Belize
From Leaving for Latin America in Belize on Nov 27 '08
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So far, so good. One month to the day since I left and I have not had anything lost, stolen or forgotten, have not had to dig into my medical kit further than the Pepto and Advil, have not missed any busses or even gotten bit by a single mosquito, as far as I have known, which is truly astounding. I am hesitant to even write all this because it is bound to not last much longer. However, at the moment, things are going quite smoothly...
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From the Yucutan, I went south along the Caribbean coast into Belize, acountry with a tiny and diverse population spread around in shanty towns amongst lush, green countryside and plenty of beaches on the coast.
My Belizean experience started in Orange Walk, a town as strange as its name. It´s the largest town in northern Belize and the second largest in the entire country, with a staggering population of 18,000 citizens (the entire country has a less people than Wichita, Kansas). Its population is a cross section of the Belizean population, a strange mix of ethnicities representing every concievable skin tone: Creoles (descendants of black African slaves who intermixed with the English and Scottish who occupied the area everal hundred years ago), Mennonites (Canadiens of German descent who moved to Belize to live an undisturbed Amish farming lifestyle and who presently produce 80% of the food products of the entire country); Garifuna (a cultural and racial fusion of African slaves, Carib Indians, and a sprinkling of Europeans who came in Belize from Honduras 200 years ago); Mayans (descendants of the indigenous peoples who first inhabited and once dominated the land); Mestizo (who are of mixed European and indigenous origins); and Chinese (who, for reasons I never was able to figure out, immigrated in droves to Belize in recent decades and now own and operate nearly all restaurants and food stores in Orange Walk). Making things even stranger is the fact that English is the official language of the country, yet no one seems to speak English very well, and everyone speaks it with a different, sluggish accent. The food, like everything else in the country, is a fusion of several different cuisines: Caribbean, Latin, and English (potato salad and coleslaw are, believe it or not, typical Belizean foods).
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The simple and sad truth about Orange Walk, however, is that, along with the entire country of Belize, it is a poor, dirty, rundown place, badly in need of a paint job and some proper contruction materials, rough around the edges and everywhere in between. Often these qualities lead to the most stimulating travel experiences, but Orange Walk is just not that fun of a place. There is nothing to do there besides eating cheap Chinese food, trying to figure out how all these different people wound up here, and searching desparately for something else to do, which only entertained me for a few hours. However, it is worth visiting because it is the jumping off point of a jungle excursion to the nearby Lamanai ruins. And that is why I was there.
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The tour begin with a two hour boat ride down the New River, which twists and turns its way through thick, green jungle on all sides. Our guide, Hilberto, a true jungle expert of National Geographic proportions, managed to steer the speeding motor boat around bends and hairpin turns and simultaneously spot and stop to point out wildlife so well camoflauged on the water´s edges that the six guests on the boat together could not pick them out until the boat was stopped, backed up, parked right in front of them, and specific viewing intruction were given. At one point, something caught Hilberto´s attention and he stopped the boat, turned around and slowly inched up towards a group of trees lining the shore. He brought us right up so the branches were extending into the boat, and he turned off the engine. He closed his eyes, tilted his head towards the jungle and cupped his ear, listening for something. Then he started making noises, soft, wet, rhythmic, pitter-pattering noises, and the six of us sat in perplexed anticipation, not sure what he was doing or what was going on. Suddenly, distinct sounds from within the jungle appeared, the stirring of leaves and cracking of branches, and began to grow louder and closer, until straight out of the jungle appeared two spider monkeys, jumping and rollicking about from branch to branch on their hands, feet and tail. They came right up to the boat, even hung down from the tails just feet above our heads. They came so close I was even able to hand the less shy of the two monkeys a banana, straight from my hand to his. He screeched a thank you to me and then peeled the banana with the swift, glib ease that only a monkey could muster and devoured it in seconds. The ruins and the rest of the river trip were nice, but it is Hilberto's monkey calls and handing a banana straight to the outsretched hands of a wild, dangling monkey that I will always remember.
