Some Belize Photos

 

 

 

Here are some of the pictures we took while we have been here.  Because Mike is the photographer and he has been under the weather, there aren't as many as usual.  But this gives you an idea of things, although They never really capture things.

 

Here is the bus station in Belize City.  A bus just left so there is no one crowding around the gates.

 

 

This sign was posted in Belize City right outside of a restaurant we were walking to (after being told in no uncertain terms we were to walk nowhere at all, it was too dangerous.  We ignored the warnings and all was well. 

 

 

Here I am on my bike, riding along in Caye Caulker.  No cars, only golf carts. 

 

This is the temple ruin at Lamanai with beautifully carved masks. 

 

Here is the sun god - the big round eyes signify wisdom.

 

 

 

 And here is Mike with his horse, Goldie.  We were on a hand cranked ferry on our way to some ruins with a long name that begins with an X that I can't remember as I write this. 

 

 

They eat armadillo down here,  I have not tried it, but I will if I get a chance.  After all, I did eat gibnut!

 

 

The view from our room at Caye Caulker.  The wind blows all the time, so I see why people love to sail the Caribbean.

 

 

This is the main street in Caye Caulker.  tobacco Caye has no streets at all.  It is like one big block and you just walk around where ever you want to.

 



So that is it for now.  We are again in San Ignacio, and tomorrow we will head for Guatemala.  I'm thinking Christmas in Antigua if things go the way they have been - travel with no schedule is pretty good.  There are a few concerns - for example, we left some expensive winches at a machine shop in San Salvador and they do not answer their emails, even ones sent in Spanish.  Our landlord (so to speak) in El Salvador might be in some trouble - some kids (who happened to be his cousins) were caught breaking into a boat at another mooring field owned by someone else.  The kids told the cops that Santos (The landlord) paid them $100 to break into the boat to make his mooring field look safer than the other mooring field.  The kids did, apparently have $100 on them when caught.  Santos claims he is being set up.  Well, as my good friend Sheila said, "There was never a pancake so thin it did not have two sides."  I am very fond of Santos, but this pancake is pretty thin.  So that is a concern.  And of course we miss the boat and are also eager to head south, for Costa Rica and points beyond.  All's well.

"I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it." (Victoria Claflin Woodhull)

Caribbean Time

I wrote this when we had no internet . . .

 

 

Thursday, Nov 22

Finally I have forced myself to sit down and write this post. I could blame it on the Caribbean, but I won't. It is just my general laziness. We are currently in tobacco Caye, Belize. This is an island that is about 5 acres or so, but Mike thinks it is more like 3 or 4. It is surrounded by a barrier reef, and there is nothing here except a bunch of ramshackle cabins for tourists to stay in. We pay a flat price that includes all our meals. Right now we are the only people at our little cabin cluster – very private. Our cabin is right on the beach, about 30-40 feet from the water's edge. We will be here until Sunday.

Since we don’t have much in the line of internet here, I am writing this offline. When I finish, I will take it up to this marine science lab (the only thing here besides the tourist cabins) and use their internet for a fee. Then I will post it. So I am not sure, as I write this, exactly what I reported last time I wrote . I think I was leaving Belize city for Orange Walk Town. Or maybe we were already there and leaving for San Ignacio. I just don't remember. Anyway, it has been a great tour of Belize.

In Orange Walk, we took a boat tour to the ruins at Lamanai. The boat ride itself was fascinating – we saw all kinds of birds, a rather tame spider monkey, and even a crocodile. Once we got to the ruins and were hiking through the jungle to get to the site, we saw a family of howler monkeys.

After Orange Walk, we went to San Ignacio, right on the Guatemalan border. (The people there who live on hills can see Guatemala from their houses, for real). We walked to one set of ruins that was close to town, that has the distinction of being the oldest continually inhabited site in Belize. (Most of the sites here in Belize are not as fully excavated as the sites in Mexico, but here you can climb all around them and go inside through tunnels if they have them.) San Ignacio was a wonderful little town – we fell in love with it, making it our favorite place in Belize, even beating out the Caribbean beach places. One interesting thing we did while on a horseback ride to yet another ruin site, was to eat gibnut for lunch. Fot They weigh about 10 -12 pounds and have nice golden brown fur with white racing stripes. I looked up a picture on Google to see what I was eating. It is quite a delicacy around here. The locals refer to it as “the royal rat” because Queen Elizabeth ate it when she visited Belize. If I had not known what I was eating, I probably would have guessed pork, except for the suspiciously small bones. It was served sort of stewed, with beans and rice like everything here.

