The next day we took a little 11 passenger plane back to Belize. The Placencia airport is adorable. We arrived 10 minutes before take off, and blissfully were not subjected to the usual airport harassment. The runway goes from one side of the caye to the other, and the dirt road to Placencia hairpins around the end of it. Speed bumps and signs on the road advise drivers of motor vehicles to yield to landing and departing planes. Sometimes they do. The runway ends at the ocean, and we lifted off just before the end.
The view from 3,000 feet was wonderful. We saw how much of the country is still intact. We had been disappointed in 2002 in Costa Rica to see that the jungles have mostly been logged and turned to ranches. Flying over the beautiful turquoise water of Belize on our way home from Costa Rica made us resolve to see whether Belize was in better shape. We are happy to report that most of Belize is still there, and we hope the government makes the right decisions in developing their infant eco tourism industry.
One reader of my travelogue commented that we seemed to have had a lot of difficulties and the trip didn't seem to be much fun. I reported the mishaps because they were as much a part of the trip as the delightful discoveries, but maybe some readers don't want to hear the complaints. I have found two Creole proverbs that offer two ways of looking at this situation.
"Di stilles calf suck de mos milk".
Literally, The quietest calf sucks the most milk.
Meaning, The uncomplaining person often gets the most out of a situation.
Or is it
"Di burying no deh weh di mos bawling deh"
Literally, The funeral isn’t where the crying is the loudest
Meaning, The grumbler is often better off than the uncomplaining person
Anyway, I have to admit
"Di fowl weh cackle da di fowl weh lay di egg"
Literally, The fowl that cackles is the fowl that lays the egg
Meaning, The person who resents or talks most about a wrong-doing is guilty of it.
Bottom line is, we enjoyed Belize and Guatemala, and hope to return.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
We Still Don't Go Sea Kayaking
Tucson, Arizona
Greetings from the real world,
I hit the ground running with work, but fortunately I did not have to face Minnesota or Zurich weather as some of our traveling companions did. I finally looked at my photos last night. Some of them are attached.
So, we decided to rejoin the sea kayaking trip out of Placencia on day three. The weather in Placencia had been nice, and Ajinder told us it should be better in the next few days. When I asked how things were going with the kayakers, he talked about his repaired motor boat, the Havana, instead. That should have told us something. A boatman took us in the Havana out to Little Water Caye, about 20 miles off shore, put a two person kayak in the boat, and headed to one of the Silk Cayes, where our group was camped. The ocean was reasonably calm until we left Little Water Caye. Then the wind started blowing and the ocean got choppy.
When we landed on Silk Caye, the campers were amazed to see us. Some thought we had come to rescue them, and they couldn't believe it when we unloaded our cumbersome gear and the boatman departed in the support boat Ajinder had borrowed, leaving the Havana behind.
Things had not gone well for the intrepid travelers. After an night on the sand fly caye during which the sand flies bit the campers all night, they crossed the ocean in bad weather in their kayaks. Fortunately, all were experienced kayakers. When they learned that Steve and I have never been in a kayak, they told us it was a good thing we didn't have to make that passage as our maiden voyage.
The caye is only half an acre or less. There are about 8 palm trees on the west side of it, and some viney ground cover with big round leaves. The kitchen and dining areas are here, as well as the tents for the 3 guides, captain Louis, leader Barnaby (both Belizeans) and G.A.P. guide Isabeli from French Canada. The east end narrows down to a point and has no vegetation. Here 6 tents are set up for the 11 tourists, and the kayaks were all beached. The only other decorations were some drift wood, drift garbage (even here!), the blue tarp covered toilet teepee, pelicans, sandpipers and hermit crabs. No bugs, thank goodness.
The night before we arrived had been a nightmare. At 2 AM, the wind kicked up to 40 mph. The tents were pressed against the campers, who had to lie on their backs and push back the tent walls with their feet. Then the rain started. Some of the campers were afraid they would be washed out to sea. The tour leader, Barnaby, wanted to go check on the other campers, but thought if he got out of his tent, it would blow away.
No one slept much, and when we arrived, the sky was grey, the wind was blowing, and the Coast Guard had a small craft warning. Everyone was haggard from lack of sleep and most were bored, because they weren't allowed to kayak or snorkel due to the wind. They were making lists of things they would have brought had they known they were going to be abandoned on a deserted island. When the wind settled down, they planned a triathlon: swimming, running and kayaking around the island. The entire race would kill about 5 minutes.
This was starting to look like a bad idea, with 2 days left in the trip. If the wind didn't stop, I wondered how we would get off the caye. What happens when we run out of water and food? I knew the cell phones didn't work out here, and I thought that Ajinder wouldn't miss us until we failed to return by 5 PM on day 5. Nobody else seemed to be worried, so I decided not to ask questions, and just assume things would work out. It wasn't until we had been there over a day that I learned that the guides were in touch with Ajinder by radio, who was giving them the Coast Guard warnings. I also noticed on our second day that park rangers came ashore to schmooze with the guides, collect landing fees, and make sure we weren't fishing in the preserve. So we were not as isolated as I had thought.
One of the campers caught an 8 pound barracuda, which the guides prepared for our dinner. Delicious, but bony. By the light of the kerosene lanterns, Barnaby told us ghost stores about his days plundering Mayan ceremonial caves. He said when he was a boy in the 80s, selling stolen Mayan artifacts was the second biggest source of income after marijuana. For all its faults, eco-tourism has created a lot of new job opportunities here.
