TravelStream™ news feed for member wktsorf on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/wktsorf en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:04:17 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1200068520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1200068520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1200068520/tpod.html Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:04:17 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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Caye Caulker, Belize

Though we had planned to get up at the crack of dawn to catch the first bus out of Maya Centre, I was actually sleeping well, and as I am in charge of the alarm clock, you can guess how that went. We didn't end up getting up till past seven, when we wandered out into the village to try and pay our bill. We came upon several barefoot girls in dresses getting ready for school at the community shower, a brace of freshly killed chickens, and a smoldering fire pit before one of the little boys in town saw us, and took off like a shot, yelling "Mama, mama, the gringas are out, the gringas are out!" His tone of voice implied that, without protection, he was sure we were going to wander off a cliff or into a bear trap. His mother appeared and beckoned us into one of the houses, where a few girls were watching tv in a nearly empty room while getting their hair braided. We paid our bill, and on our way out to the bus stop, I realized that either there was enormous tax added on for our jungle excursion, or we'd just paid for the room twice. I really didn't see walking back through the mud and past the community showers to ask for eighteen dollars back, though.We waited at the bus stop for awhile, and eventually were picked up by a bus going into Belize City. We went back up the Hummingbird Highway to Belmopan and east to Belize from there, in three and a half hours. In Belize, Sarah wanted to try walking through the city from the bus station to the water taxi station, to see if our initial three or four impressions of the city were really accurate. They were. It's a pity all major transportation goes through that one awful city.We had to wait about forty-five minutes to catch the taxi, but it was a beautiful day and the ride was lovely. Once we got to Caye Caulker, however, we found that our room had been over-booked, so we had to find somewhere else to stay. By the recommendation of the staff at Costa Maya, we ended up at the blue Barefoot Caribe Hotel. At first glance, it seemed okay, but we were to learn that certain facts which would not make this a place to come back to. We ate at the Sports Bar and Grill, which had excellent smoothies, and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the island, using the internet, buying souvenirs and checking on diving for the following day. We ended up making reservations for a dive at Frenchie's Dive Shop. (After being snickered at because I had rather a backwards view of what "certification dives" were.) The weather all day was absolutely perfect and what I had been expecting for the first week of our trip. I don't think it could possibly have been prettier. We got the blue sky, turquoise water, white sand, and waving palm trees on the <i>second go-round. On our travels around the island, we happened across a lot filled with cats and junk. Not garbage junk, just junk-junk, and several dozen cats. In the middle of all of the cats was a single dog, flopped in the shade. We talked to the cats for awhile, but a bystander started asking to marry me so he could move to Phoenix (why?!) and we took our leave of the Cat Compound. Those felines were planning a world takeover. Phase One was probably already complete and we don't even know it. Cats are sneaky like that.For dinner, we stopped by Don Corleone's, our favorite stand-by by now, after a fruitless effort earlier in the day to find the Rasta Pasta Rainforest Cafe. We reasoned at least we could get the pizza, if we stopped by early enough. In addition to being able to get pizza, we ordered a weird topping mixture and they did it right. This may have been the first time we managed to order pizza in a foreign country with any variation from the menu at all and get exactly what we wanted. I went ahead and ordered coffee and dessert, since Don Corleone's does such a good job.After dinner, we spent a long time wandering around the island, ostensibly in a bid to find pool tables that were not in an annoying karaoke bar, but really just because we were bored. We didn't really find any, though we did stumble across Rasta Pasta, a jewelry seller who seemed very in need of friends (he talked to us forever and ran off to get me a souvenir cigar, leaving us in charge of his stall), the Chinese quarter, several clubs for locals (I use "club" in the very loosest sense, since one of them seemed to be in someone's garage with a neon sign), a sign on the beach proclaiming a "party" somewhere (evidently you had to take a small boat out to the party) and the radio transmitter for the island. Our shining moment of brilliance for the evening - while meandering along one of the darkened back streets, it occurred to me that in a city, this would probably be considered dangerous. So we took stock of how much money we had on us and made sure our passports were safely back in the room in case we got mugged. Then we kept going. Sarah was the first one to try our shower before bed, and this is when we found problems with the sewage smell in the room and in the water, combined with a near complete lack of drainage. Since we couldn't very well leave at midnight, we resolved to check back at Costa Maya the next morning. Their rooms may be dark and overbooked, but their water does not have a palpable odor and color.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199962140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199962140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199962140/tpod.html Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:12:54 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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Maya Centre, Belize

Upon waking early to the typical San Ignacio mist, I got ready and ran to the market across the street to get something to eat before Sarah got up. I munched on some peculiar foreign cookies (strawberry) and had most of a fake Sunny-D, and after that mix of sugar and chemical filled concoctions had absolutely no effect on my stomach, I was able to put the disastrous day before to rest. I did have to get some Kleenex, though, after developing an allergy to the pine forest. I find it ironic that the jungle, with its untold numbers of plants, has absolutely no allergens for me, but that the relatively tame pine forest like where I grew up made me sneeze until we got back down to the rainforest.We stopped by Hanna's again for breakfast. I skipped my beloved fryjacks to have toast, I'm not really sure why, since cookies and Sunny D were no problem. After breakfast, we wandered around looking for the bus station, only to arrive right back at the taxi stand we'd walked past at least four times ignoring their requests to let us help them every time. Turns out, that IS the bus station, and if we'd just talked to them, we would have figured it out sooner. As they told us numerous times, after inquiring about our precise destination and itinerary over and over.Though we'd managed to get a lovely express bus on the way north, it was strictly chicken buses south. During the stop in Belmopan we picked up some more snacks (toast, frankly, is not very filling). Sarah got some roasted banana chips, which somehow had absolutely no banana or plantain flavor. The trip down the Hummingbird Highway to Dangriga was one of the prettiest drives in Belize, and Sarah and I both ended up with seat mates for awhile that tried to point out things of interest. Sarah's also tried to give her a lollipop, but the no candy from strangers rule was in effect. After Dangriga came the exciting part of the bus ride - where we were going to get dropped off by the side of the road and hope that it was somewhere within walking distance of where we hoped to be. Usually this works, sometimes it ends with us tromping through the jungle for three hours.The bus attendant helpfully pointed out where we were supposed to get off, which was good, as Maya Centre village is just a couple of clusters of tiny houses with no plumbing and a community center. We walked up the road until we found Tutzil Nah Cottages, where we had a reservation, and stood uncertainly in the mud until a shirtless, barefoot man in mud-spattered pants came up to introduce himself as Gregorio and show us the cottages. As we were the only guests, we had our pick. We picked the one that looked like it might have indoor plumbing. After, that is, Gregorio hesitantly took the "lock" (a board nailing the door shut) off of the bathroom and said that he supposed we could try it, but there was the possibility the room would flood. Since even just the sink would be useful, we said we'd take the chance. Part of the reason for our adventurousness in taking the bathroom that had been nailed shut was that we'd walked past the outhouses and bath houses for the whole village on the way to the cottage, possibly contributing to the inches of mud inundating the village. The bath houses (wooden outdoor shower stalls) didn't have drainage, of course, so all that water had to go somewhere.After the silent maids (Gregorio's relatives who lived in the village) brought us another slatted bed frame and dusty mattress, we perched uncertainly in our room for a few minutes trying to think of something nice to say to Gregorio and