Why I live where I live in Cayo, BZ: One reason is because the lazy Macal River runs through it, and merges with the mighty Mopan River on the outskirts of town. I love rivers.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
From A River Runs Through It*, By Norman Maclean
Aerial view of the Macal River, which runs through the rustic twin cities of San Ignacio-Santa Elena, known as “Cayo,” where I live.
I live where I live in Belize in the twin cities San Ignacio/Santa Elena, commonly known in Belize as “Cayo.”
Of all the places in the world I could live and the places I could reside in Belize, I live in Cayo partly because a beautiful, scenic, usually tranquil and lazy river–the Macal–runs through it.
I love the Macal even at times during the rainy season when it’s roaring and the water is muddy after torrential downpours that come and go sometimes for a week or more at a time. I especially love it this time of year, though, during “dry” season when it can appear pristine.
Just outside of Cayo the Macal River merges with the mighty Mopan River to form the Belize River which winds down the length of Belize into the Caribbean Sea.
Tourists chilling out on the Macal River below the high, iron bridge that spans in Cayo.
I love rivers. As Norman Maclean said in his concise and oh-so-beautiful and one and only novel, “A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.”
Rivers speak to me and I love rivers. They are tranquilizers with no dangerous side effects. In fact, they are like vitamins–they empower the mind, body, soul and spirit and keep them healthy.
I’ve been feeling so distressed by the news back home in the States lately–and a little stressed trying to get my book manuscript and the pictures that will illustrate The View From Down in Poordom ready for production–that I’ve neglected to get back to nature where I can breathe.
Today I did just that—took the time to walk four miles along the river with my binoculars to look at the birds and butterflies and magnificent greenery and water currents.
It was like getting a booster shot for the soul.
His greatness Norman Maclean wrote:
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Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.
I’m not much of a fisherman and never have been, except in the sense of being “a fisher of men (and women) in the biblical sense.
But we’d probably be better people if we stopped waiting for the world to become perfect, amen?
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* In his review of Maclean’s instant classic of a novel, Alfred Kazin wrote in the Chicago Tribune:
“
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There are passages here of physical rapture in the presence of unsullied primitive America that are as beautiful as anything in Thoreau and Hemingway.”
The walkway on the high and very high iron bridge that spans the Macal River and connects San Ignacio and Santa Elena. Another wood-plank bridge, called the “low bridge,” rises only a few feet above the river.
Yes! Beautiful river!
I love rivers too, Paul. I grew up in the Mississippi Delta – specifically, Monroe, Louisiana which is on the Ouachita River in northeast Louisiana. (Indian name, pronounced wash-ah-tah)
I think I read once that the Ouachita was once named as one of the most beautiful rivers in the United States or North America or something like that or maybe I just made that up myself.
And I love the tales of Mark Twain – Huckleberry Finn, etc. and other tales of the Mississippi river and its history. In fact, one of the best shows I ever saw on Broadway was Big River — Huckleberry Finn and the slave Jim who made their way down the Mississippi on a raft, creating & participating in all sorts of mischief, fun, adventure and friendship.
And guess who wrote the music – original score – for that show – the one and only Roger Miller, of King of the Road fame. The soundtrack for Big River has been one of my favorites for a long time.
A small local theater here did Big River a few years ago. They even used real falling water to depict how Huckleberry Finn and his friend Jim poled their raft down the Mississippi in the rain. Check out that score, “River in the Rain.”
My great grandfather was a riverboat captain. Loaded up all of his family in Ohio around 1902 and brought them all the way to Monroe by boat. First on the Ohio River, then the Mississippi then the Ouachita, landing and making their home right on the river in Monroe. That’s where my dad grew up.
Thanks for listening to my river stories. And thanks for sharing yours.
Marty Jones
Yep, I grew up in Navasota between two rivers, the mighty Brazos and the Navasota! And Huck Finn–my favorite book ever of all time although Mockingbird runs close.