Yesterday we woke up at our usual 6 to 6:30 am. Theo makes us lunch and dinner here, homemade, every morning and night. While I feel a little badly about not exploring the local cuisine more, the Parrot Nest is a little far back in the jungle, and it is really nice after or before a crazy day of stuff doing to be able to sit down and eat at what has become temporary home.
Coston and I walked to the bus stop and took a shared cab into town for $3 Belize, $1.50 US. There is a big open air market every Saturday morning in the middle of town, and I feel like I got some pretty great pictures out of it. Many of the places selling trinkets to tourists, however, have all the same stuff, and the sellers will always accost you the moment you stop to describe each item in detail that you've seen a million other places. I bought some gifts, we snacked on some shave ice, and we decided to try for the nearest ruins, Cahal Pech.
Cahal Pech is just up the hill from town, completely within walking distance up a very steep hill. By 9 am it was already solidly in the upper 80's, and Coston very kindly waited for and encouraged me as I huffed and puffed my way up, sweat dripping down my face and back. It was worth it, though. The view was amazing over the town, and the ruins were covered in moss and tree shade. That early in the morning they were very peaceful too, only one other couple and two or three wanderers made their way in and out of the massive stone structures. My favorite photos to take were of the trees slowly taking over the ruins, their roots simultaneously pushing their way through the walls and holding them together. They grew out of the walls of the main temple and over the open courtyards.
Next was Xunantunich (Pronounced Soon-an-tun-itch). We hiked back down into town, ate some lunch and caught another cab to the site. There was a line of stands selling wares alongside the river and the taxi had us get out to ride the hand-cranked ferry across. We got back in and he drove us the mile up to the site's visitors center. After wandering through and reading about it, we hiked the rest of the way to the site. The main structure, which they call El Castillo, is the second highest point in Belize. It looks over a beautiful courtyard flanked by other, smaller structures and ceremonial mounds. Parts of it were cordoned off, but we found our way up the back and to the top.
The view, my God. Epic is really the only way I can think to describe it. At your feet are the whole of the ancient Mayan site, and outward it feels as though you can see all of Belize. It's green in every direction, and mountains rise and fall on the horizon. The wind was cool and steady, and I tried to imagine how it must have looked in its heyday with villagers milling down below and crops farmed in the surrounding flatlands. It would have been quite the power trip to be so high, lording over all of that.
As we climbed down, I noticed that the stops of my feet were getting pretty sunburnt. I have a few triggers, and burning is one of them stemming from a terrible sunburn as a kid. I had put on sunscreen, but not well enough as Coston informed me that my back was getting pretty burnt as well. My immediate desire to get out of the sun warred with my knowledge that this was a once in a lifetime experience and I didn't want to cut it short. We did see more and take more pictures, but I was getting flashbacks of being bedridden with blisters all over my face, so we ended up staying less than I would have liked. After hiking back down the mile-long road and taking the hand-crank ferry back over the river, we waited at the merch stands for a while before we were able to flag down a cab to take us back to Bullet Tree Falls.
By now I was fighting full panic mode. We were cave hiking again the next day and I thought there was no way the tops of my feet weren't going to blister overnight. They hurt like hell, looked swollen, and in general felt completely fucked. I started trying to think of ways to bind them up to shove them in hiking boots, tried to imagine climbing in caves with blisters bursting open in my shoes. We put aloe on them, and my back, and I slept with my feet hanging off the end of the bed.
When I woke up this morning, they looked okay. Not blistered, a little swollen and red, but not worth yesterday's panic attack. They hurt, but nothing like I was expecting. Today we are hiking Actun Chapat and Actun Halal. They are Mayan caves located on private land, and only one company in all of Belize is permitted to tour them. I am excited, I think caves are my favorite so far and it sounds like we'll be down there all day. I can think of no better way to spend a day. Try to update again tonight.
Tomorrow we fly home. I'm pretty bummed about that part.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
The Actun Tunichil Muknal
...and waking us up. The jungle is never quiet, but it sure as hell gets louder around 6 am.
