunate to be in that place.

When we met Mr. Gentle for our boat trip, he said sadly, "It's a bleaky morn."
Gene looked at the overcast sky with a frown and asked, "Will that interfere with us seeing the manatee?"
"Oh, no," Mr. Gentle assured him. He launched the boat, and we began our search for the herbivorous, docile, shy creature sometimes called a sea cow. At first, we thought Mr. Gentle was going slowly because we were searching, but he explained that one of the greatest threats to the manatee is boat motors. The big guys can't swim fast enough to avoid a boat moving at high speed.
Fifteen minutes out, he turned off the motor. We could see land but weren't near shore. "Now we will see the manatee," he said. Silvery Tarpon leaped around us. Two or three at a time were in the air. Were they taunting and tempting us? Did they miss the sport of evading a fishing lure? Or were they celebrating the closing of the fishing lodge? We were so enchanted with the sparkling silver spectacle that we were almost startled when Mr. Gentle said, "That is he." Mr. Gentle pointed a long finger at a large dark bulbous form just under the water's surface. The manatee was fourteen feet long and very near the boat. He stuck his nose out of the water, took a breath, and, with a stroke of the two paddle shaped appendages in front, disappeared. Manatee's are mammals and must come up for air every ten minutes, but what's unique about them is that they like to return to the same spot to breath. It's their version of "Gentle's Cool Spot." Now we knew why Mr. Gentle had been so certain we would see them.
We observed the manatee long enough for me to become convinced that they couldn't possibly have inspired the legend of the mermaid, as some sources say. We'd lost count of the number of noses that had surfaced when Mr. Gentle said, "Now we will see the birds."
That was the first I'd heard of birds on that particular outing, but we were always interested in wildlife. As we motored along, Mr. Gentle pointed out wild orchids in bloom and a long snake draped along a bare tree branch. He called the snake "walla."
When we reached tiny Bird Island in North Lagoon, he said, "This is what you came to see." Hundreds of white ibis, snowy egrets, and egret chicks were nesting together on the branches of low growing trees, the chicks as fluffy as dandelion puffs. "They're just so pretty," he said and repeated, "This is what you came to see." It was funny because it wasn't what we'd come to see. We hadn't known about the nesting birds, and we wouldn't have seen them if it wasn't for Mr. Gentle, a man who cared for many families: his own, the manatees, the birds, and the travelers.
"Cool," said Gino, the ultimate current compliment from a teenager. Indeed, there was more than one Gentle’s Cool Spot.

photos: #1 - Mr. Gentle & kids at his "Cool Spot." #2 - Crossing a river without a bridge. #3 - Our outhouse at Chips.