his family when we saw them next. After all, with running water and an actual floor, it was still nicer than most of the houses in Maya Centre, even if it did bear more than a slight resemblance to prison with bare cement and PVC piping. After deciding that "quaint" and "rustic" were patronizing and "interesting" just wouldn't cut it, we just hoped they wouldn't ask. Since they'd told us we'd have to let them know an hour in advance if we wanted to eat in the "restaurant," we decided to take a walk to the other set of cottages owned by Gregorio's brother and see if they had any food there. We trudged down the road into the Cockscomb Jaguar Sanctuary without seeing a single open store of any kind, and by the time of our arrival at the other cottages, my migraine was starting to threaten again. Luckily, the restaurant at the other cottages, a lovely, open, completely empty building, was supposedly serving food. Or at least it would be as soon as someone ran off to find the cook. After about twenty minutes a woman walked in and announced that we could have chicken and rice and beans. We shrugged and said that would be fine. I assumed that, like Tutzil Nah, we were just getting what the rest of the family was having. Nope. She went and spent the next forty five minutes cooking. As usual, the stewed chicken was good and the rice and beans was plentiful but bland. It really is exactly the same meal all over Belize. Since it looked like this might be our only meal at Maya Centre, we ate as much as we could before we left to try to find a store to buy water and provisions for supper. Neither of the tiny stores we passed on the way was open yet (ever?), so we stopped in to browse at the Maya Centre Women's Cooperative, which had the best selection of crafts we saw the whole time in Belize. Of course, being hot and disoriented (and still mildly hungry), we didn't buy a single thing.The way the cooperative seemed to work was that every single artist labeled her own work with her name and a price, so while the same item might be offered by three different people, one might have a lower price, or one might do more detailed etching, and you could tell whose work was whose. It was interesting. And cheaper than the shops everywhere else for better work. I'm still kicking myself for being too out of it to get anything.After finding that our cottages had a little store that seemed to sell candy, soda, and a few other items, we picked up some homemade chocolate chip cookies and Pringles. I was skeptical, but the cookies turned out to be okay. Since there really wasn't a thing to do, we turned the fan on in the cabin (another luxury) and napped through the afternoon.At 6:00, the point of this particular adventure began. After grabbing Fanta and more water from the store (the woman at the counter only spoke Mayan, so there was no way to explain to her she was charging me for things I'd paid for earlier), we got in a little grey car with Julian, our Mayan guide, and headed off into the sanctuary. A couple of dogs kept pace with the car for miles, and soon we saw fireflies. We got to the visitor center, Julian paid our fee and told the man which trails we'd be taking, and we armed ourselves with flashlights and headed off into the jungle. After daintily trying to not step in the mud in the lot, I realized as soon as we got on the trail that the entire jungle was just one big swath of mud and getting covered up to the ankles was going to be unavoidable.Then we were told to turn our lights off and be as quiet as possible while we followed Julian through the jungle, following only his light. We crept along for about ten minutes before Julian pointed out a thin red snake which looked like a huge earthworm slithering across the path. We watched for about a minute before it was off in the undergrowth. "Did you see it?!" he hissed excitedly. Since the light had been trained on the snake for the full minute, we nodded excitedly. Wildlife already! We tiptoed another quarter or half mile into the jungle (it's hard to measure distance when you're in pitch black and moving that slowly) and Julian focused his light on a small, furry, rodent-looking creature crossing the road. "That's a paca! Or, as we call them in Belize, a gibnut! Did you see it! Did you?!" Once again, we nodded excitedly and whispered that we had. Since we'd been warned beforehand the chances of seeing a jaguar were very, very slim, I was just glad to be seeing anything at all.We walked for another thirty or forty minutes, at one point turning our lights back on to clamber down a bank and cross some rocks over a stream. Though Julian was flicking his light all over the place, we weren't seeing any jaguar prints, much less a sign of the animal itself. Until we got to a spot that to us looked identical to every other spot on the trail, stopped, and Julian turned off the light. Since "turn off the light for a couple minutes and scare the tourists" is a popular attraction everywhere, I waited patiently in perfect silence. After about five or ten minutes, I realized he wasn't going to turn it back on. Twenty minutes later I was detailing exactly what I could see in the tiny bit of moonlight that made it through the canopy and had ceased glancing around at every sound. Twenty minutes after that, I had started seeing exactly how much I could move my body without making a noise or moving my feet from where they'd sunk in the mud. Then we heard a roar from somewhere overhead to our left. This had just gotten interesting again. It all went silent for a few more minutes (or as silent as the jungle gets), and then we heard something large crashing through the canopy from the direction of the roar, only now it was much, much closer. Let me tell you - jaguars are not quiet when they move through the trees. They may be shadow-like if they are crouched on a branch, but moving around in the canopy, they crack and rustle and thump just like their other, less graceful, mammal relatives. It would have been more amusing had all of this racket not been almost directly over our heads. I felt my heart speed up and wondered what would happen if I turned on the light right then. Would it scare the jaguar into moving away, or would it scare it into attacking? As I hadn't the faintest idea, I didn't follow through on the impulse.I didn't need to wonder much longer, though, since about a minute later Julian snapped on his light, oddly, at a spot rather removed in the canopy from where the jaguar actually sounded like it was. I still don't know if my hearing was off or his light was, since we never did see it. It was too far up in the canopy. He turned his light off, and after another ten minutes or so, the crashing progress through the canopy continued. Just when I could see Julian deciding where to point the light when he turned it on next, Sarah coughed. Loudly. It's harder than you think to remain perfectly silent and still for an hour. After that, I was sure we were done, because there was no way the jaguar would come back in our direction, but Julian had us stand there for another twenty minutes just to make sure. As I suspected though, that cat was no dummy, and was going to wait it out until we left.We continued our glacial progress through the mud without seeing any more creatures until we came to the water hole. After shining his light around the bank, Julian excitedly whispered there was a tapir on the other side, and we all tried to scurry down a bank to see it better. Julian scurried. Sarah and I barely managed to make it down before he was shooing us back up. We stopped at a bench by the water hole, turned off the light, and sat. We could occasionally see glimmers of movement in the moonlight, and when Julian turned the light on after another thirty minutes of perfect stillness, we saw an enormous tapir, about 500 pounds, drinking and wading in the water hole. We were able to watch it for several minutes before it hid itself in the grass. Julian whirls around, "Did you see it?! Did you see the tapir?! Man, that thing was huge! Did you see it?!" We nodded, a little uncertainly. How could we possibly have missed the quarter ton animal he had been shining a light on for five minutes? After that, we continued on the trail, now on our way out of the jungle. On the way, we passed two extremely loud groups of people, all shining their lights, going the opposite direction. Sarah and I thanked our lucky stars to be creeping along with our guide in the dark. Heading up one of the groups, muttering constantly and audibly about the mud, I could have sworn was the same elderly couple I'd seen at Caracol and Barton Creek. I have a feeling Belize was not living up to their expectations. Before we made it completely out, we saw another paca in the brush, bigger this time, and got to go through the whole "Did you see it?!" litany again. I don't know if that was just his way of sharing his excitement, or if he regularly gives tours to some of the most unobservant people on earth. I think Julian was mildly disappointed we'd never actually gotten to see the jaguar, but we were just happy we'd gotten to see as much as we did. Not to mention we got awfully close to a jaguar sighting. I didn't even expect that. After rinsing the mud off our pants and shoes at the cabin, we turned in, expecting to get up for the 6:30 bus out of Maya Centre. Priosn-like room, public showers and all, Maya Centre was totally worth it for getting to take a tour like that.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199877840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199877840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199877840/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:17:18 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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San Ignacio, Belize