The wind kept up all night, but the tents held up better on this second night the campers spent on this caye because 5 gallon water jugs had been tied on the upwind side. Our tent was staked with thick dried palm leaf stems, buried 18 inches in the sand. There were no more water jugs, so our tent was anchored to a 70 pound piece of coral. The wind filled our tent with sand, but there was no rain and our first night on the caye was not traumatic.
Day 3 the sun came out and the wind finally died down. We were supposed to break camp and kayak to another caye, but this was deemed unfeasible for some reason that we never learned. We took the Havana out to the barrier reef, the longest (175 miles) in the western hemisphere. The snorkeling was okay, but the wind had stirred up the sediment, so we didn't see much. I did float above a school of blue tangs, dessert plate sized electric blue fish, as we all slowly moved together through the waving fans on the coral.
After more hanging out on the caye, which we all knew very well by now, we were taken out to a fishing boat where the fishermen were cleaning their catch and throwing the guts in the water, attracting rays and sharks. We got in the water with our snorkel gear and watched the rays and sharks. The sharks were harmless nurse sharks, about 4 feet long. The rays were the southern sting ray, which we had seen before, and the fabulous spotted eagle ray. Both these guys are about 3 feet in diameter. A new sighting was the enormous manta ray. He looks like a circular blanket, about 6 feet across, fluttering through the ocean, trailing a six foot stinger behind. Very elegant. The rays don't want any trouble, and unless you touch them they will not sting you. When the manta ray glided under me, I stayed perfectly still so I wouldn't accidentally touch him with my fins. The guides bought some lobster and conch from the fishermen, which they later made into a wonderful stew for our supper.
The guides then decided to take everyone on a kayak trip to the next caye. After Steve and I got it through Isabeli's head that we have never kayaked before, she finally attempted to teach us, but she wasn't very helpful, because she is French Canadian and admits she has trouble remembering the correct English words for left and right. She shouted contradictory and useless instructions (in a charming French accent) and put her kayak in our path until we just decided to ignore her and try to figure it out ourselves. The kayak was very unstable, and we were constantly making little adjustments in our weight to try to keep upright. Unfortunately, the waves were still about 2 feet high, and we both shifted in the same direction at the same time, and tipped the kayak over. Most of our lesson was spent pumping the water out of the kayak and learning how to get back in the kayak. The others, who all believe that kayaks are very stable and practically impossible to tip over, were amazed that we managed to dump ours, but to us it seemed inevitable. After we got back on shore, the guides promised us a wider, more stable kayak the next day, one with a rudder that works. We were game to try to get the hang of this kayaking thing, but the next day, the wind kicked up again and all but 3 kayaks were towed behind the Havana back to Little Water Caye. Only 2 guides and the 3 strongest tourist paddlers were allowed to paddle. We were amazed that it only took them a little longer in the kayaks than we took, pounding across the waves in the motor boat.
Our last night in Placencia was spent at the facetiously-named Paradise Vacation Hotel. Don't stay there! It's a dump!
Greetings from the real world,
I hit the ground running with work, but fortunately I did not have to face Minnesota or Zurich weather as some of our traveling companions did. I finally looked at my photos last night. Some of them are attached.
So, we decided to rejoin the sea kayaking trip out of Placencia on day three. The weather in Placencia had been nice, and Ajinder told us it should be better in the next few days. When I asked how things were going with the kayakers, he talked about his repaired motor boat, the Havana, instead. That should have told us something. A boatman took us in the Havana out to Little Water Caye, about 20 miles off shore, put a two person kayak in the boat, and headed to one of the Silk Cayes, where our group was camped. The ocean was reasonably calm until we left Little Water Caye. Then the wind started blowing and the ocean got choppy.
When we landed on Silk Caye, the campers were amazed to see us. Some thought we had come to rescue them, and they couldn't believe it when we unloaded our cumbersome gear and the boatman departed in the support boat Ajinder had borrowed, leaving the Havana behind.
Things had not gone well for the intrepid travelers. After an night on the sand fly caye during which the sand flies bit the campers all night, they crossed the ocean in bad weather in their kayaks. Fortunately, all were experienced kayakers. When they learned that Steve and I have never been in a kayak, they told us it was a good thing we didn't have to make that passage as our maiden voyage.
The caye is only half an acre or less. There are about 8 palm trees on the west side of it, and some viney ground cover with big round leaves. The kitchen and dining areas are here, as well as the tents for the 3 guides, captain Louis, leader Barnaby (both Belizeans) and G.A.P. guide Isabeli from French Canada. The east end narrows down to a point and has no vegetation. Here 6 tents are set up for the 11 tourists, and the kayaks were all beached. The only other decorations were some drift wood, drift garbage (even here!), the blue tarp covered toilet teepee, pelicans, sandpipers and hermit crabs. No bugs, thank goodness.
The night before we arrived had been a nightmare. At 2 AM, the wind kicked up to 40 mph. The tents were pressed against the campers, who had to lie on their backs and push back the tent walls with their feet. Then the rain started. Some of the campers were afraid they would be washed out to sea. The tour leader, Barnaby, wanted to go check on the other campers, but thought if he got out of his tent, it would blow away.