Which was fine. We had to be ready to go at 7:50, where a shuttle picked us up and took us into San Ignacio to meet our tour guide whom I will refer to as Tour Guide, a small Mayan man about 40 with huge shins and glassy black hair. And smallest of small worlds, Anna again. She was taking the tour too. We packed into a van with a few girls from Canada, a couple from the Nederland's, and a Polish girl from New York. I asked Tour Guide a lot of questions about his job as an archaeologist and the field school he teaches for down here. He answered them, but I couldn't really tell if I was annoying him or not, so I stopped.
We drove into the park only 7 miles, but it took 45 minutes. The roads were badly pitted and we had to drive through a river at one point, passing an orange grove being harvested and some corn fields. When we were finally driven past the check point, we were told that we're not allowed to take our cameras past the parking lot and most of our stuff was left behind in the car.
We hiked about two miles through dense jungle, across three fairly large rivers up to our chests (or mine, anyway), and finally made it to the mouth of the cave. It was beautiful, stretching over our heads and into the sunlit canopy. The water was the crystal blue that only cave water seems to be, and shafts of light pierced through to the bottom. When we stepped in, it was only to our ankles, but it soon became clear that the bottom was a deep pool and we were all going to have to swim in.
Stolen from the internet!
Which was fine. We had to be ready to go at 7:50, where a shuttle picked us up and took us into San Ignacio to meet our tour guide whom I will refer to as Tour Guide, a small Mayan man about 40 with huge shins and glassy black hair. And smallest of small worlds, Anna again. She was taking the tour too. We packed into a van with a few girls from Canada, a couple from the Nederland's, and a Polish girl from New York. I asked Tour Guide a lot of questions about his job as an archaeologist and the field school he teaches for down here. He answered them, but I couldn't really tell if I was annoying him or not, so I stopped.
We drove into the park only 7 miles, but it took 45 minutes. The roads were badly pitted and we had to drive through a river at one point, passing an orange grove being harvested and some corn fields. When we were finally driven past the check point, we were told that we're not allowed to take our cameras past the parking lot and most of our stuff was left behind in the car.
We hiked about two miles through dense jungle, across three fairly large rivers up to our chests (or mine, anyway), and finally made it to the mouth of the cave. It was beautiful, stretching over our heads and into the sunlit canopy. The water was the crystal blue that only cave water seems to be, and shafts of light pierced through to the bottom. When we stepped in, it was only to our ankles, but it soon became clear that the bottom was a deep pool and we were all going to have to swim in.
Stolen from the internet!
We swam through and to the right, so far that I felt in serious danger of my water-logged hiking boots dragging me down to the bottom. Finally, solid ground came up beneath my feet. The water was still about shin high, but shin high I could handle.
As we hiked, the water level peaked and trothed from completely dry to neck level. You always had to have eyes up and down, watching for boulders in the water and stalactites overhead. Luckily we were wearing helmets with headlamps, because more than once I stood up very hard into some very sharp overhead rocks.
I was always at the front of the single file line, because I wanted to learn as much as I could. Tour Guide told us all about how caves were the entrances to the underworld in the Mayan religion, and how as the droughts became more and more damaging to their crops and way of life, they became more and more desperate. The Mayans did not like going into the caves. They were afraid, and believed that bats would fly in every time they entered to warn the Gods of their arrival. If they did not have a sufficient offering for trespassing on the God's turf, they would pay the price. The deeper they went, the more expensive the price. Therefore, most Mayans were high off their asses on hallucinogens and carrying gifts as well as torches when they did the same path we did. I can only imagine what a horrible trip that must have been.
About a half mile into the cave, in a pretty large cabin, Tour Guide came around and turned off all of our headlamps. He wanted us to see just how dark the inside of a cave is. And fuck yeah, it's dark. In fact, there is no way I could have seen a hand three inches from my face. There is literally nothing to see. When a hand grabbed mine, it took me a second to realize it was Tour Guide's hand. He kept talking, squeezing every now and again to emphasize his point. Okay, I thought. Weird, but harmless.
