Tag Archives: Belize

Monkeys and Migrants

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This is a series of posts about Belize that starts here.

—

We stopped at Guanacaste National Park to eat our picnic lunch, hike, and have a swim.

It was a sweet but sad place.  Like any state park in the US, it had an interpretive center.

The lone park ranger, Uriah, seemed pleased to have visitors. We used the bathroom, which was worse than the one at the gas station, then politely looked at the home-made displays.  There were no lights except for the sun coming in the window.  No lights, but there was a pay phone.

“You can hike,” Uriah said hesitatingly, “But many snakes have come up from the river banks since the rains.  It’s very muddy, and they hide in the mud.  Most of them won’t attack … unless you step on her, then she will bite.”

Our group was silent, for once. Then Jan asked, “Most of them?”

“Some, they are very aggressive, like the Yellow Jaw.  And she is very toxic.  There are many species of snake, but only eight are poisonous.”

“Only eight….” Stan repeated pensively.

“And where is the swimming?” ventured Mark, the eternal optimist.  I was wearing my swim suit under my clothes, dripping with sweat, and couldn’t wait to jump into the water.

“Ahh … I would not try swimming today,” Uriah answered. “The river is too flooded; the currents too strong.  It’s so muddy you can’t see the crocodiles.”

I’ve traveled a lot.  I’ve encountered many local guides who tell horror stories about venomous snakes, giant spiders, and large carnivores that will tear off your arm. Usually it’s just BS.  But Uriah was a serious guy, like a lot of park rangers.  If he was telling us not to hike or swim, I was heeding his advice.

People do get dragged away by crocodiles in Belize; this is an excerpt from an article in a Belizean newspaper about a croc attack.

“Dr. Mario Estradaban conducted a post mortem examination on the body on Tuesday, September 19th, which certified the cause of death to be exsanguination traumatic amputation of the upper limbs due to crocodile syndrome.”
Mark, being young, male, and probably believing he was invincible, tried to rally us. “I’m game for a little hike, if anyone wants to join me.”  The three men in our group disappeared into the jungle behind him, if for no other reason than to not look like wimps.

We womenfolk laid out the lunch.  News of the health benefits of whole grains and unprocessed food has apparently not yet reached Belize.  We were going to feast on sandwiches of soft white bread, cheese food slices, some kind of pork bologna imported from Germany, and tomatoes and cucumbers.  My sandwich, minus the bologna, was delicious.  That’s one of the things I enjoy about traveling; I give myself permission to just eat whatever is put in front of me, never mind how fatty, sugary, or processed it is.  We also had dried plantain chips flavored with cayenne which were delicious.

The men returned after about 10 minutes. “It’s too muddy,” Mark reported.  “It’s like, six inches deep.”  Mike, Stan, and Jessie, coming up behind him, looked relieved.

“Look! Monkeys!” exclaimed Inga.  Not more than a few yards away, a group of big black monkeys were swinging in the tree tops.  Everyone ran over to the clearing among the trees to watch the show.

“Yes, this is our family,” narrated Uriah.  “The mother, the baby, and six others who hang around.  They are Howler Monkeys but we call them baboons.”

I stood next to Uriah.  He was tall and thin, his skin greyish, his face drawn but with remarkable iridescent, olive-colored eyes.  He appeared to be about 45; he seemed weary, not the vigorous, outdoorsy type.  I asked if he lived nearby and he laughed ruefully.

“Oh yes, I live in the office,” he said.  “I sleep under the desk.  My family lives in the far north, in Santa Elena on the Mexican border but my job is here.  I only go home once a month.  My wife, she is sick ….”

We drove off, leaving Uriah to sleep alone in the dark with the snakes.

Colonials

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

—

We had left Guatemala and were driving to Hopkins, Belize. On the way we would stop for a picnic and a hike around Guanacaste National Park, with the promise of a swim in the Roaring Creek waterfalls.

We stopped for gas and to use the bathroom.  I wondered about this cigarette brand:

I can’t imagine this brand going down well in Nairobi or Mumbai.  Belizeans must have a more laid back attitude toward their colonial past.