Every trip has to have a most miserable day, and this was by far mine. (Subtle foreshadowing.) Today, on the surface, sounded like a pretty cool day - an all day trip out into the jungle to see Caracol, one of the greatest cities of the ancient Mayan world. The day got off to a bad start when the hotel told us to be ready half an hour earlier than scheduled, the van went to pick everybody else first, and we sat pointlessly outside on the street for forty-five minutes instead of eating breakfast. The hotel had provided a packed lunch, though, so I figured we'd eat shortly after we got to the site and I could munch on the ever-present weird foreign cookies until then. (Still on the mango-flavored pack.) When the van, Everald's Caracol shuttle service came to pick us up, there were virtually no seats left, so we squished into the third bench seat of the van. The drive was going to be a little over three hours over some of the worst continuous stretches of backcountry dirt road I've ever seen. After the first hour and a half of teeth-snapping, bone-jarring travel, we stopped at some sort of station that was at the beginning of the Mountain Pine Reserve, I believe. This marked the border where the broad-leaf forest changed into the evergreen forest, and the scenery did get markedly different. While we were waiting at the station, I sat and fed a mango cookie to a puppy nearby and watched a tour van pull up. One elderly woman was complaining vociferously, and I noted that she and her husband looked like some of the people who passed us in canoes the day before. As she headed off to the restroom, I got mild amusement picturing what she would make of the hole in the ground with a board that Sarah had described.After Everald had paid our fees, we climbed back into the van to find that he had rearranged the seats to add a fourth bench seat in the back, which Sarah and I were relegated to to give the driver more room up front. This just made the ride that much worse. I swear that van had no shocks whatsoever. (Memo to my parents: You know your driveway when its bad? The ENTIRE road was like that. For three hours.)By the time we arrived at Caracol, I was grumpy, slightly headachey, and very hungry. But it looked like instead of eating, we were going to tour the entire ruin before we ate. This is when we found that even though it was called a "shuttle service," it was actually an in-depth tour, where every single thing would be explained to us in excruciating detail by Everald, and we were not allowed to lag behind or get separated from the group. This was not our plan. We are not fans of strict guided tours with groups of people.About an hour into the tour, while Everald was describing some stelae in great depth (Everald, it should be noted, knew his stuff and worked at the dig occasionally, mapping the ruins and working with graduate students.) I realized I was starting to get a migraine from hunger. In the middle of a jungle with armed guards walking around to protect against Guatemalans looters and the most impossible to shut up tour guide ever is not the time or place to start getting stabbing pain of any kind, I can assure you.Up and down at least one building in every single cluster I made myself go, including one interesting one that had a tiny, twisty staircase to the side, rather than the huge stairs straight up the front. My favorite time in the whole tour was when I climbed that peculiar pyramid, and just sat there, by myself, looking out at the view with no one trying to lecture me about anything. I did also have time to notice the acoustics of the place were extraordinary, and I could hear the conversation of people speaking in normal voices several hundred feet below on the ground very clearly. Eventually, I noticed most people were trickling back to Everald, so I started down the pyramid. Good thing I did, too, because by the time I got down, the whole group was across the plaza and back out into the jungle. At this point, had I had a map, I would've just gone back and had lunch, but no such luck, so I caught up with Sarah lagging behind and trudged on.Just when I thought the tour could not conceivably get any longer, Everald started pointing out trees, leaves, bark, mounds of dirt, flowers, and showed us a trick where a flower petal changes color with the nicotine in a cigarette. By the time we got to the next plaza, Sarah and I had given up polite disinterest and were scowling off into the middle distance, with me occasionally wincing as the migraine stabbed at my head. Then he asked us if we were having a good time, Sarah said "No," I walked off, and he kept talking. Eventually, when other people of the group were fidgeting away from him with their cameras, he let us go climb Caana, the main pyramid, while he stopped to talk with another tour guide. At this point, climbing stairs was on about the bottom of my to-do list, but I figured I was only going to see Caracol once, maybe twice, in my life, and I better get on with it. I was dizzy with the effort by the time I got to the top, just in time for a jungle rainstorm, making the stairs slick and scary on the way down. I love my raincoat. One of the top three items for Central American countries.When I got to the bottom and collapsed near Everald waiting for the rest of our group, I found with mild interest that Everald, when not giving his tour guide speech and just talking like a normal guy, could actually be, well, interesting. As soon as the rest of our group trickled over, that ceased, of course, and we made our way back to the van. Not with any quickness, no indeedy, even though we'd covered this ground once before, and you'd think he would have nothing left to talk about. Once we got back to the van and started in on lunch, I realized the headache had made me too nauseous to even eat more than a handful of Pringles, so I sat glumly drinking water until it was time to go back to the van.About fifteen minutes down the road, I had the unwelcome realization that if my head was shaken fiercely enough when I was already nauseous with a migraine, that I do throw up. I can count the number of times I've thrown up in my entire life on both hands, including the flu when I was seven, so this was something of a surprise. Sarah got me a plastic bag, and I can sum up the rest of the trip by saying that even with someone vomiting (thankfully mostly water) into a bag in the back, Everald STILL would not stop talking, parking the van to look at trees, birds, and pulling off of the road to take pictures. We even stopped so he could give everyone else a tour of a cave. Longest ride of my life. To add insult to injury, one off the other guys on the tour (both guys were remarkably whiny) announced that the seat Sarah and I were sitting on was the most uncomfortable and jarring one and he couldn't possibly sit there, so he left me clutching my head in the corner to go snag himself an empty seat when someone moved. (This was before I even needed the plastic bag.)I, of course, went straight to my wonderful, wonderful migraine medication and the comfort of a pillow over my head as soon as I got in, and Sarah tried the Chinese restaurant across from the hotel. Caracol reminded me a little of Uxmal in surroundings, since they both had the wide central lawns that were being constantly mowed and upkept, and of Lamanai in structure of the plazas. The reservoir (which was pointed out no less than six times) that was used back when it was a functional city is still used for the water in the bathrooms at the visitor center. Other than its sheer size, though, I can't rightly recall anything outstanding about Caracol. Many of the artifacts and decoration had been taken by looters, and other than the natural raised bedrock the main plazas sat upon, I don't think even Everald could find anything quirky or interesting about it. I guess it was the Phoenix of the Mayan world.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199787360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199787360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199787360/tpod.html Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:42:45 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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San Ignacio, Belize

