Placencia is a lovely spot at the end of a long spit, jutting out into the Caribbean. A normal day is calm, warm, and being Belize, vey very chilled. It claims to have the narrowest main street in the world, and it's clapboard stilted houses are all brightly coloured shabby chic and in my opinion, quite quite delightful. I'm staying in one such dwelling for the duration of my stay, and I've already decided I'm going to buy it and set up permanent residence here. More on Placencia to come I'm sure.
I’m glad I’m giving up this stuff, it is starting to bring out some very unkind thoughts and shows me in a poor light. I sat between two Americans at a bar last night quietly reading my book but earwigging their conversation. One guy bought the other guy a beer because he was a veteran. A very gracious and honourable thing to do. The veteran, of short service it seems, then regaled his countryman with impressive tales of derring-do revolving mainly around spending US tax dollars on doing some terribly unadventurous touristy stuff without any peril, initiative, or indeed any interest whatsoever, let alone putting his life under threat of expiration. Not that every person that dresses in olive green has to be Rambo, but accepting gratuities for getting drunk and peeling potatoes 500 miles from the front line seems pretty poor form to me. The guy buying beer had the good grace to thank the drinker for his service and wished him a pleasant evening. Personally, I would’ve accused him of being a show-off sham of a man and insisted that if he wants free beer for life, he should go back, pick up a rifle and actually do something worthy of such generosity first. I’ve exposed myself to far greater danger, at my own volition and expense in the past 6 weeks than this chap did in his 2 year tour of Greenland and Guam.
It’s not an American thing. I’ve seen this time and time again, from ex-military rear echelon bods the world over. All servicemen deserve respect regardless of the role they play, but let's keep it proportional eh? There are genuinely deserving folk out there that keep their courageous exploits to themselves and in my experience, they buy their own beers.
The narrowest main street .....in the world.
Jesus, it's all gone a bit Live And Let Die
Breakfast view.
No comments:
Post a Comment