The bathroom had no light, no water, and no toilet seat.  There was a sign with detailed hand-written instructions posted over the sink that you could see if the door was open.  Since there was a line of people waiting to use the loo I didn’t want to hold them up so I only saw enough of the sign to know that it was kind of like an algorithm: If you were a man you followed the instructions on the left, women on the right.  Women were instructed to sit on the nonexistent toilet seat, not squat over it, which would result in pee all over the place.

The smell told me there had been many women who had not read the instructions.  It’s all about perspective, though.  I can say with confidence that this roadside bathroom was better than a similar one I used in Cuba, which had the added feature of an old woman who stood there while you peed, then poured a bucket of water down the toilet because it didn’t flush, and then asked you for a dollar.

—

There was more spine-crunching driving, but how can you complain when you’re sailing along the Hummingbird Highway through the Mayan Mountains?  The scenery was spectacular. It rained off and on and became more humid.  I love humidity.  Despite the fact that it makes my Restless Legs worse, it makes my skin soft and my hair wavier.  And looking good is what matters, right?

I was sitting next to Liz.  This was Day Three, and the first time I noticed that she nattered on nonstop about everything and nothing.  She had a curious way of repeating each observation.  For instance she would say, “I’ve never seen anything like that,” followed immediately by, “That’s something I’ve never seen.”  This was all in a southern drawl, because she was originally from somewhere further south than Cincinnati; Alabama, I think. The volume of her speech was also more suited to a noisy barroom than a quiet van.

What is it that makes someone need to talk—compulsively?  At first I nodded in acknowledgement at everything she said.  Once I noticed she was basically talking about nothing but just because she couldn’t help herself, I turned my head to the window to gaze at the scenery.  It felt rude.  But wasn’t she being rude by yammering nonstop while everyone else was trying to enjoy the peaceful views?  I fought the urge to turn my head back to her and start nodding again.

She kept talking, and talking, and talking.  She even said at one point, to no one, “Ah know ah talk too much!” followed by a forced, too-long laugh. This was when I remembered that—in my experience—people who talk too much know it, and they aren’t overly sensitive when people ignore them.

I stopped feeling rude.  I also avoided sitting next to Liz for the rest of the trip.

—

We stopped and shopped for lunch in a Chinese-owned store.  I didn’t take an official census, but I would estimate that 75% of the businesses in Belize are Chinese owned. Here are some items I found amusing, mysterious, or revolting:

Cashew wine!?  Industrial-sized cans of jalapenos?  Ramen, possibly containing real men?

Sadly, I was going to be home when the National Domino Playoffs took place:

I blame the power of advertising; the men and I bought Belikins and drank them while we waited for others to check out.  I jokingly asked Mark, “Okay if we finish these in the van?” and he said, nonchalantly, “Sure.” I have a feeling this was not official policy, but I didn’t ask twice.

Sounds and Signs

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

—

Exhausted, we arrived back at Don David’s.  There was no bickering between Liz and me; we fell onto our beds and slept.

When I think back on this trip, there are five or six moments when I said to myself, “That was my favorite moment!”  As usual, no matter how tired am, I awoke at 5am.  I got dressed and followed the bird sounds out toward the lake.  I was alone, and the sunrise, the topography, and the birds made me feel like I was witnessing the dawn of creation.

Until I heard the high-pitched, whiny roar of what we in Minnesota call a crotch rocket—someone was up before me, probably going to work on his Yamaha scooter.

But that didn’t spoil it.  I had experienced 30 seconds of serenity, with nothing but the sounds and colors of the world waking up.  Silence, peace, serenity…call it whatever you will…it’s so rare.  I can still recall this moment if I make an effort.  And watch the video I took.

At the end of this video you can see the mountain that resembles a sleeping crocodile. It has a name and a back story that I can’t remember, but local legend has it that it saved the people from some peril and now sleeps nearby in case they need him again.

It’s not just external things that distract us from moments of beauty.  I am programmed by habit to immediately think, “Food! Coffee!” upon waking, and today was no exception.  I ambled up the lawn to the lodge, to find Stan already there.

“Look at my list!” he exclaimed like a kid who collected baseball cards.  He was juggling an illustrated laminated poster called “Birds of Central America,” his binoculars, a notebook, and a cup of coffee.