Morning dawned in San Ignacio foggy and grey, not really a good omen for our plan to go cave tubing. Unlike the other areas of Belize we'd been to thus far, San Ignacio is up at a higher elevation, close to the border of the mountain pine forests, so there were still palm fronds and jungle, but they were combined with conifers and farmland. After stopping in at every tour place we could find in town, we found someone willing to give us a tour to the Barton Creek Caves at one in the afternoon. Many of the tours weren't running yet because all of the unexpected rains had flooded the roads and made the creek trip more dangerous.Since we were already up, we wandered around town in the mist, first trying to locate a French bakery (again, still existent, but not where the map said), then trying to find anything else once the "chocolate croissant" I got turned out to be something very, very far from being in the croissant family at all, and they didn't have anything in the non-sweet category for Sarah to have. As we ambled back up to the main intersection in town, we ran into Kate and Jason, the English couple from the Lamanai tour, who'd gotten to San Ignacio several days earlier and were able to recommend a good place to us. Hanna's was quite close to the center of town, and served a good variety of breakfast food including fryjacks (me), porridge (Kate), eggs (Sarah), and pancakes (Jason). The art on the walls was mostly from an artist living on Caye Caulker, and before we left, they purchased a picture they'd had their eye on to send back home. It depicted a shell-shocked white tourist dumbly staring up at a chicken bus full of exuberant black Caribbeans and Mayans with a massive pile of luggage on top, while passengers and children milled around him. "That," said Jason, "Was me."After breakfast, there really wasn't much else to do in San Ignacio, unless we felt like taking a hike out to Cahal Pech. (We decided against it.) Instead, we dropped our dirty laundry (at this point, 96% of our clothes) off with Martha's laundry service, checked our email at Tradewinds, and napped until it was time to go find our tour to the caves. All of that "getting up at a reasonable hour" had to catch up some time.We didn't have time for lunch before we headed out to Eva's Restaurant to meet our guide, so we packed the old foreign-country stand-by, peculiarly-flavored cookies. Mine were mango. After a few minutes of waiting at Eva's, we found we were the only ones going out to Barton Creek, so Sarah and I had plenty of room when we climbed into the bed of an old pickup truck encased in metal bars with our guide, Clifford. I still don't know the name of our driver. After they stopped for gas (actually cheaper than in the States), and we stopped for water at one of the corner stores that is so small you don't realize it's actually a store, they let us know that we were headed fourteen miles out of town. Seven of this was on "fairly good" road, and the other seven was going to be "a little bumpy." The seven miles of "good" road we covered in pretty good time, and within about twenty minutes we were turning off onto the "bumpy" portion. We hadn't gone a mile when we came upon a turtle by the side of the road that the driver and Clifford gleefully tied up in a towel and threw in the back of the truck. Clifford assured us they were going to take it to a nice pond back in town, but the driver had said something a little too cheerfully about stew. The entire trip was through lovely, green, rolling hills and orchards, and the sun had come out while we had been napping, burning away the fog and casting a soft sparkle on everything. After we turned off on the "bumpy" road, the countryside got even more picturesque, with carriages giving us right-of-way on the rutted dirt road and the foliage becoming denser as we headed into the forest. The Amish who live in the San Ignacio region are a stricter sect than the Mennonites at Shipyard, and after I deliberated for a bit, Clifford stopped me from taking any pictures, as they would indeed not have welcomed it.Lovely though it was, the road was also rutted, bumpy, and muddy from the recent rains. After an hour or so of bouncing along, we came to Barton Creek, which was, at this point, impassable by the truck we were in. While the driver and Clifford were deciding if the engine was going to get ruined if they tried to cross, Sarah and I held a quick conference about the best way to rescue the turtle. "It escaped before we could stop it," really just wouldn't work. Before we'd come up with a plan, Clifford came back, announced we were going for a hike now, and hussled us away from the truck into the woods, where he said we were going to find the bridge. Sure enough, we found the bridge, and forgot the turtle for the meantime. An ancient looking rope affair hung over the creek, with the bottom made of a single-width of 2 by 4, pounded and tied on with rusty nails (still protruding) and bailing wire. You reached this bridge by climbing some equally ancient boards nailed to the tree. I got to go first (did I mention it also swayed alarmingly?), and blessed my tetanus shot the whole way over the bridge, across a field, and under some barbed wire on the other side.We were met at the other side by some folks whose truck could actually ford the stream, and we hitched a ride the remaining mile to the lodge at the cave. Clifford got us set up with a canoe (evidently there wasn't tubing here, no matter what the books said), a car battery, and a couple of high-beam flashlights, and showed me how to connect them to the battery to turn them on. Then we were off. The canoe drifted from the cool, still spot at the crack of the cave's mouth, into the dark at a leisurely pace. Sarah and I were warned to sit very, very still so as not to tip over the narrow canoe. (In Clifford's words, "No shakey shakey or we all get wet.") Very soon we were far enough in to use the flashlights to see the stalactites, stalagmites, and columns of limestone, along with the tiny holes the fruit bats lived in right by our heads. Many of these holes still contained bats. The lights were strong enough to get a few good pictures, along with a few pictures that Clifford made me take of absolutely nothing but a wall of rock. The ceiling of the cave was twenty or thirty feet up, and the space the canoe was passing through measured about fifteen feet across. You were welcome to touch the walls and formations, with the caveat of possible guano.After awhile, we got to the areas where the Mayans used to have rituals - sacrificial or not was unclear, but there were definitely skeletons found - and Clifford pointed out pots, potsherds, and, at one point, a skull that had gotten embedded in the limestone. He also pointed out the circuitous route and footholds the Mayans took to get from the water up to the ledges these items were resting on. In a few places, the cave narrowed to a crack a couple of feet wide that the canoe drifted through, and at one point Clifford joked that we were going to have to limbo in the canoe to fit under a low-hanging bridge before we slipped through a hidden sliver near the edge. When we reached the end of the easily toured part of the cave at a wall of rock, he had us turn off our lights and sit in the pitch darkness for a few minutes. It makes me uneasy enough to be without light in caves that I don't think I will ever take up spelunking. Just the possibility of being in such darkness with tons and tons of impenetrable rock above my head makes the whole sport unappealing.Shortly, we heard another canoe coming, so I reattached the lights to the battery, and we were on our way out. We were going with the current this direction, so the trip out was a good deal quicker than the trip in, and we reached the swimming hole in no more than half an hour. The water was very chilly, if not officially icy, and I had no plans to go anywhere near it, but Sarah attempted wading before she decided it was too cold even for her. I spent my time taking pictures of some orange animal rustling in a tree high above us, because Clifford told me to. He might be happier with his own camera.We hitched a ride out with the same truck, and stayed in it for the crossing this time. I fully understand why the other man did not want to drive his truck across thirty feet of rushing river. Once across, we met back up with our driver, who, while were gone, had spent the time napping and shoving the turtle underneath a spare tire for safe keeping. Despite all of their assertions, Sarah and I do not feel the prognosis for that turtle looked good. "In a nice pond in town with ten other turtles we've rescued," just sounds like way too much of a fable to shut up silly tourists. The scenery on the way out was just as beautiful as earlier, and we passed a troop of Amish children making their barefoot way down to the swimming hole. Though the Amish are stricter about picture taking, they seemed to be more open to modern clothes than some of the Mennonites we saw, as the little boys were dressed in pretty current business-casual, and the girls' short-sleeved pastel dresses ended at their calves rather than the ground. The Mennonites in many places had the girls in floor-length black dresses with sleeves to their wrists. Right before we turned off on the "good" road, we passed a carriage trying to carry a mattress. The team of horses shied at our passing and were clearly already about to bolt, and it took two men to keep the mattress from falling off, probably not for the first time. All of the other carriages we saw had calm, placid horses who paid no mind to the constantly passing vehicles, but those two had just gotten pushed too far.After we made what seemed to be a faux-pas by tipping Clifford, we fetched our laundry, now neatly cleaned and folded for less than the cost of a mid-sized lunch. This impressed me so much that I have resolved to find out if such a wonderful thing exists in the States. I hate laundry. As we hadn't eaten much since Hanna's, Sarah and I headed out to Cafe Sol for dinner. Though we were the only people in the room, it still took over an hour for us to get food, quite enough time for me to read through several elderly Newsweeks and get a good way into a Patterson novel. My fries were actually okay, and the chicken I ordered had a nice pineapple ginger sauce, what I had actually been expecting with the barracuda the day before. It took such a long time to get our check and change, that it was past eight when we finally left (we got back from the tour around five). On the way into Martha's, we stopped at a table out front, where people were selling jewelry. I got a couple of souvenirs and gifts (again avoiding the coral) and finally got to see the Mayan month of my birthday. (They had been strangely sold out of just that month everywhere else I had checked.) My birthday is in late November, and the symbol, most peculiarly, is the sign for "summer." The Mayan lady selling the charms shook her head when I pointed that out and said, "Those old Mayans, man, they were crazy."