No one slept much, and when we arrived, the sky was grey, the wind was blowing, and the Coast Guard had a small craft warning. Everyone was haggard from lack of sleep and most were bored, because they weren't allowed to kayak or snorkel due to the wind. They were making lists of things they would have brought had they known they were going to be abandoned on a deserted island. When the wind settled down, they planned a triathlon: swimming, running and kayaking around the island. The entire race would kill about 5 minutes.
This was starting to look like a bad idea, with 2 days left in the trip. If the wind didn't stop, I wondered how we would get off the caye. What happens when we run out of water and food? I knew the cell phones didn't work out here, and I thought that Ajinder wouldn't miss us until we failed to return by 5 PM on day 5. Nobody else seemed to be worried, so I decided not to ask questions, and just assume things would work out. It wasn't until we had been there over a day that I learned that the guides were in touch with Ajinder by radio, who was giving them the Coast Guard warnings. I also noticed on our second day that park rangers came ashore to schmooze with the guides, collect landing fees, and make sure we weren't fishing in the preserve. So we were not as isolated as I had thought.
One of the campers caught an 8 pound barracuda, which the guides prepared for our dinner. Delicious, but bony. By the light of the kerosene lanterns, Barnaby told us ghost stores about his days plundering Mayan ceremonial caves. He said when he was a boy in the 80s, selling stolen Mayan artifacts was the second biggest source of income after marijuana. For all its faults, eco-tourism has created a lot of new job opportunities here.
The wind kept up all night, but the tents held up better on this second night the campers spent on this caye because 5 gallon water jugs had been tied on the upwind side. Our tent was staked with thick dried palm leaf stems, buried 18 inches in the sand. There were no more water jugs, so our tent was anchored to a 70 pound piece of coral. The wind filled our tent with sand, but there was no rain and our first night on the caye was not traumatic.
Day 3 the sun came out and the wind finally died down. We were supposed to break camp and kayak to another caye, but this was deemed unfeasible for some reason that we never learned. We took the Havana out to the barrier reef, the longest (175 miles) in the western hemisphere. The snorkeling was okay, but the wind had stirred up the sediment, so we didn't see much. I did float above a school of blue tangs, dessert plate sized electric blue fish, as we all slowly moved together through the waving fans on the coral.
After more hanging out on the caye, which we all knew very well by now, we were taken out to a fishing boat where the fishermen were cleaning their catch and throwing the guts in the water, attracting rays and sharks. We got in the water with our snorkel gear and watched the rays and sharks. The sharks were harmless nurse sharks, about 4 feet long. The rays were the southern sting ray, which we had seen before, and the fabulous spotted eagle ray. Both these guys are about 3 feet in diameter. A new sighting was the enormous manta ray. He looks like a circular blanket, about 6 feet across, fluttering through the ocean, trailing a six foot stinger behind. Very elegant. The rays don't want any trouble, and unless you touch them they will not sting you. When the manta ray glided under me, I stayed perfectly still so I wouldn't accidentally touch him with my fins. The guides bought some lobster and conch from the fishermen, which they later made into a wonderful stew for our supper.
The guides then decided to take everyone on a kayak trip to the next caye. After Steve and I got it through Isabeli's head that we have never kayaked before, she finally attempted to teach us, but she wasn't very helpful, because she is French Canadian and admits she has trouble remembering the correct English words for left and right. She shouted contradictory and useless instructions (in a charming French accent) and put her kayak in our path until we just decided to ignore her and try to figure it out ourselves. The kayak was very unstable, and we were constantly making little adjustments in our weight to try to keep upright. Unfortunately, the waves were still about 2 feet high, and we both shifted in the same direction at the same time, and tipped the kayak over. Most of our lesson was spent pumping the water out of the kayak and learning how to get back in the kayak. The others, who all believe that kayaks are very stable and practically impossible to tip over, were amazed that we managed to dump ours, but to us it seemed inevitable. After we got back on shore, the guides promised us a wider, more stable kayak the next day, one with a rudder that works. We were game to try to get the hang of this kayaking thing, but the next day, the wind kicked up again and all but 3 kayaks were towed behind the Havana back to Little Water Caye. Only 2 guides and the 3 strongest tourist paddlers were allowed to paddle. We were amazed that it only took them a little longer in the kayaks than we took, pounding across the waves in the motor boat.
Our last night in Placencia was spent at the facetiously-named Paradise Vacation Hotel. Don't stay there! It's a dump!
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Placencia, Belize
We got home late last night. As we flew over the familiar streets of Tucson, Chuck Berry was in my head:
"Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today.
We just touched down on an international runway.
Jet propelled back home from overseas to the USA"
It was so nice to wake up at home this morning. I realized half way through the tour that I usually spend several hours a day reading and writing, and our days on the trip were so full, I rarely had more than a few minutes for either. My routine, or lack of routine, was also disrupted by having to eat and board busses at the same time everyone else did.
There is a curious concept of Belize Time, which is used to explain all the waiting we did. The tour guides and restaurants were usually very slow, and we were supposed to slow down and adapt to the laid back Caribbean lifestyle. The ironic thing is, while the locals are happily laid back and urging the tourists to adopt their attitude, the tourists are unable to get laid back because we have to show up on schedule, even when we know we will have to wait for a guide or bus driver or waitress to leisurely, but cheerfully, get around to dealing with us. The three hour dinners became an ordeal that kept us out too late and prevented us from getting anything done in the evening.