We turned our headlamps back on and continued into the cave. In a moment before the rest of the group caught up, Tour Guide told me holding his hand had made is heart beat so much faster that it turned his watch on in the dark. Uhh... But he continued to tell the group a story about hearing is own heart beat so loud in a cave once that he thought it was drumming and was so freaked out he left. I tried not to think too much about it.
Artifacts were always behind a bright orange line of tape on the floor, but I was surprised at how little was actually separating us from them. More than once I reached out to gingerly stroke the lip of a 1,500 year old pot. When we finally got to a large, internal cavern with a floor that looked like marshmallow cream, I looked down at my feet to see a human skull calcified to the floor. Tour Guide pointed out more human bones, so overgrown with crystal they were almost unrecognizable. The further back we got, the more human remains littered the ground. At one point, Tour Guide picked up and passed around a modified human tooth, filed down to sharp points on two ends, and still feeling very tooth-like.
We reached a part of the cave where we could only have socks on to continue. We shed our wet shoes and slipped into what was obviously a dry riverbed covered in broken pottery shards. We hiked up what would have been the falls to a very narrow opening. Tour Guide said we would each go one at a time to look. I was the second in, and he showed me the handholds to climb up and look over a boulder wedged between the narrow sides of the cave. On the other side lay a pile of small bones, a child, with a significantly small skull on top. The bones were covered in a fine layer of crystals, but still very recognizable. And very sad. It looked like his tiny body had just been dumped in the crevasse below to rot away in eternal silence.
I climbed down the boulder and started toward the opening to send the next person in, but Tour Guide grabbed me from behind and pulled me into a very awkward hug while kissing the back of my neck.
Standing a mile into a pitch black Mayan Cave in the middle of the Belizian jungle with the body of a child on one side of the boulder and getting accosted on the other, I wondered again at how strange life can be, and how extreme cultural differences can get. I was also forced to consider just how big a deal I wanted to make out of this. We did still need to get out of the cave, after all. In the spilt second I had to decide, my brain ended up going with a high pitched and slightly panicky sounding, "Oh, hugs!" before I high-tailed it back to the group. I stayed at or near the back for the rest of the trip.
The last stop of the cave was the famous Crystal Maiden, which we actually learned is the skeleton of a 17-year old boy who was the victim of human sacrifice. He was disemboweled, and several of his vertebrae were taken from his body. Sacrifice victims were also doped to the gills before they were killed, but it's hard to imagine he didn't suffer. His left hand is placed over his stomach as if in pain and his right is over his head as if reaching for something.
Afterward, the hike out went much faster, and when we reached the parking lot we were given lunch and a beer. We came back to the hotel where Coston read and I entertained the youngest child of a weird couple from Seattle. He made me lots of origami, and told me about his book of sea monsters.
Tomorrow we're hitting the local market in the morning, and hiking some Mayan ruins in the afternoon. Sunday, more caves. Caves really are so amazing.
Traveling too and fro
I guess every other day isn't so bad. When writing the last post, the manager of the little hotel came a' knockin' on our door and told me that we were only paid up until the night before. Coston was out diving and had talked a lot about leaving the next day, so I happily paid the man for another night and went back to exploring.
Now, at this point, I have to say that the lack of pictures is because I cannot for the life of me get the camera to connect to my computer. So I will mostly have to describe in words until I get home and access to the wealth of photographs being taken.
I ventured on foot south, past the 1/2 mile section of tourist streets and into the jungle. There was a surprising amount of open space, and a depressing amount of construction and development. At one point I passed a man building a wall out of massive conch shells. Conch just litter the bottom of the ocean out there, and he told me they used to crush them up and use them instead of gravel for the foundations of houses. In the wall, he was fitting them together like puzzle pieces and pouring concrete in between.