Another thing we did while in San Ignacio was to go in a hike through the jungle, then through a cave that is filled with Maya artifacts. We had to do a 40 minute hike that included wading through a river a couple of times, then swimming through the rive to the mouth of the cave. For most of the cv you are hiking in water and at times swimming if you are short enough. The water was absolutely crystal clear. We had to go over, under, and around boulders, squeezing through these narrow passages in the cave. We all had helmets with miners lights, and I am glad I did because I whacked my head a couple of times while looking at my feet and not ahead of me. When we got to the dry part, we had to take our shoes off and walk around in socks. There were bones, intact skeletons, pots and other artifacts. And even a skeleton that had turned into a sort of crystal. We were not allowed to even bring cameras in, let alone take pictures. It really had an effect, everyone was very reverent and it sort of felt like being in church.

After leaving San Ignacio, we went to the town of Hopkins for Garifuna Settlement Day. Unfortunately, Mike got sick with some sort of flu, and we didn't really get to see much of the celebration. And to top it off, the place we were staying had no running water. We had to use a bucket to flush the toilet, and with Mike being sick, well, lets just say it was not a good time to lack indoor plumbing. There was no way to even take a shower. I did get to hear some of the drumming, but otherwise, I pretty much had to just take care of Mike, and he was really sick. I was beginning to think I would have to get him to a doctor, but right about then he started to get better. And in addition, I did not want to go about by myself, because I was constantly fending off men. Seriously, it got really annoying and I was not flattered because it was absolutely ridiculous, half of these idiots were my son's age. It wasn't threatening in any way, just truly annoying, almost like trying to get away from a time share salesman.

And the icing on the cake was the place where we stayed. I am not going to write a Trip Adviser review, because I can't give a good review and I don't have the heart to write a bad one. The place itself has seen better days, but all the guesthouses here in Belize are sort of rundown by our standards. And lots ottimes the power and plumbing can be dicey – welcome to the third world. But this was too much. Our room s under the house and it was kind of funky and interesting although very dark. There were no bugs at all, not even mosquitoes, and a fan kept it nice and cool. Our hostess is about my age and is originally from New York. She has spent most of her adult life living in the Caribbean, running restaurants and hotels. She has a boyfriend named Elvis, a tall, skinny Rastafarian -type guy. Well, Elvis was drunk the entire time we were there. The woman nagged him all day long to help her out with things – it was like listening to someone scold a lazy teenager to clean his room, except she called him things like “stupid fucking asshole”. He didn't seem to care very much. The water thing was a huge pain in the ass, because every time I needed a new bucket of water, I had to enter into their drama to get more. She also had an injured foot from some strange episode that included a moving car. I hid out reading while keeping an eye on Mike, and even skipped dinner and breakfast to avoid dealing with them. Even when Elvis was not around, she complained about him or went on long rambling monologues about things I really would have been happier not knowing. No boundaries whatsoever! Otherwise, she was a really nice woman, sort of a Ladies of the Canyon Earth Mother type. She offered up her services as an herbal healer for Mike, and had he not started getting better, I was going to take her up on it. And I must say she was an excellent cook! But all in all, I was not sorry to leave. I think what was once eccentric and fun loving has changed to dysfunction and alcoholism. (I would seriously have given Ol' Elvis the boot a long time ago.)

Now, as I said in the beginning, we are ensconced at Tobacco Caye in a little cabin. We do have running water, but no hot water. No problem. There are a bunch of boat tailed grackles fighting over a coconut outside my porch. There is no sound other than birds and surf. This island has no cars or motor vehicles of any kind, not even electric golf carts. When it is time to eat, Nelda rings a dinner bell we can hear anywhere on the island. Last night we had conch (pronounced conk) steaks cooked in some kind of wonderful seasoning. I have never had conch like this, only in fritters, and it was really good. I am not getting sick from the food anymore, thank goodness. We will be here until Sunday, then maybe a night in Dangriga so Mike can tour the Marie Sharp Hot Sauce factory, then back to San Ignacio and off to Guatemala. I sure do understand why all our friends are so interested in crossing through the canal and getting to the Caribbean. This is the proverbial tropical paradise.

