Belize Epilogue: Visitor Journal

Under the TV was a little book with no title on its spine.  I pulled it out ... the cover said Visitor Journal.  I leafed through it.  There were notes from people who had stayed in the Reinhardt suite of Coral Villlage all the way back to 2006.

I looked for some juicy stuff, but the best I got was "The bikes here are a great amenity!  You can go into town and shop."  Ugggh.  So I wrote the following entry:

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Feeling a lot better today.  Chuck's dead body is finally at the bottom of The Blue Hole, 400 feet down, where no one will ever find him.  Amy and I dragged what we lovingly referred to as "Bag O' Chuck" on the Sefarious tour with us.  "Diving Equipment" we explained to our boatmates.  When we got to the site, Amy did a little flirting with the tour guide as I tossed his body over the side.  Weighed with some wet cement, he sank like a rock.  He'll never cheat me again, the bastard.  

We went to El Rumbon to eat.  We were asked what we wanted.  I asked him in return, "You know that really nice looking bird with the arched wings that hangs motionless above the sea, as if time itself had stopped?"

"Yes," said the waiter. 

"I want that grilled," I said.

If there's one thing I've learned here in Belize, it's that rum (Belizean Holy Water) mixes with everything.  Fruit juice, soda, and coffee are obvious choices, but milk and sea water are just as effective.

For fun things to do, you can't go wrong with Golf Cart Chicken.  You just veer into the left lane, close your eyes and step on the gas.  Nobody gets hurt, not at 12 mph, but a lot of luggage flies all over creation.  This is colorful and SO worth it.  I learned not to do it with the San Pedro authorities though - they have no luggage, and they can put you in jail.

And as Amy and I feel the soft sea breezes float over our body, we sigh a contented sigh.  If only the authorities weren't dragging us off to deport us, we'd be back in a heartbeat.  

Belize Day 4: Amy And Craig Get Ruined

Alternate cutesy titles for this post:

• What's Mayan is Mayan
• You Better Belize It!
• Jamaican Me Crazy (OK, not relevant, but Amy kept saying it all day)

So one big draw for Amy and I to visit Belize was the Mayan Ruins: some of the oldest human structures in existence.  There are several sites in Belize, but Lamanai in the center of the country is the best.  We got up to catch the 7:00 AM boat from the island of San Pedro.  

Aaron and Javier were our tour guides, and they immediately started cracking jokes.  The boat ride was to be "50 Belize Minutes", with a Belize Minute being a somewhat loose interpretation of time (usually longer than a standard minute, big surprise).  About 15 minutes into the trip, it started to rain.  They brought out a blue tarp threw it over every one and said, "Hold on,"  This was to become a recurring theme!

In 50 Belize minutes, the rain had let up and we had crossed the Caribbean Sea to the mainland.  There we navigated up the Belize River for a bit, eating a breakfast of chicken-filled johnnycakes, fresh pineapple and melon.  It was looking more like rainforest, my first trip to such a habitat.  Aaron pointed across the river into the trees and said, "Look!  Four-legged chicken!"  It was a huge iguana lounging in the tree.

We got onto a bus labelled Faith complete with Latin American praying Jesus decals and "Natural air conditioning," meaning roll-downable windows.  (It started raining again, so we didn't take advantage of that. )  The two lane road in Belize had no shoulder, fast-moving traffic, and lots of bumps.  Faith indeed!

Aaron was quick with the jokes, so you had to listen closely.  He pointed to a junkyard full of cars and said, "That's the women's driving school."  The road had huge speed bumps every mile or so.  "We call those Sleeping Policeman," he said.

We made it to the river around 10:30, where it was sprinkling a little.  Amy and I got in the boat along with about 20 other passengers. We were up front.  Big mistake.  As we tore off down the river, the rain got worse and belted into us.  Aaron threw the tarp over us, and then ... we couldn't believe this! ... he opened the front hold where all the life jackets were at and crawled inside.  I was in the front, hanging onto this tarp for dear life (across from me was an older woman doing the same thing - I felt for her).  Aaron was nice and dry as my knuckles turned blue over the one hour trip down the Belize River.  But later I figured ... he probably couldn't shove one of us passengers under there.  So at least one of us was dry!