I don’t know much about birds, but this morning I enjoyed watching them with Stan. “This guide says there are over 740 bird species in Guatemala!” I have no idea which ones we saw, but here are some of the funny names off of the laminated poster: Slaty-breasted Tinamou, Fulvous Whistling Duck, Rufous-bellied Chachalaca, Pale-vented Pigeon, Common Potoo, Dusky Nightjar, Cocos Cuckoo, and the Greenish Puffleg. There must have been 50 species of hummingbirds alone.

There were clouds of birds around the feeding platforms.  I managed to snap these two little fellows eating bananas.  Who knew that birds ate bananas?

Too soon, it was time to drive back to Belize.

This time the border crossing was faster, and our young fixers were nowhere to be seen.  Maybe they were in school, uniformed with the money earned from us and other travelers?

It was still a slow process, and loading up on coffee necessitated that we had to use a bathroom.  I led Liz and Trudy on a search.  We found the right shack, one of the many little businesses that had sprung up to take advantage of the hundreds of people crossing back and forth over the border each day.

The sign said, “Toilet, $1.”  As an American, I am always grateful that my currency is so widely accepted.  For $1.00, you got an outhouse perched over the river that looked like the house made of sticks in the story of the three little pigs, and six squares of toilet paper.

The proprietor was trying to explain to Trudy where the toilets were.  “She’s deaf,” I said in Spanish, proud of myself for knowing the word for “deaf”, which is “sordo.”

He turned to Trudy and started signing!  What were the odds of that—that the proprietor of a bathroom business at the Guatemala-Belize border crossing would know American Sign Language?  We all had a good laugh, a good pee, and rejoined the line.

—

In real time, I have exceeded my limit for stress.  How do I know?  Because I have vertigo.  I feel like I am in one of those inflatable bouncy houses you see at kiddie fairs.

I can handle a lot of stress.  What pushed me over the edge was my decision to sell my condo.  I  can’t take the noise from the upstairs neighbors.  It would be a wonderful home for someone who is deaf, so if you know anyone deaf who is house hunting, please spread the word.

A Tip Says a Thousand Words

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

—

José Luis went with us to a roadside supper club where we feasted post-Tikal.  We were the only customers in the cavernous dining room.  There were party rooms and even a pool with a playground outside where people must have held birthday parties and other events.

I read the history of the place on the menu and learned that it was a chain. Like a lot of chains, they had gimmicks, like neon-colored drinks with lots of sugar and not much alcohol, and something like fondue pots that came out flaming and none of us knew what to do with.

Just my luck, their specialty was pork sausage, so I ordered the one chicken item.  It was way too salty, as was all the food.  But José Luis had chosen the place, the atmosphere and the staff were nice, and there were flush toilets.

The service was super slow, so we sat for three or four hours waiting to order, waiting for our food, and waiting to settle up.  Then we waited some more, because this meal was part of our tour package and Mark hadn’t known he needed to inform his credit card company that he would be in Guatemala. After many phone calls it was resolved, but it took an hour and a half.

As the sun was setting, we drove back toward Lake Itza and Don David’s.  We were exhausted, having been up since before dawn, walking all day soaked with rain, then ingesting a giant meal composed of fat, salt, and sugar and sitting around for hours.

But José Luis had one more sight he wanted to show us, the island city of Flores in Lake Itza.  None of us really wanted to go, but we respected José Luis and didn’t want to be rude.  Maybe it would be amazing. Too bad it would take an hour to get there.

Viewed from the mainland, Flores looked magical, with colored lights reflecting in the darkened water. We crossed a causeway and were there.  From the back of the van I couldn’t hear everything, but I think we were there because it was a tourist town, mostly for Guatemalans.  It had more restaurants like the one we had just left—we could see people drinking their syrupy neon-colored drinks on patios.  We could hear music thumping from hotel discos and see couples strolling around holding hands.  It probably was a nice romantic getaway, though a bit crowded for my taste.

We drove on to drop José Luis off.  He lived in a sizeable city which took another hour to get to, and he wanted Mark to drive around so he could show us that they had amenities like a stadium and a Walmart-like store.  I had money out to tip José Luis but he slipped out of the van unceremoniously and was gone into the night.  I asked Mark if he had tipped José Luis and he said yes, he had tipped for all of us.  It had been the same in the restaurant.  He wouldn’t say how much he had tipped in either case.