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199694120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199694120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199694120/tpod.html Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:22:44 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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San Ignacio, Belize

As these things happen, today dawned bright and warm and beautiful. The sky was surreally blue, the water was turquoise, the sand was white, and the street was almost bone dry. Almost all of the puddles magically evaporated overnight. And it was the day we were scheduled to leave Caye Caulker for a trek inland, up in the mountains. After stepping outside, we decided to hold off on leaving Caye Caulker for as long as possible, and catch the very last possible ferry where we could still make our bus to San Ignacio.Rene, our guide from the day before, whom we'd dragged out in thoroughly awful weather to take us snorkeling, was sitting around the lobby at Costa Maya chatting when I stopped by, as not one single person had signed up for any of the tours that day. Go figure. He was pretty zen about the situation, though. He had a proper island attitude. I went back down to the Caribbean Colors art gallery and picked up a coffee and brownie to munch on while Sarah was getting ready, then we went out for proper breakfast (surprisingly not fryjacks) at Herbal Tribe before splitting up for the day. The service is very laid-back in Belize, taking at least three times as long to get food or a check, and we'd already learned not to expect anyone to check on us during the meal, but Herbal Tribe was the only place that was so "laid-back" that we didn't even bother to tip. We were the ONLY people in the entire place and it still took thirty minutes to get the check after we'd asked, with the waiter running out in town to do some errands first. I guess with the name, we should've guessed.After breakfast, we both grabbed our cameras, and Sarah went to go swimming by the Split between the two halves of Caye Caulker while I went to get most of my souvenir shopping out of the way while more of the vendors were out. Some of the better places I stopped were Chocolate's - for the beautiful fabric, sarongs, and embroidered items; Celi's (I think) outdoor stand where he has an outdoor layout of many of the tiny shell animal charms he's made out of conch; and the Toucan gift store, for a large array of the general magnet, postcard, and t-shirt items. The tiny gift store on the northwest corner of the intersection by the water taxi dock also had better prices on most of their merchandise, but they didn't have as large of a selection. Once I had my souvenirs decided upon, I started to go adventuring. I ducked down some of the side roads to go to the back side of the island, which is more residential than the front side of the island, which has the shops and hotels. I also starting asking around to get the history of the deserted resort by our hotel. From what I could gather, it was in the process of being built when it got smashed up in one of the hurricanes, and the builders ran out of money to finish it. However, every single person I asked about it immediately tried to sell it to me. I personally don't think anything about me says that I have enough money to buy a resort, ruined or not, nor do I think that all of those people had the authority to sell the resort, but, just in case I was missing a once in a lifetime opportunity, I went back down to the Split and scrutinized it. In the two minutes I decided that that thing would be an enormous mold-ridden money pit and that it was going to be destined to remain a haven for stray cats and bums escaping the rain, one of the bums tried to sell it to me. I met Sarah at the Split and we went to pick up our bags, then stopped by the Happy Lobster for lunch before we caught the ferry back to Belize City. I had a barracuda steak, which reminded me of a slightly fishier swordfish. The pineapple sauce was saturated with bell peppers, though, so I just ate it plain with a spray of lime. Bell peppers are in pretty much everything in Belize.We picked up a few more souvenirs, chatted with the proprietor of Chocolate's about the manatee reserve by Swallow Caye, then caught the ferry to the mainland. Learning our lesson from last time, we immediately caught a taxi over to the bus station, where we were put promptly on a bus up to San Ignacio, which, surprisingly, was not a chicken bus. In fact, it was pretty plush, with individual padded seats, AC, and a proper luggage rack. This was evidently one of the mythical "express" buses. The ride up to San Ignacio through Belmopan was done largely in the dark, since we'd waited so long to leave Caye Caulker. As soon as we arrived in San Ignacio, I ran into a problem pretty much unique to San Ignacio, which was that about half of the locations the map in the book mentioned still existed, but they existed in different places in the town. So the bus station was not where it was mentioned in the book, and as a result, we started heading the wrong way down the highway. On the way, we refused to tell any of the men in the taxi/information stand badgering us where we were going, in fact, we insisted we knew where we were, reached the edge of town, then had to turn around and walk resolutely right back past the same taxi stand. One man plaintively called out, "We don't charge for information!" The vast majority of these folks trying to help us are probably so sincere that they can't fathom why we wouldn't want to get directions, but Sarah and I remain in complete agreement that we never give the name of our hotel to any person that is just standing by the side of the road. Call us crazy.Finding the hotel, Martha's Guesthouse, was actually pretty easy once we were oriented properly. San Ignacio is, like most of Belize's towns, tiny and nicely centralized. We ate in Martha's restaurant, getting mildly undercooked pizza in a little nook underneath the stairs (the only place left to sit) and fed a very pregnant cat that was begging for scraps. After dinner, we had time to run to the internet place across the street (though the book was insistent it was somewhere else) before we headed up to our room. Martha's was chosen because of its good reviews and laundry service, but it came with the added amenity of a very conscientious second floor doorman, who initially showed us from the stair landing to our room (six steps), but then opened the outside door for us whenever we went out from the second floor entrance. As far as we could tell, he sat there all night with that as his sole duty. The building itself reminded me of an old convent we stayed in once in Sant'Agnello, Italy, with whitewashed walls and high ceilings supported by dark beams. There was also an enormous crucifix when one reached the top of the stairs, which probably aided the resemblance.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199680440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199680440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199680440/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jan 2008 01:02:23 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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Caye Caulker, Belize

This morning we woke up several hours early to a startling loud level of chirping. Not the chirping of a cute little bird or a solitary cricket, but the chirping of what sounded to be an enormous gecko somewhere in our cabana. In fact, it sounded like it was right on the wall above my futon. We both woke up, peered at each other in the gloom of dawn, and flicked on the light with a certain haste. Since that was only slightly less gloomy a gloom, we squinted underneath the curtains on all the windows, scanned the walls and floor and assured ourselves it must be right outside the window. We turned off the light, I started settling back to sleep, and right before I closed my eyes, I distinctly saw a lizardy shape scuttle across the window above my bed. What very definitely looked like the inside of the window. Sarah assured me that the sound was probably way out of proportion to its size, and it was probably a cute little lizard like we had growing up in Payson, and that's what I was telling myself as I dozed off. I knew there was a good reason for ALWAYS keeping our bags zipped.Cut to a few hours later, when we hurried through breakfast (fryjacks, of course). It was still grey and gloomy outside, even though it was eight a.m. by now, but we were bound and determined to go snorkeling, even if we had to miss the Blue Hole. We ended up in a small boat with some of the most annoying travel companions we'd yet met. There was a large (both in size and in number) American family who brought a luggage bag literally as tall as I am, two German girls, an Irish couple, a trio from Norway, and us. Of all of these people, the Irish couple were the only ones I'd want to get trapped on an island with. Our guide and the boat's captain, Rene, and his nephew also seemed like decent fellows. In addition to the American family's bag, ever single other person except me and Sarah had brought a backpack which had to be shoved into the cargo hold at the prow, where the anchor was kept. This meant that every single time we stopped anywhere, every single backpack had to be taken out, moved, and restowed. (I started counting, as the cargo hold opened directly into my knees and pinned me to the seat with the sharp anchor points centimeters from my feet). (Beginning of trip stowage debacle: 1)We could tell almost from the minute we pulled away from the dock that this was going to be a rough ride. We were all pretty much just wearing