Belize Time is also strange in that every time we went to a new hotel, we would have to adjust our alarm clock to synchronize with the approximation of the correct time shown on the hotel's clock. Sometimes the variance could be up to 20 minutes.
After we jumped ship and left the kayaking group, we spent 2 nights at the adequate Serenade Hotel in Placencia. It is on the sidewalk, which is the main path through the town's hotels, restaurants, bars and shops. The Guinness Book of World Records calls the sidewalk the narrowest street in the world, but this is a stretch. It is just a 24" wide glorified concrete sidewalk. No vehicles will fit on it, and any one who rides a bike on the sidewalk could be fined $100.
Placencia is a sweet, quiet little village, much more placid than the rowdy Caye Caulker. Its motto is "A quaint little drinking village with a slight fishing problem". It was a relief not to have people trying to sell us stuff in other towns, but along the sidewalk here are a few people displaying their handcrafted goods on blankets on the ground. The craftsmen and women seem to come from Punta Gorda to the south or the Garifuna community of Seine Bight to the north. Garifuna are a mixture of African slave descendants and South Americans. We bought bracelets and a mask.
Placencia was flattened by Hurricane Iris in 2001, just as the town was building up its reputation as a fishing and adventure travel hub. Thousands of trees and most of the buildings were lost. Lots of rebuilding occurred, and now many of the buildings have incongruously new paint jobs. The first real tourist seasons was 2003. Just as we saw in Louisiana and Mississippi, the hurricane made people aware of this place and investors flocked in, looking for opportunity, inflating the property values way above pre-hurricane prices.
Placencia is especially attractive because it is the only place where we could drink the tap water. Placencia water tastes as good as Tucson water used to taste in the pre-CAP days. When we first got to the country, we were warned not to drink the tap water. We were advised to not even brush our teeth with it. Brushing my teeth with bottled water is too much hassle, and I rationalized that maybe taking small doses of their bacteria-laden water would innoculate me against illness. It seemed to work. I got only very slightly sick for 2 days. A few of the others were miserable and unable to eat for several days. So maybe it worked, or maybe I got lucky. At any rate, I recommend a hepatitis A shot for anyone traveling here. We also got tetanus and typhoid shots and took malaria pills. Probably overkill, but we survived. There were fewer mosquitos here than there were in our house last summer and fall. The things that bit us in the night left a variety of scabs, bumps and blisters, but none of them seemed to have done us any lasting damage, although Steve still has an itchy spot on his knee, over a week since our last bed bug attack in Caye Caulker. [Turns out it was a bot fly! Yech! That's another story].
We also enjoyed the plentiful fresh fruit. Papaya juice is on most menus, and we drank gallons of it. The pineapples are especially sweet, and they were welcome treats on our camping trips. The oranges here have green skin because it doesn't get cold enough for them to turn orange. They are not exceptionally good. Fried plantains (a banana cousin) also turned up as a tasty side dish to the ubiquitous rice and beans.
Belize is a country where the oranges are green and the green iguanas are orange.
"Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today.
We just touched down on an international runway.
Jet propelled back home from overseas to the USA"
It was so nice to wake up at home this morning. I realized half way through the tour that I usually spend several hours a day reading and writing, and our days on the trip were so full, I rarely had more than a few minutes for either. My routine, or lack of routine, was also disrupted by having to eat and board busses at the same time everyone else did.
There is a curious concept of Belize Time, which is used to explain all the waiting we did. The tour guides and restaurants were usually very slow, and we were supposed to slow down and adapt to the laid back Caribbean lifestyle. The ironic thing is, while the locals are happily laid back and urging the tourists to adopt their attitude, the tourists are unable to get laid back because we have to show up on schedule, even when we know we will have to wait for a guide or bus driver or waitress to leisurely, but cheerfully, get around to dealing with us. The three hour dinners became an ordeal that kept us out too late and prevented us from getting anything done in the evening.
Belize Time is also strange in that every time we went to a new hotel, we would have to adjust our alarm clock to synchronize with the approximation of the correct time shown on the hotel's clock. Sometimes the variance could be up to 20 minutes.
After we jumped ship and left the kayaking group, we spent 2 nights at the adequate Serenade Hotel in Placencia. It is on the sidewalk, which is the main path through the town's hotels, restaurants, bars and shops. The Guinness Book of World Records calls the sidewalk the narrowest street in the world, but this is a stretch. It is just a 24" wide glorified concrete sidewalk. No vehicles will fit on it, and any one who rides a bike on the sidewalk could be fined $100.
Placencia is a sweet, quiet little village, much more placid than the rowdy Caye Caulker. Its motto is "A quaint little drinking village with a slight fishing problem". It was a relief not to have people trying to sell us stuff in other towns, but along the sidewalk here are a few people displaying their handcrafted goods on blankets on the ground. The craftsmen and women seem to come from Punta Gorda to the south or the Garifuna community of Seine Bight to the north. Garifuna are a mixture of African slave descendants and South Americans. We bought bracelets and a mask.