I knew it wasn’t Mark’s decision.  There were certain things he had obviously been instructed not to share with his travelers.  If I re-read the trip materials I probably would see that tips were included.  But I really didn’t like it, because tipping varies so much from one person to another.  Some people are unnecessarily generous and some are cheapskates.  Did Wilderness Inquiry have a set percent and if so, what was it?  And what were the norms in Guatemala, and what were the expectations of Guatemalans?

No one else seemed remotely concerned, and I didn’t care so much about the restaurant, but José Luis had spent a whole evening with us, then a full day and another evening. Was he saying to his wife right now, “Those cheap bastard Americans!  Eighteen hours of work for a $50 tip!” or “Honey, pack your bags and get the kids in the car!  We’re having that holiday in Flores I’ve been promising you, thanks to those wonderful, generous Americans!”

Signs and Wonders

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

—

We had a couple hours to kill before having dinner with our guide for Tikal the following day.  I wandered around the thatched-roofed lodge, which overlooked a broad lawn stretching down to the lake.  The lodge had the usual things you find in such places: piles of musty old board games, shelves with books in German and Swedish left by past travelers, wall-mounted maps with the “You are Here” worn away by hundreds of fingers pointing and saying to their companions, “Look, we’re here.”

There was a small gifty area with bags of coffee, cacao products, and beautiful carved hardwood objects.  I bought a couple pairs of earrings for $5 each.

There was wireless, but the signs providing the password were clear that it was extremely weak and that to be fair to others, no one should be streaming movies or playing online video games.

Bird-feeding platforms were mounted around the railing circling the dining hall, and although it was dark now and there were no birds I was curious to see what kind of food they used.  I reached the farthest one that was tucked in a corner, and noticed a man sitting at a nearby table watching me.

He was around 60, with a full, bushy beard not like a cool hipster one, with a baseball cap pulled down tight and smeary aviator glasses.  This look typically says—in my opinion—“I’m not good with people and if I could get away with wearing a mask, I would.”

He smiled at me in an encouraging way.  I am always curious about solo travelers in far-flung places, so I said hello. That was enough to initiate an hour-long lecture by him about Tikal, the universe, aliens, and how he was better qualified to lead tours of Tikal than the native guides.

His name was Brian, he was Canadian, and he had applied for one of the coveted official Tikal guide licenses.  “I would be the very first non-Guatemalan guide,” he said proudly.

He lived at a nearby B&B and came to the lodge for the wireless.  I noticed he hadn’t ordered anything.

He thought he would hear about the license the following week, but his visa was about to expire so he had to return to Canada and then come back.  He didn’t speak Spanish, so he wasn’t 100 percent clear on what was going on, and he suspected them of being partial to Guatemalans.

“I’ve followed the Guatemalan guides around and listened to the rubbish they spout,” he said, as our Guatemalan waitress came by and asked if we wanted anything.  I nodded enthusiastically and ordered beers for Brian and myself.

“The natives don’t know what they’re talking about.  They have no education or training; sometimes I think they just make things up.”

Brian had written books on Tikal.  Here is his card, which tells you everything you need to know:

If you go to the website on the card, you can buy the domain name for just $19.99 a year.

Brian was passionate about Tikal.  He whipped open his laptop and showed me elaborate schematics of the temples and their relations to constellations.  Of course I’m getting this all wrong because I’m not an expert.  Who knows, maybe Brian really does know more about Tikal than all the local experts and professors at McGill.  It must be painful to know all the answers and not be recognized for it.

—

I have a knack for finding one-way talkers.  Sometimes I avoid engagement; sometimes I give them 10 minutes to see how entertaining they are.  Tonight I had nothing better to do so I listened to Brian go on.  Eventually though, he got so deep into his theories that it was time to make my escape.

Just then, Mike helpfully wandered by.  Like an insect into a spiders’ web.

“Mike!” I said, “Meet Brian.  He’s an expert on Tikal.  Let me buy you a beer,” I said as I got up and went to the bar.