swimsuits and shivering in the wind and drizzle, whereupon Rene told us over the leaping of the boat and rushing wind that it was going to get worse in a moment, since we were heading right into a storm. This fact was obvious to pretty much everybody, as we could see the grey sheet up ahead where the storm was hitting the water. (Sarah and I hummed bits and pieces of Gilligan's Island quite a lot while we were in Belize.) I say "pretty much," since the American dad could not figure out what Rene was talking about. After twenty minutes of jarring and lurching, we started getting drenched with rain. I had dragged out my waterproof jacket at the storm warning earlier, so while I was barefoot and in a swimsuit, I at least had a little protection. The Irish couple, Sarah, and I were the ones sitting in the prow, so we got the full force of the stinging rain and wind. Eventually, though, Rene realized that the storm was just getting worse, and he headed over to what looked like an abandoned solitary house on an island to shelter until it blew over. I think he said that it was a station of some kind for one of the reserves around, but I didn't catch the specifics. (Bag stowage debacle: 2)Fifteen or twenty minutes later we were able to pile back into the boat (Bag stowage debacle: 3) and continue on to Shark Ray Alley. We anchored (Bag stowage debacle: 4) and listened to a brief lecture from Rene on the currents in the area, the reef break, the choppy water, and staying close to him. This is also when we learned that almost the entire American family couldn't swim, in addition to one of the Norwegians. Of course this did not stop them from going right ahead and donning life vests to jump into the current, anyway. The effect of the vests in a group of swimmers was that every single person in one was swept around rather helplessly by the current, crashing multiple times into the rest of us. The worst offender, the ten year old boy from the American family, actually had the audacity to glare at you when his flailing finned foot connected with your person. It angered him especially if your head got in his way. The father of the family was such a jackass, though, I didn't see much hope for his offspring. At one point he actually tried to swim by holding onto a float that was tied to the <i>anchored boat. It was cartoonish. Even worse, he frequently shouted instructions to his family to do what he was doing. I really don't see how they've survived this long.The water was grey and rather murky, but we still managed (between blows to the head from people in life vests) to spot huge (4-5 ft) sting rays, spotted rays, moray eels, and a giant turtle, like those we saw last year nesting in Costa Rica. Sarah took some pictures with a disposable underwater camera that turned out surprisingly well, with much more of a blue tint than the water had in reality. We swam around for about 45 minutes before Rene got us back into the boat (Bag stowage debacle: 5) so we could head off for the next destination, the Hol Chan Reserve. This wasn't a very long ride at all, compared to the first leg. Back into the water at Hol Chan (Bag stowage debacle: 6), we had a slightly less structured swim, but we still had to keep Rene in our field of vision at all times. We saw more moray eels, some of the huge conch shells, tons of coral (some dead), and more rays. I just could not help but think of Steve Irwin whenever I would see one coming to float directly under me, and remained a little stiller than usual. Right before we were to head back to the boat (Bag stowage debacle: 7) after another 45 minute to an hour swim, Sarah and a few other people spotted a small shark. Sadly, I missed it. I was swimming with sharks and didn't even know it.From Hol Chan, we headed into San Pedro for lunch, as the reserve is significantly closer to Ambergris than Caye Caulker. The Patio was closed, so Sarah and I found the Blue Water Grill, attached to the Sun Breeze Beach Hotel, where we got some of the best fish and chips I've ever had. Well, the best fried fish. Fries seem to be impossible to cook correctly in Belize, but theirs were at least edible. After tidying up in the bathroom, rinsing some saltwater out of my hair, and getting somewhat dressed again (I'd stowed quick-dry pants in the bag from the pocket of the waterproof jacket), I decided that I was going to forgo the last snorkel. After a few minutes of deliberation, Sarah agreed. We'd seen rays, sharks, a turtle, and coral, in addition to a thrilling boat ride, which we would both have bruises from the next day. Further dodging of the bad swimmers in the cold just did not sound like fun.Back in the boat (Bag stowage debacle: 8), several other people agreed with us at first, but in the end, almost everyone jumped back in the water (Bag stowage debacle: 9) when we reached the new spot on the reef. The only other holdouts were one of the Norwegian girls and the mother of the American family, who tried to confide in us that she'd tricked her family into the water, even though she had no intention of swimming. She must not like them very much either, because convincing your children, none of whom can swim, into the ocean current during a storm just seems beyond accidental negligence. Sure enough, the youngest also forgot his life vest and flailed around yelling for nearly a minute before the dad realized the problem. I was almost concerned despite myself.It didn't really sound like we'd missed much by skipping this swim, either, as no one had much to report once they got back in the boat (Bag stowage debacle: 10). I was getting a headache from all of the pounding up and down the waves and was ready to just get back to the hotel, so, of course, the next thing to do was pass around a plate of fruit and drive back to the far side of Caye Caulker so we could all sit quietly and have rum punch. After I passed on the rum punch (headaches and rum do not mix), Rene asked us if we were Muslim. I guess it is unheard of to turn down rum punch.Finally we got back to the dock (blessedly right across from our hotel) and immediately escaped back to our room, after the last and final Bag Stowage Debacle, number 11. What any of those people brought in their backpacks I have yet to fathom, other than perhaps towels and water. Since I had a headache, I didn't much feel like leaving the room once I was showered and cozy in my pajamas, so Sarah went by herself to the Rainbow Grill, where she said she had some good snapper. I was so tired that I was asleep before she ever got back.The moral of this story is, if you can't swim, please, please do not decide to go snorkeling in an ocean current during a storm with more baggage than we brought (combined) for our entire two weeks in Belize. It makes it very hard on the rest of us idiots who would just like to snorkel in an ocean current during a storm in peace.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199592840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199592840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199592840/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:57:05 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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Caye Caulker, Belize

After another wonderful breakfast of fryjacks and bacon at Luigi's, Sarah and I set off to find the actual bus station for Orange Walk, being as we'd gotten ourselves dropped off by the side of the road on the way in and never saw it. Orange Walk is tiny, so after wandering through a large fruit market, we found it just in time to catch another chicken bus down to Belize City. We found immediately that Kate and Jason, a pair of friendly Brits from the Lamanai tour the previous day, were also on the bus, so we chatted with them on the way down. They were six weeks into traveling Central and South America for a year after selling their house back in Oxford, which I thought sounded like a super plan.Other than a lot of squishing together on the bus seat (remember elementary school field trips?) whenever the bus would get full, the ride down was even less eventful than the ride up. Since it started raining awhile after we passed Belmopan (very nice, friendly looking town, but we never had any time there), we caught a cab directly upon hitting Belize City. Belize City is an unpleasant place, and being accosted by seedy looking men in the rain sounded even less pleasant than usual. The water taxi to Caye Caulker was leaving directly as we were dropped off, so we had no time to catch our breath before being bundled into the boat. As we left Belize's harbor, I saw a couple of dolphins leaping from the water in the middle distance. The rain slacked off soon enough, and the ride was only a little bumpy. This was still bumpy enough to upset a lady near us, who threw up miserably throughout the latter half of the trip. Upon arriving on Caye Caulker, we made our way through the drizzle and rain down the main street to our hotel, which, of course, was at the far north end of the inhabited section of the island, right by the deserted resort. The roads on Caye Caulker are not paved or covered, so we trudged through the wet, muddy sand, skirting the massive puddles covering the road until we got to Costa Maya Cabanas, only to find that our room was a tiny, dim room with one smallish bed. After escaping the room and talking with Heather, the owner, we were told, once again, to leave our stuff and not make a mess while she tried to get some visitors who had been asking about our room (whatever for?) to switch with them once they arrived.We went all the way back down the road almost to the water taxi station (we had time to waste) to have lunch at the Sandbox, where we tried lobster and shrimp salsa, and I got a