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After Orange Walk, I had planned to spend a night inside a wildlife reserve and then a night or two in Belize City before I took the boat to Caye Caulker, an island off the coast. As always, however, plans change quickly, and I soon found myelf traveling with a British couple straight to the Cayes. Christian and Louise are both in their mid to late 20´s, and quit their steady jobs and sold their flats in London to travel for a year. I have met a surprising number of people who have made such bold moves at that same stage in life, so I have earned that this isn´t necessarily the one and only time in life where what I´m doing can be done. In fact, I have found that I am usually the youngest person in the room when I am with fellow backpackers. The three of us spent four fun days together, one in Orange Walk and three on Caye Caulker, and spent lots of time discussing differences in American and English culture, language, politics, humor and whatnot.
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Caye (pronounced Key) Caulker is tiny Caribbean island 45 minutes by boat from Belize City. It is as of yet still untouched by large scale commercial tourism, and has an immediate, palpable charm. The few streets that are on the island are made of sand, and the only vehicles on them are a few golf carts and some bicycles. The few buildings that are on the island are tiny, wooden and painted with lots of bright colors. The seafood is killer, hammocks and watersports plentiful, and happy hour starts at noon and lasts for 10 hours. The entire island exudes an air of chill that you cannot excape: you have no choice but to slow down and lay back a bit while you're there.
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Christian, Louise and I arrived at Caulker and walked off the boat with our bags on our backs and a sign above our heads that said "suckers", so we followed the golf-cart taxi-driver to "the best cheap place to stay", which just happened to be his mother's place. It was cheap, however, and for $6 a person we got a little cabana on stilts above the sand, with a couple beds, a crumbling porch with a hammock, and a smelly shower that dripped cold, dank water. At night, when we tried to sleep, the true demons came out and the error of our ways revealed. We were surrounded by a constant, excruciating symphony of noises at all hours of the night, coming from all around our little home: the barking and howling of dogs talking to eachother from all around the island, the whoosh-pop sound of the radiator clicking on and off every 10 seconds outside our window, the hideous fingernails-against-chalkboard screeching sounds of the branches above us scraping the tin roof as they swayed endlessly in the breeze, the sudden, unpredictable, and startlingly loud thud of the heavy nuts growing in the tree falling off and crashing into the tin above us and rolling thunderously down the slanted roof. It was so ridiculous that we could do nothing but laugh about it, and we learned a valuable lesson: never take the first place you see, especially when it is being pedalled to you by a stranger with something to gain from you.
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The island is tiny, only a few hundred meters wide and a 20 minute walk long, and within a day I could recognize everyone on the island and knew half of them on a first name basis. One of these was Jolly Roger. Jolly Roger was jolly, and as large and as round as a wrecking ball. His massive midsection drawfed everyone else's on the island, and his head looked peculiarly small perched atop it. He was always seen walking beside his bike, pulling it along with him around town like at any moment he might jump on top and shove one in the face of physics, but not once did I actually ever see him riding it. We had dinner our first night at his restaurant, Jolly Roger's, though it could hardly be called a restaurant. It consisted of a small tin awning with three picnic tables and an old charcoal grill underneath, but god damn could Jolly Roger cook a mean barbeque: grilled garlic and coconut basted lobster fillet, with wicked mash potatoes, white rice and garlic bread on the side and three free drinks to boot. All this costed $10. And for eating at his restaurant, we got a discount on a snorkeling trip with his friend and soon ours, Captain Steve.
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Cap't Steve is a big, burly Garifuna man with long dreds, an immense chest and mammoth arms. He runs his business, like Jolly Roger, from the streets, without a physical store front, which is probably why he was able to offer the cheapest snorkel trips on the island. Cap't Steve owned a big sailboat, and he crammed 20 of us and two guides on to it and motored us one hour away to Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Hol Chan is the longest protected marine reserve in Belize, and subsequently the wildlife has had a long time to grow big and bountiful. I saw sea turtles gently drifting around, massive, frightening eels poking their heads out of holes in the coral, a spotted eagle ray swimming ominously below me before disappearing into the depths, reef sharks cruising along the ocean floor, and plenty of colorful fish, some small and some simply huge, like several groupers that must have weighed over a hundred pounds. We also stopped at a place called Shark Ray Alley, where you can swim with and touch the dozens of sting rays that swim around there.
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I was so satisfied with the snorkeling experience that I decided to save my money and abstain from scuba diving. Belize is supposed to have some of the best diving in the world, so I was torn whether I would regret not diving while I was there. In the end, though, I decided I would wait until Honduras, which is supposed to be just as good and half the price.