When I delivered Mike’s beer he was so engrossed in Brian’s story he didn’t notice I had abandoned him.

Comings and Goings

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Back to Belize.  This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

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My group had exited Belize.  Now, we had to get the van out.  As we waited, two pre-teen boys approached us.

“We will help you cross the border,” one exclaimed enthusiastically in English. That was all the English he knew.  It was unclear how they proposed to help us, aside from loitering around and smiling a lot at us.  Maybe they were counting on us gringos falling in love with their adorableness and giving them big tips.

I chatted with them in Spanish and learned that Juan was Mexican but his family had fled to Guatemala to escape gang violence.  He didn’t say where his father was; it was just his mother and nine siblings.

“Why aren’t you in school?” I asked.

“We don’t have money for uniforms,” he answered.

Miguel was Guatemalan and he had a similar story about his family not being able to afford uniforms.  Was it true?  Who knows.  It is a common problem around the world.

After an hour our van was released and we lined up at Guatemalan border control.  As is usual for border controls, one line was for foreigners and one was for nationals.  Our line included a bunch of old hippies in flowing skirts and Birkenstocks, some Mennonite women in flowing skirts and veils that made them look like nuns, and us—by now disheveled from standing in the scorching sun.

The other line was composed of local women in flowing skirts and sandals, nuns, and bedraggled small business people carrying Hefty bags full of bagged crisps they had bought on one side and would sell on the other.

Our line was tall, their line was short. Our line was pale and sunburned, theirs was brown and sunburned. Our line was anxious and loud and full of questions; theirs was quiet and patient.

Juan and Miguel hovered nearby, “helping” us.  After 45 minutes I approached the counter and the border control agent flipped through my passport.  “Oh my, you have traveled a lot,” he commented, smiling.  He lingered over the colorful visa stamps for Kenya and Jordan. He was the first and only border control agent I’ve encountered who was friendly.

Stamp.  I was in. While we waited for everyone in the group to get through, we approached the money changers with fistfuls of currency to trade our Belizean dollars for Guatemalan Quetzals. Here is a Belizean Dollar; I love that Queen Elizabeth is sharing space with a jaguar.

And here is a Quetzal:

I don’t know who the guy is but he sure is handsome, if you can overlook the mustache.

There was a black truck nearby, probably seized from narcos, that was wrapped in so much Crime Scene tape it looked like a Christmas present.  Without thinking, I whipped out my phone and snapped a photo of it.

Mike stepped forward, “No photos!”

Yikes, he was right, I dropped my phone in my pocket and thankfully wasn’t hauled in for questioning.  I won’t compound my recklessness by posting it on my blog.

It was time to leave our fixers, Juan and Miguel.  I gave them a couple bucks each and I think others in my group did as well.  Not bad for a couple of hours work, and I hope they really did use the money for school costs.

—

Off we were to the town of El Remate, our perch for Tikal the next day.  As we drove I jotted down Spanish words I didn’t know to check later.  There was a sign I didn’t know the meaning of: “Poblado.”  I later learned it meant populated area.  It was posted every mile or so, which would seem to dilute its warning to watch out for kids running across the road.

We pulled up at La Casa de Don David, our hotel. I ran down to the viewing platform overlooking Lake Itza to catch the sunset. There was a system by which you could order drinks on a phone, and the lodge delivered them via zip line, accompanied by disco lights and music.

But who needed alcohol, really, with views like this?

Flantastic

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

—

The cave canoeing was great.  We have a lot of caves in St. Paul carved by nature and teenagers out of the limestone cliffs that line the banks of the Mississippi.  Some are large enough that they were used by mobsters as speakeasies during Prohibition.  But limestone is soft, so there are no stalactites or mites or clumps of diamond-like crystals or splotches of yellow and pink mineral deposits that create 40-foot high abstract impressionist-like paintings on the walls, like there were in Belize.

We glided through the darkness as Jose and Alex pointed these things out with their headlamps as though they knew by feel exactly where they were.  Jose had a degree in Geology and, during the school year, taught the subject at the high-school level, so he was a great guide.

It was very peaceful, unless you were afraid of bats, the dark, drowning, or enclosed spaces.