We were like drowned rats crawling off the boat at Lamanai.  I checked my cell phone to see if it was still working.  Not only was it dry ... it picked up a signal!  Here in the middle of the Belize rainforest.  I had a voice mail, but I couldn't actually get to my voice mail box, so I did a *69.  Some guy at Cornell picked and said, "Hello?"  I asked him he wanted.  "Oh, we were just testing the Emergency Mass Notification system."  I told him it was a good thing there wasn't an emergency - I was in the middle of the Belizean rain forest   He wasn't amused.  Cornell people are hard to shock.

But it was beautiful here in the ran forest - lush and verdant, and just-washed of course.  We sat down to lunch of chicken, rice and beans with homemade habanero sauce, fried plantains, and Belkins, the local Belize beer.  That we headed off for the ruins.

We took about four steps into the rain forest and were immediately treated to this growling, whining animal noise.  It got louder and louder, until it drowned out the voice of our park guide.  "Howler monkeys," he said.  They were arguing over turf, and the loudest one would walk off with the prize.  Sounds like the project I left behind at Cornell!

The park guide's favorite phrase was, "According to the Department of Archaeology ..."  He started every important fact with it, as if the Belize Department of Archaeology was the sole arbiter of truth.  We know this much for sure.  The Mayan temples are (1) solid (2) old (3) very nicely designed.

It was here that we learned the workers on these temples were short people, while the priests and the godhead figures were quite tall.  Amy formulated a grand unified theory at this point.  Since both the Mayan priests and vampires are tall ... the priests must have been vampires.  Made sense.  This is a bit of logic that no one can refute ... even the Belize Department of Archaeology.

The largest of the temples was about 150 feet tall, and the steps were quite step.  After the standard CYA disclaimer  "Climbing this structure is not recommended by the Parks Department of Belize.  You do so at your own risk," about 90% of our group went off to climb it.  Amy and I stayed behind.  We've climbed the high peaks in the Adirondacks ... this structure was best viewed from the bottom.

I found the whole Mayan architecture to be very postmodern .... about 1500 years before postmodernism.  The structures blended into nature very nicely, and quoted off each other.  Functional - you could easily sacrifice people from it - yet organic.

By the time we got back on the boat, it was sprinkling again, but we couldn't care less.  There was sense we'd never be dry again, so why even try.  Aaron poured us plastic cups of rum punch and we passed them down - the party had begun.  A boat from Eco-Tours, a rival company, jetted past us and we took a side tributary to race them.  But we couldn't get enough speed, and as we hit the main river came into view, we could see their wake.  Aaron said, "Hang on!"  Then WHAM!!  Our boat hit the wake sideways and our rum punches spilled all over each other.  It was raining rum punch.  "Belizean holy water," Aaron called it.

We got back on the bus and Belkin beers were passed all around.  Aaron then dug out what (for me) was the kick over the moon - coconut tarts.  He passed them out and then went down the aisle with an open bottle of Beliziean black rum, splashing a little on each of ours.  OHMIGOD.  Heavenly.

Aaron was taking questions, so Amy brought up the whole 2012 Mayan end-of-the-world thing.  He replied that though it'll mean a big end-of-the-year tourism burst for Belize, he believes it's more of an "end-of-the-cycle".  The world won't end, just be reborn. "Damn," said one of our compatriots, "Wish I hadn't maxed out all my credit cards!"

And as we got back on the Belize river boat and floated off to the Carribean, we were schnockered and happy and ready for the new cycle to begin.

That night, we went to the Jamba Jerk Hut and had what Amy believed was the best meal in Belize.  Jerk pork, chicken, conch, dish ... and a first for me ... lobster!  This wasn't your ordinary red Maine big bluging lobster.  This was a comparatively small, colorful and totally fresh lobster covered in Jerk sauce (which is in itself warm and spicy and homey).  A perfect introduction to this fruit-of-the-sea.

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It was a kind of high for the trip that we spent the next two days landing from.  We swam and walked and biked and ate more Jamaican food.  The details are not as interesting, but it was a rest we really needed.  It had been a big year for Amy and I, starting last September in Paris and ending here on the beach of San Pedro.  Who knows what's next?