The rest of our time in Caye Caulker was spent lying in hammocks, swimming in the ocean, eating seafood and drinking Belikin beer. Caye Caulker is definitely on my highly-recommended list.
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After Caye Caulker, I split ways with Christian and Louise and headed back to the mainland. I caught a bus heading west along one of the few paved roads in the country with the eventual destination of a place called San Ignacio in my mind, on the western border with Guatemala.
There are only a few highways in the country, but even the major highways only have one narrow lane for each direction. The bus system in Belize consists of fleets of old American school buses, painted different colors on the outside but always decorated on the inside with the rows of large, lumpy, peeling, obscenity-filled, knee-in-your-back, fake brown-leather seats and the never-fully-functioning pull-down windows that give every American nostalgic school-day memories. Travelling along the highways are almost exclusively these busses carring mostly local people along two-lane highways devoid of lines, past lush green vegetation on all sides and precarious, jagged mountain lines on the horizon, through shanty, delapidated towns with barefoot kids and stray dogs and chickens running around in the streets and women futilely waving oranges and bags of nuts for sale at the busses as they speed by. That is, if they the busses are running properly at all (see pictures).
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One of my most rewarding experiences in Belize was the couple hours I spent at the amazing Belize Zoo on my way heading westward across the country. You wouldn´t think a zoo of all places would be one of the highlights of my trip so far, but this zoo was truly special. The animals, which are all native Belizean animals, are not kept in cages or surrounded by bars or barred concrete bunkers but instead are housed in large vegetated enclosures of mesh and wood that blend in with the surroundings and blur the line between being inside and outside the cage. When you walk through the zoo, you walk along dirt paths and are surrounded by trees and birds and animals sounds all around. It feels more like you are the one intruding in their environment instead of the other way around. The animals come right up to the fences, so close that you could pet them if you didn´t value your hand very much, and I got some incredible, close up pictures. It is the best zoo I have ever been to and a was really pleasant experience.
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After the zoo, I waited on the side of the highway to flag down the next westward bus, which is a standard Belizean bus practice. It was getting late and I found in my Lonely Planet a review for an eco-lodge just a couple miles away from the zoo, so I decided to just start walking. No buses came, and I ended up walking for nearly an hour with all of my luggage on my back until an empty bus came by and the driver asked me if I was looking for Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, which I was, and he gave me a personal ride the rest of the way. It was a nice place, but I was literally the only visitor staying there that night. After a short hike and a swim in the nearby river, I spent the night in a cabin in the middle of the woods, utterly alone except for the manager of the place who lives in a house a quarter mile up the hill and the animals, trees and darkness that surrounded me. I have to admit it was a little scary being out there in the middle of nowhere alone for the entire night, surrounded by trees and crickets and lots of darkness, but it was also a strange feeling, one of the most alone I have ever felt. I read and eventually fell asleep, and day came quickly.
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The next day I made it to San Ignacio, the adventure sports capital of Belize situated near mountains, rivers, caves and Mayan ruins. There were three highlights to my two days spent there. The first was Philly Cheez, as he called himself, the owner and sole worker at the hotel I stayed at, which I chose cause it was the cheapest place in town. Philly (I refused to call him by his ¨full¨ name) is a dirty, smelly, balding man with half his teeth missing, who looks a lot like Flava Flav would look if he was 10 inches taller and 10 years older and 10 million dollars poorer, and who greeted me with the same ¨Hey, guy¨ everytime he saw me. Within 10 minutes of meeting him he was showing me where he grew his pot (in the basement below the hotel) and telling me how he avoids getting busted by the cops. He was, however, an abundantly friendly, good natured and helpful man who hooked me up with deals in restaurants and stores all over town with the three magic words, ¨Philly sent me.¨
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The second highlight was the tiny, off-the-beaten-path ruins of Cahal Pech, a 30 minute walk straight up a steep hill outside of town. Luckily for me, a stranger in a pickup truck -- who ended up being a pastor from Texas and the dean of a Catholic school in town -- saw me struggling up the hill and offered to give me a ride. I had been to three ruins previously, all big, famous ruins, but this was the most rewarding experience of all of them despite, and because, it was the smallest and quietest and least touristy. I had the whole place to my self, and I took my time walking around and through and on all the structures. I was in the right place at the right time, and happened to be standing next to someone who was a bird expert, when a beautiful bird -- bright irradescent blue with red and yellow spots and a long tail with two feathers sticking way off the back like they were floating in mid air -- landed on a stump right in front of us. It was a beautiful bird, but to me it was just a beautiful bird, but the lady next to me was super excited and told me that I was extremely lucky to see this bird, that it was one of the rarest birds in the world, a true Bird of Paradise (a general name given to extremely rare tropical birds) and that people can spend years of their lives looking for one and never see it. It sat around on the stump just feet away from us for about 2 full minutes and then flew off.