At one point I stopped to take a photograph and a man on a bicycle rode up behind me and started talking. Big Ben is actually from Ft. Collins and lives now on Caye Caulker working with cancer charities. I mentioned to him that I was going to be traveling to San Ignacio and planned on seeing the ATM cave, and that I was planning on going back to school for Anthropology. "Well," he said, "just so happens I know the only archaeologist who does ATM tours." He pulled out his phone, told the guy on the other end of the line when we'd be there, and scribbled a name and phone number onto a business card. "Call when you get in town, he says he's happy to take you guys."
I met Coston back at the room at 5 and told him about the manager coming to see me. He asked me what day it was and when I told him, his eyes widened. "We were supposed to be in Ambergris Caye tonight. Shit." We threw our stuff into our bags and rushed to catch the last water taxi leaving at 5:45. At 6:30 we were still sitting on the dock, cursing island time and starving. But we eventually made it onto a boat going where we wanted to go.
We only spent twelve hours in San Pedro, a much larger city on the much larger island of Ambergris Caye, where Coston took one more dive and I wandered the city looking for the tattoo parlor and fending off cat calls. We spent a few hours in a hammock on the beach, then caught a water taxi back to Belize City on the mainland. A very wonderfully air conditioned shuttle drove us two and a half hours inland, dropping people along the way until we were the only ones left in the van. San Ignacio had come and gone and we drove to the next town of Bullet Tree Falls. We turned from a bumpy dirt road onto a narrower, bumpier dirt road just as the sun was setting. The jungle canopy was already making everything dark.
We pulled into a dirt roundabout with just a sign pointing us back to Parrot Nest, further back into the trees on a dirt path. It led us to an open wood structure with dogs and cats roaming free. There were picnic tables, a book shelf, fridge and coffee/tea station all set up in the entry way. It looked like a big, covered porch. Theo (pronounced Teho) greeted us, a statuesque woman with an undefinable accent. She checked us in, explained the honor system charging of keeping your own tab, and handed us a key. "I think you guys are in the tree house, right?"
She led us back into the jungle and up some rickety stairs to literally one room situated in the trees. The door locked with a simple padlock and the room was just barely large enough to fit it's queen sized bed, with shelves on the walls. Bathrooms, sinks and showers were all located in the cabin on the ground about 20 ft away. The cacophony of birds and insects flowed in through the screen windows on every wall.
Paradise, seriously.
That night, Theo fed us and we talked with an older couple named Julie and Ken about hiking the ATM cave (which they had done that day), and about Ken's hitchhiking and backpacking the world in the 60's. Iraq and Afghanistan were very different in the 60's. We slept with the sounds of the jungle lulling us to sleep...
Now, at this point, I have to say that the lack of pictures is because I cannot for the life of me get the camera to connect to my computer. So I will mostly have to describe in words until I get home and access to the wealth of photographs being taken.
I ventured on foot south, past the 1/2 mile section of tourist streets and into the jungle. There was a surprising amount of open space, and a depressing amount of construction and development. At one point I passed a man building a wall out of massive conch shells. Conch just litter the bottom of the ocean out there, and he told me they used to crush them up and use them instead of gravel for the foundations of houses. In the wall, he was fitting them together like puzzle pieces and pouring concrete in between.
At one point I stopped to take a photograph and a man on a bicycle rode up behind me and started talking. Big Ben is actually from Ft. Collins and lives now on Caye Caulker working with cancer charities. I mentioned to him that I was going to be traveling to San Ignacio and planned on seeing the ATM cave, and that I was planning on going back to school for Anthropology. "Well," he said, "just so happens I know the only archaeologist who does ATM tours." He pulled out his phone, told the guy on the other end of the line when we'd be there, and scribbled a name and phone number onto a business card. "Call when you get in town, he says he's happy to take you guys."