Placencia was flattened by Hurricane Iris in 2001, just as the town was building up its reputation as a fishing and adventure travel hub. Thousands of trees and most of the buildings were lost. Lots of rebuilding occurred, and now many of the buildings have incongruously new paint jobs. The first real tourist seasons was 2003. Just as we saw in Louisiana and Mississippi, the hurricane made people aware of this place and investors flocked in, looking for opportunity, inflating the property values way above pre-hurricane prices.
Placencia is especially attractive because it is the only place where we could drink the tap water. Placencia water tastes as good as Tucson water used to taste in the pre-CAP days. When we first got to the country, we were warned not to drink the tap water. We were advised to not even brush our teeth with it. Brushing my teeth with bottled water is too much hassle, and I rationalized that maybe taking small doses of their bacteria-laden water would innoculate me against illness. It seemed to work. I got only very slightly sick for 2 days. A few of the others were miserable and unable to eat for several days. So maybe it worked, or maybe I got lucky. At any rate, I recommend a hepatitis A shot for anyone traveling here. We also got tetanus and typhoid shots and took malaria pills. Probably overkill, but we survived. There were fewer mosquitos here than there were in our house last summer and fall. The things that bit us in the night left a variety of scabs, bumps and blisters, but none of them seemed to have done us any lasting damage, although Steve still has an itchy spot on his knee, over a week since our last bed bug attack in Caye Caulker. [Turns out it was a bot fly! Yech! That's another story].
We also enjoyed the plentiful fresh fruit. Papaya juice is on most menus, and we drank gallons of it. The pineapples are especially sweet, and they were welcome treats on our camping trips. The oranges here have green skin because it doesn't get cold enough for them to turn orange. They are not exceptionally good. Fried plantains (a banana cousin) also turned up as a tasty side dish to the ubiquitous rice and beans.
Belize is a country where the oranges are green and the green iguanas are orange.
Thursday, January 5, 2006
We Don't Go Sea Kayaking
Two of our group left to take a sail boat to Placencia. Two others went to St George's Caye. Although everyone had already paid for a room in Belize City, most of the others opted to pay for another night on Caye Caulker rather than return to Belize City on January 1. We decided to keep our reservation in Belize City, which was a huge mistake. We had asked the tour leader whether anything would be open in Belize City on Monday, January 2, and typically, without any concern for the facts, she assured us "Jes, chur!" We thought a day of exchanging money, doing laundry, internet, postcards, souvenir shopping and visiting museums would be great. Unfortunately, nothing was open, including restaurants. Another plate of beans and rice in the hot humid hotel dining room.
We met the members of our next tour group the following day. All are at least 20 years younger than us. G.A.P. had subcontracted the sea kayaking tour to Seakunga of Placencia (www.seakunga.com). This company is owned by Ajinder, a long haired man in his forties who was born in India but lived most of life in Canada. He now divides his time between Belize and Canada. His skin is a lighter brown than most of the Creole, Mayan and mestizo (mixed ancestry) natives of Belize, and he says this is the first place he has ever been considered a white man. He is a smart, kind, environmentally aware man who drives a propane powered van and is building an eco-tourism resort. We like him very much, but the tour so far has had a typical half baked Belizean shine to it.
He drove us to Placencia in his van with our luggage loosely strapped on top. The requisite crack across the entire windshield. There was a downpour on the way, and my luggage and some of my clothes were soaked. One of the group members, who always takes all the mishaps in stride without complaint, was annoyed to make the 4 hour trip on a moldy seat that made him sick.
We stopped in the Maya Mountains at the home of Mr Jones, who is famous for conducting naturalist tours. Now he is slowing down, and is building guest cabanas and offering home cooking to travelers. We had a fabulous meal under his thatch roofed palapa as the rain poured. His lady friend came and sat with us and talked with one of our guides, Barnaby, about the changes since the tourists started coming.
Like Efrain, our hotel manager in Crooked Tree, Barnaby came to Belize from El Salvador as a boy in the 80s to escape Ronald Reagan's war against democracy in their country. Barnaby lost both his parents in the war. I don't dare ask him what he thinks of working for tourists from the US, but outwardly, he seems not to hold us responsible. I think he must realize that the citizens of our country have no control over and little knowledge of the malicious actions of our government around the world.
Barnaby says when he was 6, he was selling marijuana in the Maya Mountain town of Saint Margaret. Marijuana was the country's main export at that time, but the Mexican government sprayed pesticides on the crops and put an end to that.
Now tourism is 25% of the economy. Sugar, citrus and shrimp are the other major industries. Barnaby says Belize is not a third world country, it's developing country. The only place we encountered any beggars was in Belize City. He says there is no reason for any one to be a beggar in this country, as it is very easy for Belizeans to get a piece of land from the government to farm. After a certain number of years of development, one gains title to the land. There are 300,000 people in this country, which is the size of Massachusetts.
Anyway, we spent our first night in Placencia in Dianni's guest house, a small lovely place with 6 rooms and hammocks and chairs on the big second story porch overlooking a field. We woke to the sound of rain pounding on the roof. I thought it couldn't rain any harder, and then it did. I knew I did not want to be camping in the rain on a caye in the flimsy tents Seakunga was likely to provide. Up until the time the motor boat left to take us to the caye where our kayaks were waiting, Steve and I wondered whether we should bail from the trip. The trip started 2 hours late due to the squalls and rain. About 30 minutes from shore, the boat engine abruptly died. The guides were unable to get it started, and called for help on a cell phone, which seems to be as ubiquitous here as at home.
