Day 8 - Caye Caulker - Island of white powder II

“You come to Caye Chaulker and you don’t do sniff?” – some drug dealer

Meet Tiger Sam

We met Tiger Sam outside the Ocean Front, Caye Caulker’s biggest nightclub.  “Come over here, I want to talk to you” he hollered at us from the shadows across the street.  Tiger Sam was one of the island’s more colourful characters.  “I am called tiger Sam, you don’t believe me?  Here look.”  He pulls up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a tiger’s face on the inside of his arm.  A deep scar ran across his arm and the tattoo.  He wanted to speak to us for two reasons.  

1\ He wanted to sell us drugs.  “You want weed, sniff?”  

2\ He wanted to rant at us “you know what the problem with you westerners?  If you had a starving dog and a starving child which one would you feed?”  He was expecting us to say the dog.  “I would feed the dog to the child” Myles joked.  “You would feed the child to the dog?!” Tiger Sam replied not hearing what Myles had said properly, clearly he was drunk or high, probably both.

That morning I decided to go for a wonder and find out what my new “home” was really like.  Caye Caulker in essence is just a long strip of sand that runs north to south.  The island is so narrow in fact if you stand at some of the cross roads you can see both the east and west coast of the island from that one position.  The main road on the island runs north to south along the more developed and touristy east side of the island.  The main road somewhat conveniently starts at the entrance of our hotel and ends at the northern most point of the island known as “the split”.  The split as its name would suggest is where the island was physically split in two by Hurricane Hattie back in 2004.  The separated north island is mainly undeveloped and is predominately a wildlife sanctuary.

Most of the island’s tourist facilities; hostels, hotels, bars, dive centres and shops are along the main street on the east side of the island.  The west side of the island is where the locals live.  All the roads on the island are made from compacted sand, broken up shells and potholes.  There are no cars on the island, instead everyone walks, cycles or drives golf buggies.  A car here would seem alien and would be pointless considering the size of the island.

As I made my way north along the main street avoiding the potholes and rampant golf buggy drivers I noticed that I had become the focal point of all the locals.  Everyone from people sat outside dive centres, restaurants or dodgy figures in dark corners wanted to speak to me, in fact some demanded it.  “Oi, camera Mike, come here” hollered a shady figure from beneath a palm tree.  It was Tiger Sam, the slightly unhinged drug dealer from last night.  He got my name from the fact that I always carry my camera with me.

The mistake of being polite and following his request to talk to him cost me 15 minutes of my time as I was subjected to another one of his drug related rants.  He liked to talk about himself and at one point I swear he was trying to compare himself to a modern version of Jesus.  Nothing he said relating to drugs or politics was open to debate of course, he was as narrow minded as the island.  He invited me to spend the afternoon with him where he would show me the best parts of the island and we would go fishing, although really it wasn’t an invite.  This honour would in his words “not cost too much”. 

“Not today, I am heading to the split” I said.  “You go and come back, I will wait for you here and we will go” he replied ignoring my disinterest.  Obviously I was going to have to find another way back to the hotel.

Of course Tiger Sam is not the only dealer on the island.  Whilst at the split I was approached by another colourful character who called himself the doctor.  “I am the island’s doctor; I have the medicine”.

The infamous Tiger Sam

Being approached as you would expect happens a lot more at night.  Nights out on Caye Caulker had become a routine.  We would start off at a small club called I and I Reggae Bar, a place which ironically was one of the only places on the island that didn’t play Reggae music.  I and I closes at 12 and from here we make a beeline for Ocean Side which is the place we went to on our first night and where I was welcomed home by that lovely but slightly scary one eyed man.

Tonight at Ocean Side I met Frosty the Snowman.  He came and sat next to me while I was drinking the local beer “I am Frosty, the “Snowman”, do you get me?”  As he says this he produces a bag of white powder with sleight of hand, like a child’s entertainer gone wrong.

My opinion of Caye Caulker was beginning to change.  Just a few nights ago I thought this place was perfect but constantly being offered drugs was getting irritating.  I didn’t mind being offered drugs as such, the unique “sales pitch” of these colourful drug dealers was interesting.  It was the weird look they gave me when I said no that was getting tiring.  It was almost like in turning down their offer I was offending them.  I tried to explain to one of them “I like drinking beer, I don’t want any sniff” but they are all narrow minded.  “You come to Caye Caulker and you don’t do sniff?  What is wrong with you?” one dealer said to me whilst I was leaving Ocean Side.  They are just obsessed with drugs here.  But what could I have expected?  Even the island itself is shaped like a line of cocaine...