Jose and Alex talked to one another from time to time in Spanish.  When canoes passed going in the other direction, Jose would talk to their guides in the local Belizean Kriol (their spelling).  Then he would effortlessly switch to English to point out some formation to us.  I have always envied this facility with multiple languages. I asked him which languages Belizeans learn, and when.

“English is the official language, so we learn it in school. But we learn Kriol from the cradle, the closer you get to the Guatemalan border, the more people you will find who also speak Spanish.”

Back on dry land, Mike’s wife whipped up a big meal for us, served with the ubiquitous Belizean beer, Belikin.  “You want dessert?” she asked.  Everyone nodded; we hadn’t had dessert the night before.

“What do you think it will be?” someone asked.

“It’ll be flan,” I pronounced confidently.  At that moment Mike’s wife and her helper returned with a dozen servings of flan.  Everyone stared at me.

“I’ve been to Costa Rica and El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba … flan is the standard dessert.  And it’s delicious.”  Most of them had never heard of it.

“Does it contain dairy?” “Is there gluten in it?”  began the questions to Mike’s wife.  Some of us without sensitivities happily ate their servings.

The guy who had read every road sign out loud the day before said, “You sure enjoyed being right about that, didn’t you?”

I’m pretty sure he was irritated not because I had known dessert would be flan, but because I had been so confident.  If I had been a man making such a confident statement, maybe it wouldn’t have been received negatively.  I don’t know.

All I can do is look at my own behavior; I can’t change someone else.  I’m afraid I can sound like a know-it-all.  I didn’t want to be like the guy from Jersey I’d met in Amalfi who spewed out a constant stream of facts. I decided to reign myself in a bit.  After all, what difference did it make if they knew flan was coming ahead of time or were surprised by it?

—

We drove to the border and began the laborious ritual that goes with land border crossings.  There, I did it again!  I wrote that like I’m an expert.

I’ve only ever done two land border crossings: Crossing from Minnesota into Canada is still pretty easy; you wave your passport at the border agent as you roll past in your car.

The second was the opposite, when I crossed from Jordan into the Occupied Palestinian Territories/Israel over the Allenby Bridge.  This was complicated by me being with a Palestinian colleague who had an extensive arrest record.

As far as I knew, none of us had records that would land us in a Guatemalan prison.  The agents weren’t rude or suspicious, just very, very slow.  Mark had researched the process as much as he could without actually going through it.  He handed over an envelope full of US 20s, then we stood in lines for an hour to have our passports manhandled and stamped.  That was the exit from Belize, next we had to get into Guatemala.

No Way Out

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

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Mike’s Place is a tourist complex where we would go kayaking or canoeing—it wasn’t  clear—in caves. Mike’s also featured “zip lining, hiking/swimming/rock climbing, food/drink/picnic/BBQ, and Wifi.”

Wifi, in case you wanted to watch a movie set in a jungle after hiking through a jungle.

Mike’s had been founded by a Canadian guy named Mike.  Here is a picture of him when he arrived in Belize.

Mike no longer looked like this.  He had probably partaken of a lot more food/drink/picnic/BBQ than hiking/swimming/rock climbing.  But never mind, he had a beautiful Belizean wife about 30 years younger than him.  She did the cooking and serving, and she seemed to adore Mike.

—

After 30 minutes of milling about, discussing vital questions such as “Should I bring a water bottle into the cave?” “Are there bats in the cave?” “Is there a place to go to the bathroom in the cave?” Jose our guide finally corralled us at the water’s edge and gave us a five-minute background on the history, geology, and safety concerns of canoeing in caves.

I live in Minnesota so I have done a lot of canoeing on rivers, in lakes, and in wilderness areas near the Canadian border.  I know how to steer; it’s really simple.  But I had no idea what to expect of canoeing in a cave. I had questions too, but I kept my mouth shut in hopes we would get going sooner and just find out once we were in inside what was involved. Would the water be calm or would there be currents?  How deep would it be?