Most of the group took this development with surprisingly good humor. They ate snacks, joked, listened to music from an iPod through speakers that one of the guides had brought, and a few jumped in to snorkel. One of the snorkelers found a rust red and butter yellow star fish about 9 inches in diameter. He handed it up to the boat for us to examine. We were soaked, and I was quietly glad that the boat couldn't be fixed. I knew someone would be coming to rescue us, and I planned to try to get Steve to bail from the trip. Another group member, Julie, was thinking the same thing.
After an hour or more, Ajinder arrived with his friend Benjie, who happened to be at the harbour getting ready to go snorkeling when Ajinder got the call for help. Benjie transferred the passengers to his little fishing boat and ferried us to a nearby caye where there were a few colorful boarded up cabins on stilts, and a bar with a thatched roof patio. It was an abandoned attempt at a tourist resort.
It looked pretty picturesque until the wind died down and the sand flies started biting with a vengeance. Our gear was ferried to the island and we were informed that we would spend the night here while the boat was towed in for repairs. I was already weary of roughing it, getting bug bites in uncomfortable beds on shore, and the idea of camping a night on this sand fly hell, and then proceeding to spend 4 days covered with salt and sand and sleeping in the rain, never able to get dry, getting sunburned and sore from paddling, suddenly seemed like the opposite of a vacation.
Steve and Julie didn't need any convincing, and we happily rode Benjie's boat back to shore. Ajinder put us up in a hotel for one night and offered to do whatever he could to salvage our vacation. Julie just wanted to get home, and left early this afternoon. Steve and I enjoyed not having any schedule today and now we are going to decide whether to rejoin the kayaking group when Ajinder takes the repaired boat to them tomorrow, or maybe we will just hire someone to take us to Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve, where we are almost guaranteed not to see a jaguar, but will see lots of other interesting things. The weather looks better for the next 2 days, and the kayaking group will spend 2 nights on a shady palmed covered caye, so we might actually get some kayaking in.
We met the members of our next tour group the following day. All are at least 20 years younger than us. G.A.P. had subcontracted the sea kayaking tour to Seakunga of Placencia (www.seakunga.com). This company is owned by Ajinder, a long haired man in his forties who was born in India but lived most of life in Canada. He now divides his time between Belize and Canada. His skin is a lighter brown than most of the Creole, Mayan and mestizo (mixed ancestry) natives of Belize, and he says this is the first place he has ever been considered a white man. He is a smart, kind, environmentally aware man who drives a propane powered van and is building an eco-tourism resort. We like him very much, but the tour so far has had a typical half baked Belizean shine to it.
He drove us to Placencia in his van with our luggage loosely strapped on top. The requisite crack across the entire windshield. There was a downpour on the way, and my luggage and some of my clothes were soaked. One of the group members, who always takes all the mishaps in stride without complaint, was annoyed to make the 4 hour trip on a moldy seat that made him sick.
We stopped in the Maya Mountains at the home of Mr Jones, who is famous for conducting naturalist tours. Now he is slowing down, and is building guest cabanas and offering home cooking to travelers. We had a fabulous meal under his thatch roofed palapa as the rain poured. His lady friend came and sat with us and talked with one of our guides, Barnaby, about the changes since the tourists started coming.
Like Efrain, our hotel manager in Crooked Tree, Barnaby came to Belize from El Salvador as a boy in the 80s to escape Ronald Reagan's war against democracy in their country. Barnaby lost both his parents in the war. I don't dare ask him what he thinks of working for tourists from the US, but outwardly, he seems not to hold us responsible. I think he must realize that the citizens of our country have no control over and little knowledge of the malicious actions of our government around the world.
Barnaby says when he was 6, he was selling marijuana in the Maya Mountain town of Saint Margaret. Marijuana was the country's main export at that time, but the Mexican government sprayed pesticides on the crops and put an end to that.
Now tourism is 25% of the economy. Sugar, citrus and shrimp are the other major industries. Barnaby says Belize is not a third world country, it's developing country. The only place we encountered any beggars was in Belize City. He says there is no reason for any one to be a beggar in this country, as it is very easy for Belizeans to get a piece of land from the government to farm. After a certain number of years of development, one gains title to the land. There are 300,000 people in this country, which is the size of Massachusetts.
Anyway, we spent our first night in Placencia in Dianni's guest house, a small lovely place with 6 rooms and hammocks and chairs on the big second story porch overlooking a field. We woke to the sound of rain pounding on the roof. I thought it couldn't rain any harder, and then it did. I knew I did not want to be camping in the rain on a caye in the flimsy tents Seakunga was likely to provide. Up until the time the motor boat left to take us to the caye where our kayaks were waiting, Steve and I wondered whether we should bail from the trip. The trip started 2 hours late due to the squalls and rain. About 30 minutes from shore, the boat engine abruptly died. The guides were unable to get it started, and called for help on a cell phone, which seems to be as ubiquitous here as at home.