I met Coston back at the room at 5 and told him about the manager coming to see me. He asked me what day it was and when I told him, his eyes widened. "We were supposed to be in Ambergris Caye tonight. Shit." We threw our stuff into our bags and rushed to catch the last water taxi leaving at 5:45. At 6:30 we were still sitting on the dock, cursing island time and starving. But we eventually made it onto a boat going where we wanted to go.
We only spent twelve hours in San Pedro, a much larger city on the much larger island of Ambergris Caye, where Coston took one more dive and I wandered the city looking for the tattoo parlor and fending off cat calls. We spent a few hours in a hammock on the beach, then caught a water taxi back to Belize City on the mainland. A very wonderfully air conditioned shuttle drove us two and a half hours inland, dropping people along the way until we were the only ones left in the van. San Ignacio had come and gone and we drove to the next town of Bullet Tree Falls. We turned from a bumpy dirt road onto a narrower, bumpier dirt road just as the sun was setting. The jungle canopy was already making everything dark.
We pulled into a dirt roundabout with just a sign pointing us back to Parrot Nest, further back into the trees on a dirt path. It led us to an open wood structure with dogs and cats roaming free. There were picnic tables, a book shelf, fridge and coffee/tea station all set up in the entry way. It looked like a big, covered porch. Theo (pronounced Teho) greeted us, a statuesque woman with an undefinable accent. She checked us in, explained the honor system charging of keeping your own tab, and handed us a key. "I think you guys are in the tree house, right?"
She led us back into the jungle and up some rickety stairs to literally one room situated in the trees. The door locked with a simple padlock and the room was just barely large enough to fit it's queen sized bed, with shelves on the walls. Bathrooms, sinks and showers were all located in the cabin on the ground about 20 ft away. The cacophony of birds and insects flowed in through the screen windows on every wall.
Paradise, seriously.
That night, Theo fed us and we talked with an older couple named Julie and Ken about hiking the ATM cave (which they had done that day), and about Ken's hitchhiking and backpacking the world in the 60's. Iraq and Afghanistan were very different in the 60's. We slept with the sounds of the jungle lulling us to sleep...
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The Split
Part 2
Today Coston got up at 6 to catch the boat to The Blue Hole. I slept another 4 hours, which was pretty glorious. When I finally managed to drag myself out of bed, I just wandered the streets shopping and talking to the locals (and getting a little too much sun). I ended up at what they call The Split, which is a channel of water that separates South Caye Caulker (where we are) from North Caye Caulker.
Today Coston got up at 6 to catch the boat to The Blue Hole. I slept another 4 hours, which was pretty glorious. When I finally managed to drag myself out of bed, I just wandered the streets shopping and talking to the locals (and getting a little too much sun). I ended up at what they call The Split, which is a channel of water that separates South Caye Caulker (where we are) from North Caye Caulker.
Sitting there, drinking a beer, listening to Bob Marley tell me that everything is gonna be alright, it's hard not the believe it. It's a balmy 80-something degrees, the water is electric blue, and everyone seems poor but happy.
I came back to the room because I could feel my Irish skin burning, and because I wanted to finally update this blog. Tonight we are going night snorkeling out on the reef, then tomorrow catching an early morning water taxi to Caye Ambergris. Right now, I'm going to take a nap and then find some food. Hope everyone is well back home, see you all soon (but not too soon).
Coffee, sharks, and nitrogen, oh my!
Part 1
Caye Caulker ( or Cayo Corker, depending on how authentic you'd like to be) is in a weird place on planet earth. It's Belize, closest to Belizean mainland, considered part of the country of Belize. And yet, its island roots seem to be planted just as firmly in Cuban and Jamaican culture. Cuban coffee and food can be found every few feet, and Rastafarian colors dominate much of the street merchandise being sold to tourists. It's only about 5 miles long and a 1 1/2 miles at its widest.