“I never change, I simply become more myself.”  (Joyce Carol Oates)
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More Belize

This post was started on Sunday the 11 and continued today, the 13th.

OK, I finally saw my first beggar here, In Belize City.  It was an old man, and he got indignant when we didn't give him as much change as he wanted.  Oh well.

Belize City is POOR.  Many of the people live in complete shacks. Mike thought it was as bad as Africa.  (Having never been to Africa, I can't say whether he is right or not.)  Everyone seemed very eager that we not walk around anywhere after dark, but we did anyway.  It seemed okay, no one acted hostile or threatening.  But the next day we heard there was a shooting right in the area we walked in the very next night.  We made friends with the owner of our hotel, a Belizean woman who spent most of her adult life in the US, in New York.  She told us that there was danger, but if we used common sense we would be okay.  That is how it usually is, I have found.  Anyway, she told us a lot about Belize.  The crime is mostly because everyone is so poor.  It is less violent in the countryside because people can fish and grow food.  (Of course the tourist areas are safer than anywhere else.)  In the city, the only way to eat sometimes is to rob somebody else.  It is that poor.  It is just sad.  It is a beautiful country.  Mike felt the atmosphere in the city was extremely tense.  And Mike is pretty comfortable just about anywhere. 

Yesterday we left Belize City and took a bus to Orange Walk Town, in the countryside.  The buses here are interesting.  In El Salvador, they cram as many people as possible onto each bus - there is no such thing as too crowded.  Here, you must have a seat.  So when the buses arrive, everyone rushes to get a seat.  I was almost crowded out by a determined woman wielding a baby.  We did miss one bus because when we finally got through the door of the station and up to the bus, there were no seats left.  So next time we were smarter and got up close, pushed and shoved with the best of them, and got seats.  Hopefully I didn't elbow any babies in my haste to ace out everyone behind me.  I did use my backpack to my advantage - turning slightly sideways and blocking people behind me.  I  am not proud of it, but when in Rome . . . 

It was about an hour and half ride through the countryside.  Orange Walk is a farming community, and there are not many tourists except for people going to the ruins nearby.  That is why we came.  he hotel we are staying at is pretty nice, and relatively reasonable for Belize.  It is also interesting that Belize is significantly more expensive than either El Salvador or Honduras, and even more expensive than a lot of Mexico.  (It is interesting because the country is so poor.  If we are feeling it, how much more so must it be for those who live here with no money?)

Orange Walk Town also has a lot of Chinese living here.  They seem to run almost all the small grocery and liquor stores as well as lots of the restaurants.  Our host in Belize City said it was the same way there - because the Chinese stay open when the locals will not, like on Sundays and holidays and stuff like that.  They are not lackadaisial as far as keeping regular hours - meaning that if the sign says they open at nine, they will be open at nine, not nine-thirty or ten.  In fact, yesterday was Sunday, and when we asked at the hotel where would be a  good place for dinner, he told us it was Chinese or nothing.  So we had Chinese (No problem for me, I love Chinese, they aren't hung up on putting cheese on everything).  I must say - it was absolute heaven to have a meal based around vegetables.  While this might by TMI, I have been having problems with the food down here.  It is good in the sense that I love coconut rice and beans.  But they don't do much with vegetables, and the meat, while very tasty, is usually fried.  And then there are the fry jacks, which are basically fried bread.  We were eating three meals a day of this stuff,. and on several days I threw up all my dinner within an hour of eating it.  I started to feel crappy before we even left the restaurant, and there were good places, not fast food or street stalls.  But last night I did not get sick, did not wake up with horrible heartburn, and this morning I feel really good.  I even slept better.  I have simply been eating way too much of stuff that isn't good for me.