chirimole. This turned out to be a type of spicy black chicken soup with a whole chunk of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, and a large slice of potato in a cup. It was pretty good, though spicy, but it was brought out way after we'd finished everything else on the table, so I didn't really feel like lingering to eat my slice of potato. Upon our return to Costa Maya (back at the other end of the island), we found we still had to wait for the other room, so it was back out in the rain for us. We found a cheap internet place not in any of the books at Taj's, then stopped in at Caribbean Colors for a cup of mocha (quite tasty) and a slice of key lime pie from next door. The key lime pie was a creamy yellow color, which I'd never seen before, but it was definitely lime flavored. The gallery and art section of Caribbean Colors spent another few minutes until it was fully dark and we had to go back to Costa Maya.Once there, we found Heather had already put our bags in the new room and registered for a replacement snorkel tour for the morning, to make up for the one to the Blue Hole we had wanted that was canceled due to the rain. Back at the new room, we were, and remain, baffled. This room was at least twice the size of the other, had a large bed, a futon, its own porch, and windows on three sides. And it was actually cheaper than the tiny, dark room we'd vacated. (Though still pretty dark. The high cost of electricity in Belize again.)We sat around watching the presidential debates for awhile, before reluctantly deciding that all of the restaurants were going to close if we didn't eat soon. We went just a short way down the street to one of the best restaurants on the island, Don Corleone's, where we had pasta, since, as the hostess said, "We are out of pizza." As we arrived half an hour before they closed, we didn't question that. Also, Don Corleone's fulfilled our current streak of trying Italian food in every country we visit (we'd already managed the Chinese food part back in Corozal). As it was dark, wet, and we had an all day snorkeling tour in the morning, we turned in pretty soon after dinner, with no further adventures walking around in the mud on Caye Caulker.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199330340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199330340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199330340/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:24:20 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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San Pedro, Belize

We were miraculously up and out the door at 6:30 to head down to the ferry dock. I know, I was surprised, too. It was grey and drizzly and we saw when we got to the dock that there were already quite a number of people waiting, along with assorted bags, parcels, and bicycles. After several minutes of waiting in a not-at-all-orderly queue, they let us on to the boat about 6:45, and got the luggage stored in the cargo hold. Sarah and I were instructed to sit in two very specific spots in a sideways bench wedged in under the overhang near the back, where we were cramped in, with no view to speak of and people constantly walking back and forth across our legs and over our shoulder."It's obvious they know we're tourists," I thought resentfully to myself, "No one else got instructed where to sit except the children along the back, and <i>they get a view."The boat pulled away on time, after at least a dozen more people piled on, in addition to one more bike, and the first twenty or thirty minutes of the trip were pretty rough, with water spraying the kids in the stern every time we ran up and down a wave. Everyone at the stern was shouting and laughing with the motion of the waves, as if we were on Splash Mountain. One of the ship's crew came back and said someone had offered to come stand under the overhang so two more kids could fit up front, inside. All of the children except one little girl insisted they were having fun and that they wanted to stay. One boy blustered about how he was having such a good time no one could make him leave. About ten minutes after that, the real ride started. Bucketfuls of water were coming over the sides, rain was stinging down from the sky, and the up and down motion of riding the waves turned into a slide-forward then slam violently back onto the bench motion. During a break in the rough water, I glanced back at the kids. Everyone on the back bench was soaked, and the boy who had been blustering so ardently was curled up in the fetal position, trying to use a life jacket to protect himself from the waves. In contrast, Sarah and I were merely damp, and I was wearing my raincoat."Oh," I thought sheepishly, "They knew we were tourists." After what seemed like an endless ride, but in reality was only about two hours, we arrived at San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. We stumbled grouchily in to the Coral Beach Hotel where we found that they'd given us the wrong sort of room, but if we were "careful not to make a mess," we could set our stuff down in it to wait for our real room to be cleaned. It was, after all, just 9 am.We gingerly set our bags down and went back out to find breakfast on "La Isla Bonita." We ended up with rolls and juice from Celi's Deli, and eventually figured out we were allowed to sit at or outisde of the accompanying Celi's Restaurant across the street. Actually, we were told by a maid, when she saw us huddled on one corner of the porch after being chased off a set of stairs. It was still raining, and the wind was strong enough to blow full cups over. After breakfast, we went to the internet cafe across the street from our hotel, where I was able to get a latte made with Lavazza espresso and spend an hour taking care of email. The coffee was excellent (though pricey), but I do not recommend butterscotch syrup. There is a reason that one is not popular in the States.At this point, we were able to move our bags to our room, so we unpacked a bit and headed out to explore San Pedro. We walked from one end to nearly the other, taking pictures during breaks in the rain. Needless to say, no Caribbean island during a storm will hold a fraction of its supposed charm, and Ambergris was no exception. Every street or lane was covered with mud or wet sand, the water was a sickly, churning greenish-brown, and the golf-carts and occasional minivan would speed past, splashing through the puddles of the narrow street. It was obvious we were not going to get to do any snorkeling or diving while on Ambergris.We stopped for lunch at the Patio, where we had an excellent fried fish appetizer, and bizarre seafood burgers, piled with beef, lobster, conch, and whatever else would fit on the bun. Sarah's had chicken, too.After an afternoon rest, we went back out to walk around, drink Cuban coffee, and have dinner at Caramba's. I shouldn't have. I managed the coffee at the Cuban coffee house, which had an extremely suspicious-acting owner. (He would not talk to his "friends" while we were in the room, so after we didn't want to sit outside in the cold, he took his "friends" outside. After glancing suspiciously at us several times through the door, he came back in to turn the television up VERY LOUD so we couldn't hear him. Couldn't hear him speaking extremely fast Spanish that we could not translate.) I was so tired by the time we got to Caramba's I was nearly sick and just picked at my jerk chicken before rushing back to the room to sleep. The chicken didn't deserve that treatment. Caramba's was also a very loud, happy place, with frat-boys and drunk vacationers everywhere, with free rum for every party, totally unsuited to my mood, well, ever, but particularly then. The food was uniformly good and prompt, though. Thankfully, San Pedro does quiet down at night, so I was able to sleep properly before getting up for another 7 am ferry.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199489880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199489880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199489880/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:21:30 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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Orange Walk, Belize

Though being prepared for our trip to Lamanai by 9 am was still something of a hassle, it was nothing compared to our previous 6:30 call times. We even had time for breakfast next door at Luigi's, where I was able to continue my "fryjacks every day" routine. (Luigi's is the best place we've found in Orange Walk, but it's not open very long.) The boat dock for travel down the New River turned out to be very near the hotel, so we walked over and found our guide. About nine other people were in our group, and Sarah and I ended up nearly in the very back again.It was another grey, overcast day, but it was slightly warmer than it had been, and only drizzling occasionally, so the trip upriver to the Lamanai ruins was pretty nice. On the way, the Mayan guide, Wilfredo, pointed out river wildlife, mostly different types of plants and birds, with the occasional crocodile spotting that everyone missed but him. I can now identify the firework flower and the black-collared hawk. We puttered through the jungle and after about 45 minutes, came to the Orange Walk Tower Hill Sugar Refinery, which refines 100% of the sugarcane in Belize. Sugar is about a third of the country's exports. The bagasse (waste from the refining) is used to generate electricity in Belize. Belize seems to be very hard up for electricity for some reason, with signs in some of the hotel rooms claiming a kilowatt of electricity costs ten times more in Belize than in the U.S., and nine times more than in Mexico.After