Most of the group took this development with surprisingly good humor. They ate snacks, joked, listened to music from an iPod through speakers that one of the guides had brought, and a few jumped in to snorkel. One of the snorkelers found a rust red and butter yellow star fish about 9 inches in diameter. He handed it up to the boat for us to examine. We were soaked, and I was quietly glad that the boat couldn't be fixed. I knew someone would be coming to rescue us, and I planned to try to get Steve to bail from the trip. Another group member, Julie, was thinking the same thing.
After an hour or more, Ajinder arrived with his friend Benjie, who happened to be at the harbour getting ready to go snorkeling when Ajinder got the call for help. Benjie transferred the passengers to his little fishing boat and ferried us to a nearby caye where there were a few colorful boarded up cabins on stilts, and a bar with a thatched roof patio. It was an abandoned attempt at a tourist resort.
It looked pretty picturesque until the wind died down and the sand flies started biting with a vengeance. Our gear was ferried to the island and we were informed that we would spend the night here while the boat was towed in for repairs. I was already weary of roughing it, getting bug bites in uncomfortable beds on shore, and the idea of camping a night on this sand fly hell, and then proceeding to spend 4 days covered with salt and sand and sleeping in the rain, never able to get dry, getting sunburned and sore from paddling, suddenly seemed like the opposite of a vacation.
Steve and Julie didn't need any convincing, and we happily rode Benjie's boat back to shore. Ajinder put us up in a hotel for one night and offered to do whatever he could to salvage our vacation. Julie just wanted to get home, and left early this afternoon. Steve and I enjoyed not having any schedule today and now we are going to decide whether to rejoin the kayaking group when Ajinder takes the repaired boat to them tomorrow, or maybe we will just hire someone to take us to Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve, where we are almost guaranteed not to see a jaguar, but will see lots of other interesting things. The weather looks better for the next 2 days, and the kayaking group will spend 2 nights on a shady palmed covered caye, so we might actually get some kayaking in.
Caye Caulker, Belize
>
Unfortunately, the coral we saw was dead and dying because of a variety of human and natural assaults. One of the guides caught 3 lobsters. They were beautiful, with orange and green backs and purple undersides and antennae. He made ceviche with the lobster meat "cooked" in lime juice and mixed with cilantro, tomatoes, onions and green peppers. It was delicious, and we washed it down with rum punch as we returned to the Caye. I heard Jimmy Buffet in my head singing "It’s Been a Lovely Cruise".
The inhabited part of Caye Caulker is only a mile long, and 300 feet wide. There are two main dirt roads running north south and about 10 roads crossing them. There are no cars, just golf carts and bicycles. The sound of reggae music emanates from every restaurant, shop, and hotel. It's a funky little beach town with lots of back packers and Rastafarians. Magnificent frigate birds hang in the sky and sail boarders zoom along the shore.
Steve and I enjoy the white winged doves who visit our Tucson yard in the summer. We wondered where they go in the winter, and we are always glad to hear their "Who cooks for you?" call for the first time in the spring. We were delighted to discover that they winter in Caye Caulker. Here are our old friends, but with a distinctly Caribbean accent in their call, which sounds more like "Who cook fi ya, mon?"
Every morning of our trip, the first sound we heard was a rooster crowing, even in Belize City and on the first day of our river camping trip. The pattern continues on Caye Caulker.
Our first snorkeling trip was to Shark Ray Alley and to Hol Chan Marine Reserve. It was pretty good snorkeling, but we were promised better coral plus turtles, dolphins and loads of fish if we were willing to make the 2 hour trip out to Turneffe Atoll the next day. Steve decided to lay low because he is growing a fu manchu moustache, so he couldn't get the snorkel mask to fit tightly enough to keep water out.
What an ordeal! Unlike the nice big sail boat we took with Raggamuffin Tours, the ominously named Tsunami Tours took 11 guests and 2 guides in a small open fiberglass motor boat. Most of the 2 hour trip was spent pounding across deep ocean swells 6 feet high. I was lucky to be in the middle of the boat, and didn't take too much of a beating, but the people in the front groaned loudly every time we slammed down off the crest of a wave. At least one other person in the boat besides me thought the whole venture was ill advised, and I was regretting that I'd come. I wasn't sure the boat was designed to handle such a work out, and wondered whether I'd survive the trip.
My father died in November, and I was hoping I could evoke his spirit some time during the trip. He always took good care of us when he was alive, so I asked him to take care of me now. I closed my eyes and imagined he was driving our red and white ski boat around Embden Pond in Maine. It was stormy, but I knew he would get us safely back to our rented cabin. I suddenly felt much calmer, and I wasn't afraid anymore.
The snorkeling wasn't any better at Turneffe Atoll, but we did see dolphins, southern sting rays and a flying fish. Wow! The guide shot an orange and brown crab whose shell was the size of a dinner plate with his spear gun just so we would have something to look at. He released it, and said it would live, but it made me wonder about eco tourism again.
After 2 days of snorkeling and getting sunburned, I was too exhausted to make it to midnight on New Year's Eve. It's ironic, because one of the reasons we took a vacation this time of year was to avoid the nothing-to-do-in-Tucson-on-New-Year's-Eve blues.