So yesterday we went to the ruins at Lamanai.  Even though I now consider myself almost an expert on Mayan ruins, these were especially fun to visit.  You have to go there by boat. and we had a great group on our boat - me and Mike  (USA), a couple from New Zealand, and three Canadian couples.  One of the Canadian couples were two young kids backpacking their way to South America.  The boat ride took abut an hour and a half, and on the way we saw crocodiles, and lots of new birds.  One of them was known locally as the Jesus Bird because it walks on water (lily pads, actually.)  The river we were on was beautiful and the ruins themselves are right there on the river's edge.  The vast majority of the site is completely unexcavated, but there are four tall temples that have been exposed.  Some of it was excavated and then reburied so as to keep it safe until the money can be found to do further excavation.  It was surrounded by heavy jungle, where we saw two different kinds of monkeys.  It rained while we were there, which was great because than meant it wasn't too hot.  And since the rain down here is warm, it doesn't matter if you get wet.  And once it stops raining, you dry off pretty fast.  And finally, if it is raining, there is probably some  cloud cover so the sun is not beating down on you. 

Tuesday, November 13

We are now in San Ignacio, near the Guatemalan border.  So far this is our favorite place in Belize.  The town has a nice hippie vibe (for lack of a better way to describe it) with lots of good places to eat and stay.  We are in a great little cabin with a little porch.  Even though we are right in the heart of town, we are off in the back behind the hotel proper and it is nice and quiet at night.  There is no AC, but the ceiling fan works great and it is to hot enough for AC anyway.  And there is a TV with US shows, which I have said before is a treat.  We get Comedy Channel so we get Daily Show and Colbert Report.  Plus network news. 

Today we went to a ruin site that was walking distance from town here.  While this one was a lot of fun because there were tunnels and stuff like that to play around in, I have to admit I MIGHT be getting a bit burned out on ruins.  Just a bit.  It did rain, though, and we had fun ducking into tunnels and rooms to hide out from the rain.  And again, the rain was nice because even though it made the steps at the site slippery, it kept things cool.  Tomorrow we are taking a trek that will take us through the jungle, we will have to swim through a cave, and hike throughout this cave to an archaeological site inside of it.  I am excited to do it because it is very likely that they will soon stop allowing tours through this place.  Thursday we go to another set of ruins - the largest site in Belize - and get to swim in a cave.  After that, we are heading back to the coast for a festival celebrating the Garifuna Settlement Day.

Anyway - pictures will be forthcoming as soon as they are downloaded. 

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."  (Mahatma Gandhi)
 
                     

          

Introspection

We left San Diego aboard Magda Jean just about two years ago now - we cast off at the very end of November 2010.  It sometimes seems like a lot shorter than that, and at other times it seems like we have been gone forever.  We have spent about two months of that time visiting in the US.

What have I learned?  What haven't I learned yet?  I know this year went better than last year.  I will  have to be honest, living with someone else on a 40 foot boat and being together 24/7 without any break, can be stressful and frankly difficult at times.  And neither Mike nor I am particularly easy to live with.  There have been times when I have gone so far as to actually make plans to leave him.  But thank goodness I have stuck it out, because I really don't want to be anywhere else with anyone else.  This is the life I want. 

Constant traveling can be wearing  - at times I wish we could do it like the Canadians do - half the year sailing, half the year living back in Canada.  That is always an option.  (But I can feel my relatives reading this and wondering if we are going to descend on them for free room and board for six months of every year! Don't worry, it would not work that way.)  But this is something I have always dreamed of doing - just drifting along whenever and where ever I feel like being and going at the time.  This trip is a good example.  We had planned actually to be done by now.  But then we had the opportunity to add some of Mexico to the trip by sailing down with Jason.  And of course we could not tear ourselves away.  So I figured we will likely be home (back to Magda Jean in El Salvador) by Thanksgiving instead.  I doubt we will make that date - here we are after one week in Belize and we are not even close to being ready to leave for Guatemala.  So I think we are going to have a Guatemalan Christmas.

You see, we were only supposed to spend a couple of days here in Caye Caulker, then move on.  But we stayed a week, just lounging around, watching the sun rise and set, and eating and riding our rented bikes around the island.  I read a lot and Mike took lots of naps.  (He sleeps more than any non- infant I ever met.  But that is another story for another day.)  I have never spent this much time doing nothing.  But it felt good.  Today we catch the boat and head off to Belize City to spend the night and then head off to another part of Belize, the Orange Walk area. There are ruins and rivers and jungles to explore. Mike wants more horses, and I want to swim in the fresh water of the river. It is all there.