When Coston and I stepped off the boat two nights ago, we hauled all our stuff down a well-lit pier and onto a series of white sand streets. "We have to find the Starbucks." He told me. Incredulous, I followed him to a little shack with a thatched roof and the Starbucks symbol in the front window. He asked for someone by name and the lovely woman behind the counter said, "I'll text him, have a seat." While we waited, we made small talk with her. Her family comes from a long tradition of Mayan farmers based in southern Belize. "But I have two kids," she said, "and for when they get sick, or...?" She shrugged. Her husband drives a "cab" in Caye Caulker and she works at the coffee shop. She told us it's too expensive here, and they save money by cooking meals at home and budgeting as best they can. By cab, I mean a golf cart. There are only two trucks on the island, and everyone gets around by walking, biking, or golf cart. We were picked up and dropped off at a lovely little hotel room with air conditioning and some other stuff that isn't as important as air conditioning.
That night at dinner, Coston invited a woman traveling alone to come sit with us. Anna is 37, from Brazil and works for the UN. She is also a big diver, like Coston, and was going to dive the Blue Hole the next day. The Blue Hole is like diving mecca in the whole of the world. It's an underwater sinkhole about three hours out by boat, and anyone into diving would kill to do it. She told Coston which company she was going with. They were closed by that time of night, but she advised him to meet them on the pier at 4:30 the next morning with all his certifications, and maybe if they had room, they'd let him tag along.
When his alarm went off at 4:00 the next morning, we agreed to meet back at the guest house at 4:00 pm if he made it onto the tour. I rolled around, trying to get back to sleep, but by 6:00 I assumed he'd made it and the tropical birds started making screaming children noises, so I gave up trying to sleep. I wandered down to the beach and snapped some photos, mostly just waiting for the coffee shop to open at 7.
Caye Caulker ( or Cayo Corker, depending on how authentic you'd like to be) is in a weird place on planet earth. It's Belize, closest to Belizean mainland, considered part of the country of Belize. And yet, its island roots seem to be planted just as firmly in Cuban and Jamaican culture. Cuban coffee and food can be found every few feet, and Rastafarian colors dominate much of the street merchandise being sold to tourists. It's only about 5 miles long and a 1 1/2 miles at its widest.
When Coston and I stepped off the boat two nights ago, we hauled all our stuff down a well-lit pier and onto a series of white sand streets. "We have to find the Starbucks." He told me. Incredulous, I followed him to a little shack with a thatched roof and the Starbucks symbol in the front window. He asked for someone by name and the lovely woman behind the counter said, "I'll text him, have a seat." While we waited, we made small talk with her. Her family comes from a long tradition of Mayan farmers based in southern Belize. "But I have two kids," she said, "and for when they get sick, or...?" She shrugged. Her husband drives a "cab" in Caye Caulker and she works at the coffee shop. She told us it's too expensive here, and they save money by cooking meals at home and budgeting as best they can. By cab, I mean a golf cart. There are only two trucks on the island, and everyone gets around by walking, biking, or golf cart. We were picked up and dropped off at a lovely little hotel room with air conditioning and some other stuff that isn't as important as air conditioning.
That night at dinner, Coston invited a woman traveling alone to come sit with us. Anna is 37, from Brazil and works for the UN. She is also a big diver, like Coston, and was going to dive the Blue Hole the next day. The Blue Hole is like diving mecca in the whole of the world. It's an underwater sinkhole about three hours out by boat, and anyone into diving would kill to do it. She told Coston which company she was going with. They were closed by that time of night, but she advised him to meet them on the pier at 4:30 the next morning with all his certifications, and maybe if they had room, they'd let him tag along.
When his alarm went off at 4:00 the next morning, we agreed to meet back at the guest house at 4:00 pm if he made it onto the tour. I rolled around, trying to get back to sleep, but by 6:00 I assumed he'd made it and the tropical birds started making screaming children noises, so I gave up trying to sleep. I wandered down to the beach and snapped some photos, mostly just waiting for the coffee shop to open at 7.
But I turned a side street, and there was Coston looking longingly through the window of another closed dive shop. They had not had room and he'd assumed I'd still be sound asleep.