the sugar refinery, we passed the tiny Mennonite community of Shipyard, supposedly some of the more liberal Mennonites in Belize. About forty five minutes after that, we arrived at the Lamanai ruins in the Belizean jungle. Unfortunately, we arrived at about the same time that a tour from a cruise ship had gotten there, so every time Wilfredo would see the cruise ship group coming, he would usher us quickly down some side trail to a different building so he could lecture in quiet. He had a great deal of contempt for the cruise ship people. We only saw a few buildings at Lamanai, but evidently there are many more unexcavated buildings that Belize just does not have the money to dig up. I remember virtually nothing from Wilfredo's copious lecturing, so the pictures tell the general story pretty well. The most interesting thing I do remember is finding out that the Mayan rulers in that section of the Mayan world built over their predecessors' temples, so that when excavating, removing actual sections of the temple would reveal different structures and architectural designs underneath. This can be seen most clearly in the Temple of the Mask, where one of the original masks was excavated, but the matching masks on the other side and the levels above were not excavated, to protect them for future research. The masks were found to be where expected by archaelogists, but then they were covered back up.Wilfredo was also very excited about Stela 9, but other than the sheer amount of legible glyphs on it, I can't remember why. The structure Stela 9 was found at is also known for having a cache of liquid mercury (not previously known to be in that region), and the skeletons of five children. I don't think it's known how they died, so it's unclear if they were sacrificed or not. Children's skeletons are not usually found in the sacrificial locations.After the very long-winded tour by Wilfredo (the fellow knew his Mayan archaeology), we had the typical Belizean lunch of rice and beans, stewed chicken, and Fanta. When they say "rice and beans" in Belize, it means a different thing than "beans and rice." "Rice and beans" is mostly rice cooked in coconut milk with a few beans mixed in. "Beans and rice" is the definition I'm used to, with equal helpings of beans and rice, like in Mexico. I'm not all that keen on the rice and beans (the texture is off to me), but the stewed chicken is uniformly excellent.The trip back down river is faster, since we're going with the current. Wilfredo doesn't stop as often to point out wildlife, but we do get to stop and finally see a small crocodile. We also passed a tugboat, like in old-fashioned picture books, towing a barge of bargasso upriver through the jungle.After the tour, Sarah and I wandered around for Orange Walk for quite some time trying to find something decent to eat, and eventually came back to Hotel de la Fuente hungry. At the door, we met the owners, Orlando and Cyndi, who invited us and a couple of the other girls from the tour who were also staying at the hotel to go with them to dinner at El Establo, a traditional restaurant slightly farther than walking distance out of town. Sarah, Deepa, Stephanie and I all squeezed into the back seat, the de la Fuente's seven year old son, Nathaniel, was sitting back in the cargo hold, and we ended up in a small palapa building north of town. I tried the salted pork and lime ceviche (can't remember the official name of it), which was okay, though very onion heavy. During dinner, we discussed politics, as Belize's general election was coming up, and we were in the middle of the Iowa caucus. After dinner, we ended up going back to their house for coffee. Their house...matched the hotel. It was kind of weird to see the Grecian columns in the middle of an road with shacks and very plain houses on either side. We all ended up singing our national anthems, except Stephanie, who did not remember Germany's national anthem, and Deepa only sang the British one, as she didn't know the Danish one, where she currently lives. I messed around on their keyboard, and Orlando played the guitar, including a couple of Belizean songs, while Cyndi sang. In the background, we could hear Orlando's brother, who owned a pharmacy in town, cracking coconuts next door to make coconut water (for the pharmacy, I guess). Not comparable to sitting by ourselves in yet another mediocre restaurant in Orange Walk.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199421060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199421060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wktsorf/4/1199421060/tpod.html Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:50:05 -0500 New Year's in Belize - Diving coral reefs and searching for jaguars. The obligatory ruins included.

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Orange Walk, Belize

Once again, we were up bright and early and down to the ferry dock for Corozal at half past six. When we got there, they told us that ferry wasn't running because of rough water. So we sighed, walked a few hundred feet across the island to the other ferry dock and immediately boarded the express ferry to Belize City, which told us they always run, no matter the conditions. It may have had something to do with the direction of travel, or it may have had to do with the much larger number of people wanting to go to Belize (as the locals call Belize City), hence greater weight in the boat. Either way, the ride was smooth and barely choppy at all.In Belize, we stopped at Big Daddy's for breakfast, where I found out about the wonder of fryjacks. Fryjacks, also known variously as Indian fry bread, sopapillas, and beignets in the U.S., are a very common breakfast food in Belize (the country), hence I could get them <i>every single day. That in and of itself raised Belizean cuisine a full letter grade in my estimation.This breakfast stop was also our first clue as the character of Belize (the city). The diner, on one of the upper floors of what looked like an abandoned warehouse, was actually above government service offices. On our way out, a beggar out front asked Sarah for a cigarette, and when she wouldn't give it to him, he followed us. Down several main streets of Belize for at least a third of a mile he followed us, babbling about AIDS and his father the Prime Minister. He followed us, keeping pace, for so long I got nervous, stopped looking at street signs, and took us into an area he deemed "too dangerous" and wandered off. As soon as we were sure he was truly gone, we stopped to look at the map, found we were on a road with the delightful name of Cemetery Road, and realized we were only about two blocks from the bus station. All through the beggar's harassment, not one person on the sidewalk in broad daylight so much as blinked, and every area we'd passed looked like a slum. Not in the vaguely unfortunate way Central American cities sometimes look, with poor building supplies, trash everywhere, and a distinct lack of zoning, but in a scary bars on every window and door, canals filled with garbage, and convenience stores selling goods through a tiny slot in the window way. We could not wait to leave.Which, luckily, was very soon, with our bus to Orange Walk leaving immediately (we boarded as soon we dodged the beggar, who'd beat us there). Turns out, about 95% of the buses in Belize are converted school buses, or "chicken buses," as we heard them called. We still have never seen an actual live chicken on one, though.Other than a thoroughly depressing view of more of Belize City and several police checkpoints on the highway*, we had a fairly unremarkable drive up to Orange Walk. The driver played reggae/garifuna, American pop, and Rihanna, and the sun was coming out by the time we were dropped off. Our hotel was so new it didn't appear on the maps yet, so we had to ask around, but we found it with no real issue. Hotel de la Fuente turned out to be, apart from the construction outside, gorgeous. The outside was pure white, with wrought iron railings and Grecian columns. The room itself had a refrigerator, ironing board, and dolphins etched into the bathroom mirror. In addition, it was really, really clean. About the only thing the hotel was lacking was a restaurant, which was part of what the construction outside was covering. We took a walk to find the Lamanai Riverside Retreat, which supposedly had one of the best restaurants in town. We got minorly lost, but some little boys on bikes ended up escorting us. Maybe what we chose was a mistake, but the burgers and fries were ghastly. The burger was made of a paper thin layer of chicken and onions, no beef, and the fries were as much grease as potato. The view of the river, the New River, was pretty, but not enough to make up for that meal. The rest of the evening was spent exploring Orange Walk, from the House of Culture at one end to the Shell station at the other. Verdict - Orange Walk is very safe. And very, very dull. I did find a store that only sold cake, so I got a slice of chocolate for supper while Sarah went out to Lee's Chinese Restaurant. (Her meal was not a repeat experience.)While she was gone, I had more fun than I should've watching MTV and Discovery Health. All of Belize seems to have completely American tv, with a couple local channels thrown in. I haven't gotten any radio stations at all.One other thing we noticed when we were out was the cemetery. All of the graves seem to be above ground crypts, but we saw several freshly dug graves, so we're not sure if an empty cement box is placed on top afterward, or if family plots build upward.*The police checkpoints, I found out later, were because that road is used a lot for cocaine smuggling.
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