The third day on Caye Caulker, we just enjoyed having no schedule. I got my hair braided into corn rows. A woman named Tracy, who has a jewelry and rock stand under a canopy on the beach, played Ray Charles and Bob Marley for me as I looked out at the surf breaking on the reef and she spent almost 2 hours braiding my hair. I figured it would be just the 'do for 5 days of sea kayaking and no fresh water showers. I was aspiring to the Bo Derek look, but had to settle for Bo Dacious. Still, it's a fun change, and it still looks great 4 days later.
Our tour group had pretty much disintegrated by this point. Our tour leader from G.A.P. Adventure Travel was a big disappointment. She's from Peru and her English is barely passable. Her knowledge of the flora, fauna, history, politics, geography and culture of Belize and Guatemala is completely non-existant. Our expectations were high after taking a tour of Costa Rica with Overseas Adventure Travel in 2002, where we had a native Costa Rica guide who could name every bird and tree, and gave a fascinating narration as we tooled around in our private, air conditioned bus.
We spent 3 nights at the Ocean Pearl Royale on Caye (pronounced key) Caulker, an island about 20 miles off the coast from Belize City. Our first full day, we went snorkeling (Ragamuffin Tours) off a 25 foot sailboat that holds about 20 people. It was a lovely day. We saw lots of pretty fish and a sting ray.
Unfortunately, the coral we saw was dead and dying because of a variety of human and natural assaults. One of the guides caught 3 lobsters. They were beautiful, with orange and green backs and purple undersides and antennae. He made ceviche with the lobster meat "cooked" in lime juice and mixed with cilantro, tomatoes, onions and green peppers. It was delicious, and we washed it down with rum punch as we returned to the Caye. I heard Jimmy Buffet in my head singing "It’s Been a Lovely Cruise".
The inhabited part of Caye Caulker is only a mile long, and 300 feet wide. There are two main dirt roads running north south and about 10 roads crossing them. There are no cars, just golf carts and bicycles. The sound of reggae music emanates from every restaurant, shop, and hotel. It's a funky little beach town with lots of back packers and Rastafarians. Magnificent frigate birds hang in the sky and sail boarders zoom along the shore.
Steve and I enjoy the white winged doves who visit our Tucson yard in the summer. We wondered where they go in the winter, and we are always glad to hear their "Who cooks for you?" call for the first time in the spring. We were delighted to discover that they winter in Caye Caulker. Here are our old friends, but with a distinctly Caribbean accent in their call, which sounds more like "Who cook fi ya, mon?"
Every morning of our trip, the first sound we heard was a rooster crowing, even in Belize City and on the first day of our river camping trip. The pattern continues on Caye Caulker.
Our first snorkeling trip was to Shark Ray Alley and to Hol Chan Marine Reserve. It was pretty good snorkeling, but we were promised better coral plus turtles, dolphins and loads of fish if we were willing to make the 2 hour trip out to Turneffe Atoll the next day. Steve decided to lay low because he is growing a fu manchu moustache, so he couldn't get the snorkel mask to fit tightly enough to keep water out.
What an ordeal! Unlike the nice big sail boat we took with Raggamuffin Tours, the ominously named Tsunami Tours took 11 guests and 2 guides in a small open fiberglass motor boat. Most of the 2 hour trip was spent pounding across deep ocean swells 6 feet high. I was lucky to be in the middle of the boat, and didn't take too much of a beating, but the people in the front groaned loudly every time we slammed down off the crest of a wave. At least one other person in the boat besides me thought the whole venture was ill advised, and I was regretting that I'd come. I wasn't sure the boat was designed to handle such a work out, and wondered whether I'd survive the trip.
My father died in November, and I was hoping I could evoke his spirit some time during the trip. He always took good care of us when he was alive, so I asked him to take care of me now. I closed my eyes and imagined he was driving our red and white ski boat around Embden Pond in Maine. It was stormy, but I knew he would get us safely back to our rented cabin. I suddenly felt much calmer, and I wasn't afraid anymore.
The snorkeling wasn't any better at Turneffe Atoll, but we did see dolphins, southern sting rays and a flying fish. Wow! The guide shot an orange and brown crab whose shell was the size of a dinner plate with his spear gun just so we would have something to look at. He released it, and said it would live, but it made me wonder about eco tourism again.
After 2 days of snorkeling and getting sunburned, I was too exhausted to make it to midnight on New Year's Eve. It's ironic, because one of the reasons we took a vacation this time of year was to avoid the nothing-to-do-in-Tucson-on-New-Year's-Eve blues.
The third day on Caye Caulker, we just enjoyed having no schedule. I got my hair braided into corn rows. A woman named Tracy, who has a jewelry and rock stand under a canopy on the beach, played Ray Charles and Bob Marley for me as I looked out at the surf breaking on the reef and she spent almost 2 hours braiding my hair. I figured it would be just the 'do for 5 days of sea kayaking and no fresh water showers. I was aspiring to the Bo Derek look, but had to settle for Bo Dacious. Still, it's a fun change, and it still looks great 4 days later.
Our tour group had pretty much disintegrated by this point. Our tour leader from G.A.P. Adventure Travel was a big disappointment. She's from Peru and her English is barely passable. Her knowledge of the flora, fauna, history, politics, geography and culture of Belize and Guatemala is completely non-existant. Our expectations were high after taking a tour of Costa Rica with Overseas Adventure Travel in 2002, where we had a native Costa Rica guide who could name every bird and tree, and gave a fascinating narration as we tooled around in our private, air conditioned bus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)