LIVING IN BELIZE – “Power Outage & What Side of the Road Do You Drive On?“ 10/5/12

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Last night I did not sleep well at all.  It wasn’t because it was raining the whole time.  I actually quite like being lulled to sleep in the rain. But around 10 p.m. or so, the power went out (I’m sure as a result of the rain).  It woke me up immediately because my fan stopped working, and while it wasn’t an especially hot night, it was warm enough for me to need a fan to sleep comfortably.

The other issue this caused was the fact that all of our outside lights went out.  I never realized how much light they cast into the house until I got up to use the restroom and couldn’t see a darn thing.  Frankly, and this is a question I get asked all the time, power outages don’t happen all that often. Since I’ve lived in this house in Bullet Tree Falls Village, this is only the second one.  In San Ignacio, it seemed like they happened more often, maybe once every six weeks.

So I don’t sleep with a flash light next to my bed. But, being creative, I realized I could use my cell phone as a flash light, and that’s how I made my way to the bath room.  Now I was totally awake, and at this point, I realized how much my fan masked the outside noises, like the rain. I guess the fan is like a white noise effect.  In any case, between being hot and hearing every noise outside, I could not fall asleep.

Luckily, about two hours later, the power came back on. That’s pretty par for the course too. If you do have an outage, it generally does not last long.  Which is a good thing, because most people’s water is hooked up to the power, so if you lose one, you lose the other.  That’s something that was strange to me coming from the U.S., where one had nothing to do with the other.

I did manage to fall back asleep, eventually, but losing those two hours did a number on me.  I almost thought my walk this morning was going to be called off too. On top of being tired, it was still raining a bit when I got up. Determined not to blow my exercise off, though, I put on a cap and jacket and went out any way.  As it turned out, the rain stopped just as I did, and it was a beautiful, post rain morning – one of my favorite things in the world!

One of my blog readers asked me a question the other day that I thought was good enough to address here in a blog, since I do get asked it from time to time. The question was, “What side of the road do we drive on here in Belize?”  Since Belize is formerly British Honduras, a lot of people assume that we would drive on the left side of the road, like England. In fact, about 25% of the world drives on the left side.

But alas, we don’t in Belize.  We stay on the right side of the road, just like I was used to in the States. Thank goodness too. The only time in my life I ever had to drive on the opposite side was in St. Lucia, and it was very, very hard to get used to.  Every once in a while I will see a British car here, with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle, and it reminds me of that experience.

What side of the road are you used to driving on?

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  • Sandy A

    the right side of course. HOwever, we did drive on the left side in the Virgin Islands, even though it was the U.S. Virgin Islands! BTW, there is a flashlight app for your phone, and it is free. You can get it from Google Play store, or similar. It is really bright!

  • http://www.wealthships.com Sharon Hiebing

    Well I don’t have an IPhone – just a regular ole Belizean phone. But the light on it worked great, so maybe the flashlight app is already built into it?

  • michael

    We live in Jamaica at the moment and we drive here on the left hand side of the road and thats no problem for me because thats what am used to in Britain. So, when we eventually move to Belize, i will be killing a lot of stray dogs and cats…lol.

  • http://www.wealthships.com Sharon Hiebing

    Well, Michael, the strays here are incredibly adept at dodging traffic, even folks like you driving on the wrong side of the road, haha!

  • michael

    Lol….

  • Sandy A

    If you have an Android, that’s the app I am talking about. I don’t have an iPhone. I would say smartphone but a lot of times when I say that in Belize people think I mean using the Smart cellphone service.

  • http://www.wealthships.com Sharon Hiebing

    Yeah, I have a Plum. No flash light app in that :)

  • Alan Slater

    Hi Sharon,
    I have driven on both sides of the road in my travels and do not find it a problem if you always remember that the driver always sits on the crown of the road. If you find yourself, as the driver, that you are in the gutter, you are on the wrong side, or are driving on a one way street. The hardest thing, is driving a left hand drive in a left hand side drive country, or the opposite……right hand drive in a right hand drive country, because then the driver is always in the gutter.
    Alan S.

  • http://www.wealthships.com Sharon Hiebing

    haha, Alan, good way to remember it :) Unfortunately, in Belize, since there are no sidewalks, there aren’t gutters. In that case, you may find yourself in a ditch :)