These questions were not answered on the Wilderness Adventure website, and that’s okay—I don’t want to know everything in advance or it wouldn’t have been an adventure. When Mark and I had talked on the phone he hadn’t known anything about the canoeing either, since he had never been to Belize.  The packing list had recommended water gear as though it would be a serious canoe trip, and I had jettisoned mine after moving twice in three months the previous year.  I had gone shopping for water shoes and water-repellant clothes, none of which are cheap or findable in second-hand stores.  I browsed the water shoes and dropped them like they were red hot when I saw the price tags.  In the end, I brought some cheap Sketchers sandals I found at TJ Maxx.  Worst case scenario, I would throw them away if this canoe adventure turned out to be rigorous.

It was extremely tame.  They made us wear life jackets and helmets—because it was a cave with some low hanging outcrops—but we never paddled faster than two miles per hour.

Here is the cave entrance and the canoes.

As we paddled into the silent cave, the hooting of a barn owl that sat in a niche high above the entrance echoed in the darkness, which closed on us as soon as we were a few meters in.

A second guide, Alex, had been called in from his Sunday off because Mike hadn’t been expecting our group.  We drifted along at a leisurely pace, looking at the formations and ancient pots left by the Maya (maybe).  We paddled about a mile into the interior, and I asked Alex about his life.

He was 25 and from El Salvador, from whence his family had fled during the civil war.  He lived with his mother; his father had gone north to California, where he had a successful business.  Alex’s siblings had followed his father one by one and wanted him to join them.  He hadn’t seen his father in over 20 years.  He had no future in Belize.  But he was the youngest child, and his mother wanted to stay in Belize.

“Last month,” he said, “My father got me a visa and I was prepared to go.  But I just couldn’t leave my mother.”

I groaned internally.  Donald Trump had just issued a decree ordering the number of refugees admitted to the US in 2017 be cut in half.  Alex had probably missed his last chance.

Unbelizable!

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

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We were at the Crystal Paradise Resort in San Ignacio, Belize.  It had been a grueling day of cars, planes, airport trains, planes, and then a five-hour ride in a van over bumpy roads to get here, but it was all worth it.

There was nowhere to go for the evening, and nothing to do.  We had some beers in the central cabana, then dinner, served family style.  The food was really good, I wolfed it down and probably murmured, “Mmmm” out loud several times.  Other people, they had questions.  Was the bread gluten free?  Was the rice vegan?  Can I exchange the potatoes for carrots instead?  Can I have the salsa on the side?  Is the salsa spicy?  And so on.

I’m not a gastroenterologist.  I know there really is something called Celiac disease.  My stomach doesn’t like greasy foods, so I believe people when they say that something—usually it’s gluten but I’ve heard dairy, sugar, and all sorts of other foods—makes them uncomfortable.  But there is a certain segment of the population that is on a crusade against gluten, or dairy, or some other food.  They say things like, “Dairy is evil!”  As if a food group has intentions to harm them.  I can’t imagine life without dairy.  To me, cottage cheese is a food of the gods.

Then there are the people who say they’ve lost weight on a gluten free diet.  “Good for you,” I said to one such friend.  “But do you think maybe you’ve lost weight because you’ve cut bread, potatoes, rice, corn, and pasta out of your diet?  In other words, you’re just eating less—aka ‘on a diet?’”  That had not occurred to her.  Somehow, it was easier to think she was following dietary restrictions because she had a “condition” than to think she was just on a diet.

The family who ran the resort accommodated every request.  They must be used to American tourists.  Finally, everyone was happy and during dinner we got to know each other a bit better because we were facing each other, not crammed side to side into a van.

I might have been the first one to turn in for the night, and even though the bed was hard and the pillow was lumpy and Liz snored, I slept like a rock.

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Morning.  Early morning, that’s my habit.  I was up at 5 or so and went outside to sit under a thatched hut to listen to the rain and the birds.  I tried to write down the bird sounds. Ooo, ooo, ooo.  Aaargh.  Wheeep! Wheeep!  Harff.  WooHoo!  I could have sat there all day, but I needed coffee.  I walked to the central hut and joined Stan, the other early riser and a veteran bird watcher.  He was there with his binoculars and already had noted a dozen different birds in his notebook.

A tiny toucan landed on a branch 20 feet from us, cocked its head at us, then flitted away.

“Wow!” Stan and I both exclaimed, “Did you see that?”

