1987 Travel Journal: Lemon Meringue Pie

    Even though there weren’t any loud cathedral bells clanging away during the ungodly hours of morning, or loud bus engines outside my hotel room, those things must have left an indelible impression on my psyche, because I am no longer able to sleep in, even without any disturbance.  I got up at 6:00, shaved, showered, and organized my suitcase.  Fred is going back to Belize City, which is also where I was headed, so we walked down to the bus station, not knowing when a bus might be leaving, but we only had to wait 10 minutes.

    Yesterday at the Belize border, I had seen a sign saying that Mexico was no longer giving out Tourist Cards at their border, and that anyone who needed one had to pick it up at the Mexican Consul Office in Belize City.   When we got to Belize City, a small, crowded, rundown, looking place, Fred and I took a cab to the Mexican Consul Office to get our Tourist Cards.  Getting one only took two minutes, and Fred didn’t take much longer to confirm a flight.

    Belize City has a bad reputation for crime, and during my short jaunt through it, I didn’t come upon anything that made me want to extend my stay there.  I decided to head to Corozal, a beach town, located in the northern part of Belize, on the Caribbean, very close to the Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.  Fred, who had days with nothing else to do before his flight home, decided to join me, so we went to the bus station to get tickets for Corozal, which cost $3 US.

    While waiting around at the small, dingy, bus station, at the food section I noticed a lemon meringue pie that was sitting in the glass counter, with a couple of slices already taken.  While I had eaten many lemon meringue pies in my life and liked them okay, I couldn’t say it was my favorite type of pie, but I had time to kill before the bus, so I told the lady behind the counter that I would have a piece of the pie.

    Wow, thinking of the taste of that piece of lemon meringue pie, makes me salivate even now, decades later.  It was so rich, tangy, and delicious, I assume because it was made out of fresh tropical lemons, but who knows?  That pie has often led me to choose a piece of Lemon Meringue when given a choice of pies, but after biting into them, I have always been disappointed.  None have ever lived up to the rich, tangy, taste of that Lemon Meringue pie I had in that small, dingy, Belize City bus station.

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