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Lastly was the caving tour of Actun Tunichil Miknal, or simply ATM, which is the reason most people come to San Ignacio in the first place. It is a highly specialized cave tour with only 9 guides in the world who are licensed to enter it. The only way to get to the cave opening is a 45 minute hike through the jungle and across the river 3 separate times. Then it was time to put on our headlamps. To get into the cave, we jumped into a 20-foot deep pool of icy cold water and swam across to a rock platform inside the cave. From there, we waded upstream for 90 minutes, alternating between knee-deep water and waist or neck deep. Most of the chambers we walked through were relatively large, but there was also a lot of scrambling over rocks, ducking below outcrops, climbing up and butt-scooting past some small waterfalls. The guide pointed out underwater rocks to avoid, as well as active cave formations, and explained the importance of the cave to the ancient, and modern, Mayan people.
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Eventually, we climbed up a huge boulder and over a cliff and entered the dry portion of the cave. We had to take off our shoes to enter this area to pay respect to the Mayans who hold this area in high spiritual regard. We moved from chamber to chamber and finally into main, towering cathedral-like chamber decorated with massive, baroque curtains of stalagtites all around. We had to walk delicately around to avoid stepping on the countless pots and ceramics left over from Mayan ceremonial use over 1000 years ago, which were all over the ground and even placed up in cracks and crevices high up around the walls. Every so often we came across fully recognizable human skeletal remains that are thought to have been sacrificial victims. One was a boy believed to be about 14 years old who archaeologists and bone specialists have determined had his arms and legs broken and then bound, and was placed kneeling down with his face against the cave wall. The most famous of the human remains is known as "The Crystal Maiden", the full skeleton of a teenage girl whose bones have been completely covered by the natural processes of the cave, leaving them with a sparkling appearance. On her forward is a little white spot, which is the only part of her body to have never been below water over the past 1000 years and so is still a clean, bone white color. The ATM was unlike anything I have ever done before.
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After San Ignacio I took a long busride south east, back to the Caribbean coast. I had planned to make a stop along the way to go swimming at a sinkhole, but decided on whim to skip it. After 4 hours I arrived in Dandriga, where I had planned to stay before I headed south to Placencia. The weather was bad, however, and the town looked fairly uneventful from the busride in. When I got off the bus, another bus was just pulling out of the station with a sign for Placencia on the front, and I made an instantaneous decision to follow my gut instinct, and I literally ran towards to bus and hopped on it as it pulled of the station. Two hours later, I was in Placencia.
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Locals call Placencia ¨The Caye You Can Drive To.¨ It is a quiet, dusty beach town located at the tip of a long skinny peninsula. Until recently, it could only be reached by boat but now there is a dirt road that heads down the peninsula to it. The town is so tiny that the main street in town is a sidewalk, literally a sidewalk maybe 3 feet wide, that stretches along the sand with little hotels and restaurants and shops on either side. Supposedly, it is in the Guinness Book for world´s smallest street. It is a charming little place, but the weather did not clear up so I spent most of my time there lying in a hammock and finishing my book, Catch 22 (amazing). Instead of waiting around for the weather to possibly clear up, I headed out of town after 24 hours on a boat and then busride to Punta Gorda, the southern most big town in Belize and my launching point into Guatemala.
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I spent one day in Punta Gorda, another small, lazy, laid-back town populated mostly with Garifunas. Where there are Garifunas, I have found, there is a chilled out atmosphere. From there, I hopped on a boat for the one hour boat ride to the Guatemalan town of Livingston, another small, chilled out Garifuna town reachable even today by boat only. And thus I concluded my 10 days in Belize with a few uneventful days of busrides and relaxing.
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