I did not know anything much about Belize until we got here, It is a lot poorer than I thought it would be. Much poorer than El Salvador, and definitely giving Honduras a run for its money in that department. I guess in my ethnocentric way, I expected it to be more prosperous here because they speak English and have Queen Elizabeth-s picture on all their money. Not so. Mexico seems more prosperous than Central America, but interestingly enough, you do not have beggars everywhere like you do in Mexico. (We kept our packets full of what we referred to as "beggar money" - small change to hand out as we walked down the street.) I don't understand that. I saw no beggars in Honduras, El Salvador, or here, but Mexico, with its good economy (help wanted signs everywhere) has them everywhere. Maybe the police won't allow it in other places, but neither Belize nor Honduras have a really strong police presence. (El Salvador, on the other hand, is an armed camp with guns and security everywhere.) We will see about Guatemala.

So anyway, I had big plans for this post to be a retrospective of the year just passed,but my Short Attention Span Theatre kicked into gear. It has all in all been a good year, albeit with a rough start. But I think I am learning to live a new way, with a different outlook towards everything and everyone. I just hope I am becoming a better person for it.

"One of the world's most tiresome questions is what object one would bring to a desert island,because people always answer 'a deck of cards' or 'Anna Karenina' when the obvious answer is 'a well equipped boat and a crew to sail me off the island and back home where I can play all the card games and read all the Russian novels I want.'"  (Lemony Snicket)

   

Belize!

So it is true, we finally made it out of Mexico.  We went from Chetumal to Caye Caulker via boat, and instead of just spending a few nights here and then moving on, we are going to be here for about a week.  Here is one reason why we are staying - the view from our hotel room.



It has been windy and overcast with some squalls most of the time we have been here.  This place could not be more different than Playa del Carmen - for example, I lost a tank top when it was drying on the balcony, so I need a new one and guess what - I can't find a tourist store selling T shirts!  It has rained almost every day, and Mike thinks the water is too cold to swim in.  Not me - I think it is quite refreshing.  with all the rain, it hasn't been great visibility for snorkeling.  So we spend most of our time riding our rented bikes around the island, dodging squalls with varying degrees of success. Mike is pretty good about looking at the sky and figuring out how long we have before the storm hits with the rain.  I like it - it is nice not to be hot and sweaty for a change.

Here is a view of the main drag here in Caye Caulker.  No cars, no paved roads, just bikes and golf carts.  And stray dogs. 

 

 

No artifice here!



I have no desire to try anything that tastes like a combination of mint and licorice.  I just do not see that working for me. 

One thing fun about being here is that there is US TV in our room.  That is in some ways a treat for us.  If we have any English TV at all, it is usually CNN international or a movie channel called "Panico" that plays horror movie after horror movie.  Here we are getting regular things - we got to watch American football yesterday in our room while it was raining, and we are keeping track of the election (we voted via absentee ballot). 

This is the first time we have had anything less than perfect weather while traveling - and unless one wants to swim in the rain, there isn't too much to actually do except drink in the bars.  But at 10:46 am, I think it is a bit too early.  So here I am, doing what I have been putting off for too long - updating this blog.  Even with the rain, this place is wonderful - I can just sit on the balcony (when the rain is not blowing that direction and read with a clear conscience, not feeling guilty for not doing something that requires more physical energy than I expend with my books.  As the clouds shift around in the sky, the water changes color, from slate grey to deep blue to turquoise to beige.  When it turns beige, you know that is is very shallow because the beige color is sand or coral, whatever is below.  

It would be easy to get really fat here - there is a woman who sells great pie on the street.  We have fallen in love with her coconut chocolate and her key lime meringue is also pretty darn good.  I could eat it all day.  And there is a Chinese take out that makes really good fried rice.  And they also have these things called fry jacks - which are like a cross between fry bread and popovers.  They are awesomely good and not at all good for you.  Right up my alley.

So that is what I have been up to - watching it rain and enjoying every minute of it.  Since I do have TV, I am going to follow the election returns tomorrow, keeping good thoughts for my sister, who is running for state Assembly in Wisconsin.  The next plan is to leave here for the mainland, and explore some ruins and a nature preserve.  Then back to the beach, more ruins, and Guatemala.  At least that is the plan, currently, anyway.  Everything is always drawn in sand for me these days rather than being carved in stone.  I like it that way.

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”  (Bob Marley)