_{Holiday Hotel in San Pedro}

Monday, June 9, 2025 at 9:35 AM

She jokingly calls herself the Mayan goddess, but to me she is Athena and Aphrodite and Helen of Troy and Lady Godiva and Gloria Steinem and Margaret Thatcher all rolled into one. A mixture of bravura and resilience and beauty and independence and determination.

Her name is Celi McCorkle Grief Nunez, the matriarch of San Pedro, the doyenne responsible for hospitality and tourism, not only on La Isla Bonita, but throughout Belize. Her first husband had the vision, the foresight to see the future of air travel and tourism and hotel accommodations on the island of San Pedro, and she had the determination, the fortitude and the will, to see it all come to fruition, to realize their dream.

As a young woman, Celi showed her independence and her determination not to settle for less. When all her contemporaries were looking for husbands, she was trying to improve herself, to be her own person. She left the island to go to high school, and then did secretarial work in Belize City, and in no time became the talk of the town. Her stunning beauty brought her to the attention of many men, married and single; but she managed to survive their entreaties because she always had a goal in mind, to succeed against the improbable. It was a time when women were property; independent women were rare back then, almost nonexistent. She was envied and hated and respected by her fellow San Pedranos; but she demanded that respect, and got it.

Along with John Grief, her first husband, they started Tropic Air, which is now a major player in Central American aviation. They also opened the Holiday Hotel, which still stands in all its glory, one of the only colonial architectural structures still standing in Belize. Known for its charm and hospitality, it has hosted presidents and diplomats and movie stars in its heyday. It was the first major tourist resort on the island, and was once the tallest building in San Pedro. It had one of the first gift shops, restaurants, and a bar that was always filled with tourists and locals, seeking respite from the clamor and the stress of daily life.

Now in her eighth decade, she still rules her enterprises with an iron fist. Sitting in her ivory tower on the top floor of her hotel, she overseas every aspect of her operations. The restaurant, the deli, the bar and the hotel, nothing happens without her say-so. She could have become a politician, and would have won every contest, but she chose business and philanthropy as her passions. Her aid to fellow San Pedranos has mostly been done secretly and without fanfare.

I have admired Celi ever since I was a teenager going to San Pedro for the Easter holidays. We young men were all in love with her, not in the true sense of the word, but in the way William Butler Years loved Maud Goone, unrequited, and from a distance. We became friends later in life, and I still call to wish her a happy birthday every year.

If she had one weakness, it was in the affairs of the heart. She loved deeply and gave her all in her relationships. I call it a weakness, but it was more a tribute to her fealty and dedication and commitment to her partner. Her daughters are as beautiful as she is; she can look at them and remember that unblemished face and body she once wore.

I love and respect this person because she is the ideal woman to me. She does not suffer fools gladly; she’s a faithful friend, a pioneer, an example of womanhood, and especially, a good human being.

Celi, I salute you, I love you, I celebrate you!

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

“Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

“Where most she satisfies” — Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene 2, by Shakespeare

Glen