Best Posts in Thread: Belize and Other Places

This is something to remember also, you go to a community, not a country. Country statistics are nearly always meaningless. Your experience is one example, another is Guatemala is a somewhat dangerous county - because the crime rate in Guatemala City skews the data. Panajachele on Lake Atitlan where I was last year has virtually no crime at all, possible some minor petty theft of careless tourists. The locals simply do nit tolerate crime and the criminals know it. Another example is Chicago, very dangerous, multiple murders almost daily - unless you are not in those areas, then you are as safe as anywhere else.

Look for local crime statistics and cost of living, IMHO it is a waste of time looking at country stats.

 

I worked in Guatemala for 4 years just after the civil war ended in the 90s and hopped on over to Belize for some beach r n r now and again. I wouldn't be able to tell you if the situation has improved since then, but Belize would not be a place I would feel safe in. In the late 90s and early noughties the coke biz was thriving it wasn't unusual to see bodies floating by in ditches on the road from Placencia to Belize city. The record was 27 on one journey - and Belize is a pretty small place.

Guatemala was a mad kettle of fish, drug gangs, kidnappings...the charity I worked for insisted that I had a sidearm and at least 3 body guards when in the barrios. When was the last time you consulted a doc carrying a piece for your regular check up? It was just the same out in the towns, villages and countryside. Goofing off in Livingston and the near Puerto Barrios is like playing Russian roulette with all six chambers loaded...it WILL happen. I was mugged in a bank compound using an atm...and the security guards just shrugged and turned away. I can only imagine it has got worse.

Sorry for moving off thread here, I wouldn't want to have citizenship here in the Phils btw. Central Latin America is just d*mn scary, more so than the Phils imho.

Cheers,

C

 

I was Stationed on Belize in the 70's, I loved it but........... It can get a little like the PI on Bureaucracy at times