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After breakfast, another great meal, we were off to canoe into the Chiquibul cave system into the “Mayan underworld known as Xibalba.”  We were promised it contained sacrificial remains and “spectacular stalagmites and stalactites, and the footholds carved by the Mayans over 1,500 years ago.”

We were back in the van for another bone jarring but much shorter ride, capped off with a steep hairpin road that descended way, way, way down into a valley.  At one point it felt like the van was going to topple over the cliffside,  and I involuntarily yelled, “Jesus Christ!”  This got Liz laughing, and she couldn’t stop.  In her southern Ohio drawl she kept saying, “Ah never heard anahthing so funny!  A Jew saying Jesus Chrahst!”  It was infectious; everyone in the van was soon laughing hysterically, although it may have been out of fear.

At the bottom, we met Jose, who would be our cave guide.

“Welcome to the Chiquibul caves!” he said enthusiastically.  “They’re unbelizeable!”

Yes, he said unbelizeable—you better belize it.

Getting Along

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This is a series of posts about Belize and Guatemala that starts here.

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Finally, we were all squished into the van and Mark pulled out of the airport parking lot with Jesse in the passenger seat holding a map on his lap. I had expected Mark to use Google maps on his phone or at least a GPS, but he only ever consulted paper maps—and I have to say it made the journey feel more adventurous.

If this had been the USA, or Germany, we would have made our destination in an hour.  But this was Belize, and once we got away from Belize City, the roads were so bad we could only go about 25 miles per hour.

I had experienced bad roads in El Salvador and Costa Rica, but I hadn’t been to Latin America for a decade and I realized I’d expected conditions had improved.  They hadn’t, at least not in Belize.

The houses and other buildings were either half built or half falling apart.  Every surface was faded, rusted, crooked, or flaking.

How can I describe the roads?  The word Horrendous fits.  We have potholes in Minnesota due to the freezing and thawing in winter.  They have potholes because the roads just aren’t paved, or they get washed out during the rainy season.  There’s probably no money to maintain them, and corrupt contractors likely factor in, too.

Mark wove around as much as he could to avoid the craters, but that only added swerving motion to the up and down lurching and the side-to-side swaying.  It was like being on a boat in choppy water.

I had foolishly obeyed Mark’s first request for us to get in the van, so I was belted into the far back seat where the motion was worst.

Why is it that people feel compelled to read signs out loud?  A certain person I was sitting announced, “Rosa’s Tienda,” as we passed Rosa’s Tienda.  “Belmopan, 45,” he read as we passed that sign.  “Entering Cayo District,” as (you guessed it) we entered Cayo District.

And so on.

After an hour I turned to him and yelled, “Shut the fuck up!  We can all read!”

No, of course I didn’t. I did it in my head.  I’d like to say I found a direct but kind way to tell him to stop reading every sign, but this was only Day One.  I would be spending many hours in the van with these people.  If I blew my cool right away maybe they would turn against me and shun me.  That would really be a vacation buzz kill.

Later I learned that others had been having the same thoughts. Maybe someone had a word with him, because after the first day it stopped.

—

We jostled and bounced along the Western Highway, past the Hummingbird Highway to Roaring Creek, the charmingly spelled “Camolote”—a misspelling of Camelot?  I felt heart burn coming on.  I never get heart burn, but I suppose the van ride was doing to my digestive system what shaking does to a bottle of soda.

We passed misty mountains and clear-cut forests.  We passed the towns of Tea Kettle, Ontario Village, Mount Hope, Unitedville, Santa Elena, and finally arrived in San Ignacio, the last town before we turned off for the Crystal Paradise. None too soon, we went into a store to buy snacks, and I quickly got back in the van in the front row.  Much better.  Everyone agreed we would rotate seats, which was very civilized.

We drove around in circles looking for the turnoff until Mark stopped and asked some loitering teenagers if they know where it was.  They did—it was right before the Pepe Sanchez Insurance Agency.

After an early morning flight, a tense standoff at border control, and five hours on the road, we pulled up to the Crystal Paradise at dusk.  We were finally, really “in” Belize.

It really was paradise, at least for this Minnesotan who had left behind snow and cold.

Liz and I were sharing a room and we oohed and ahed over these swan creations, then fell face first onto our beds for a nap.