Eventually I found coffee and he found a dive place going out the next day, so all's well that ends well. He asked if I wanted to try scuba diving, and how could I say no? We found two guys to take us out to the reef that surrounds the island, along with an older woman from New York who was both annoying and scared of everything, but super chatty. The worst combo.
As we pulled up to the spot with other boats and beginners, I noticed something crest slightly out of the water. As we got closer, I dawned on me that it was a shark. One of many light brown sharks tooling around, mingling with giant sting rays. They were chumming the water to attract them. Not with meat, but with conch shells stuffed with watermelon and oranges. Coston snorkeled around with his underwater camera while Bert, the guide, gave us a brief tutorial on how the equipment worked. And then it was into the water.
The sharks were 4-5 ft long and not afraid of us at all. In fact, they didn't even seem to notice as they swam in and out of the other 20 or so people in the water, gawky and uncoordinated limbs everywhere looking to me like prime shark bait. We were miles from shore, but the water was still shallow enough to stand up if you wanted to. I familiarized myself with equipment and dove shallow in and out of the coral wildlife. Every time a stingray glided underneath my prone body floating face-down on the surface, I thought of Steve Irwin. But the rays, while intimidating, kept slow and steady, interested only in food.
We packed it back onto the boat and drove to a deeper part of the reef, about 40 ft down. Bert stayed with the woman from New York while Coston and the other guide took me down to the bottom. Every few feet I had to hold my nose through the mask and equalize my ears like you would on a plane. On the bottom, the current was still rough. It rocked us back and forth through anemones, seagrass and coral. At one point, I looked to my left and found that a 3 foot barracuda had taken an interest in me. He kept just out of arms reach, but stayed by my side as I swam along for quite a while, flashing his jagged teeth at me in what seemed like an awkward show of support.
There were a few times when the world started to spin around me and I could feel my stomach protesting. Being thrown around on the bottom of the ocean feels a little like how I would imagine spinning through space might feel. After a while, you completely loose your bearings about what is moving and what isn't. I did my best to orient myself with the stationary coral and keep the panic at bay.
Alas, my buoyancy was all over the place and after about 40 minutes, my left ear refused to equalize all together. I motioned for us to surface and the boat picked us up. I told Bert on the way back that I was surprised at how bodily exhausted I was. He said that it was a rough day and part of it was fighting to current, but that part of it was the nitrogen build up in my blood stream. "If your body isn't used to it," he told me, "it'll wipe you out."
We went back and I napped for a bit, but the day was pretty much done for me. After dinner, I just collapsed back into bed.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Belize does not suck
When the door to the plane opened, the humidity hit me full body. It took me a second to convince my lungs that they were not drowning, that there was indeed oxygen in the air I was sucking down.
Coston referred to Belize as a third world country. "Really?" I said. "Second world. Maybe." I was wrong. It's third world, and covered in white tourist, and so beautiful sometimes I feel like I don't want to move to fear of ruining it.
It's been a long day of traveling, so this is gonna be short and sweet. Drove through Belize City, caught a 45 minute drive on a water taxi to Caye Caulker, arrived just as the sun was sinking over the horizon onto a postcard island with sand streets and people trying to sell us anything under the sun. Ate freshly caught red snapper, ice cream, and wandered. Now bed. Here are some pictures. They aren't great, but they are from Belize:
Coston referred to Belize as a third world country. "Really?" I said. "Second world. Maybe." I was wrong. It's third world, and covered in white tourist, and so beautiful sometimes I feel like I don't want to move to fear of ruining it.
It's been a long day of traveling, so this is gonna be short and sweet. Drove through Belize City, caught a 45 minute drive on a water taxi to Caye Caulker, arrived just as the sun was sinking over the horizon onto a postcard island with sand streets and people trying to sell us anything under the sun. Ate freshly caught red snapper, ice cream, and wandered. Now bed. Here are some pictures. They aren't great, but they are from Belize:
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