Belize Day 3: La Isla Bonita

San Pedro has adopted the fitting moniker, "La Isla Bonita" from the Madonna song.  But she says the island is purely a work of fiction, and that the song is "a tribute to the Latin American people, and to myself."  Mostly the latter, I presume.  Why else would she dance in a Flamenco dress in the video - a custom from Spain, a whole continent away from Latin America?  I guess the color of your dress trumps cultural accuracy.

Anyway, we reserved day 3 for some serious tropical downtime.  No schedule.  Just Amy and me and a hammock and some beach reading.  Me, I'm tackling The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - clearly a computer nerd's beach read.  But it captures the psychology of computer scientists with deadly accuracy, even though it was written in 1982 before the Internet, GUI's, mice and cell phones were commonplace things.  Amy is reading a selection from Oprah's Book Club, Anna Shreve's The Pilot's Wife.  She says it's kind of hokey  but it's a page turner suitable for taking one's mind away from the beautiful scenery for two seconds.

It's like we never left Ithaca!

We don't want to be total slugs, so we got on our bikes and scoped out the north part of the island. We rode up the beach, which was a pretty easy drive except for some harrowing spots of soft sand.  San Pedro is technically two islands with a $2BZ bridge in the middle.  ($2BZ is $1US - Belizean currency is tied to American's at a fixed exchanged rate).  Not knowing this, and because the bridge is so small, we almost blew right past the toll both, and we heard "Hey!  Toll bridge!"  So we went back and paid our toll, and headed for North San Pedro Island.

It was an interesting mix of old settlements and new construction there.  It was clearly for the Americans and Europeans who wanted resort living, who didn't want to go into town much.  It didn't quite fit the Belizean asthetic, as far as I understood it.  I saw an Asian man with dreads.  I saw two huge monitor lizards crawling through a construction site (like the one on the right).  It was like that.

Amy had scoped out restaurants for our trip, and the most exciting one was El Fugon (The Fireside Hearth) which we saved for day 3.  And WOW!  It was excellent on so many levels, but totally unexpected.  You walk into this compound, unshielded from the sun, with about 5 picnic tables.  They give you a menu with 5 entree choices - grilled chicken, grilled fish, grilled lobster, grilled shrimp and shrimp in orange sauce.  That was it.  We started with Coca Cola and Fanta ... the server ran out the door, evidently to the store down the street, and came back with two cold bottles of soda.  (We though they may have run out, but he did it with the couples that dined after us too!)  For $35BZ (about $17 US), you got an appetizer, entree and dessert.

OMG!!!  For the appetizer, we had Fish Balls -  get your mind out of the gutter - which were minced fresh fish with garlic and deep fried ... and conch fritters which were about the same with fresh conch.  They were heavenly - crisp, light and they had the lime sauce you wanted to drink from the dish.   For the entree, I had the Grilled Fish and Amy the Shrimp in orange sauce.   That they were fresh was a given.  But the fire grilling it them shot the taste over the top.  It made you close your eyes and savor every smoky bite.

For dessert - key lime pie.  But not just any key lime pie ... this was frozen.  But instead of being crystally and granular, it was cold and smooth as a milkshake.  It was kind of a miracle - solid and liquid at the same time.  It tasted good, but it FELT good too.  Key lime pie is one of my favorite desserts, and this was the best I had ever had.

If we had been a food coma before, this was Food Life Support.  We knew we would now refer to our lives in two eras - before El Fugon, and after El Fugon.

Belize Day 2: Swims With Fishes

Which would you choose?

The next morning, I was totally refreshed.   Amy and I got up and had breakfast we procured from Marina's grocery down the street.  There was fresh orange juice (Belize's main export being citrus) toast and New Zealand butter (it's cheap - the economics are beyond me though), Special K and "Hospitality" Raisin Bran.  Yes, the "Hospitality" is the brand name and it's in quotes.  I tasted it.  It's the kind of hospitality that says, "I don't want to kill you, necessarily, but I don't want you staying at my house either."

At Coral Bay Villas you get free use of their bikes.  And bikes are standard equipment here in San Pedro. They all have one speed with a rusty chain (why bother keeping them oiled in this humidity?).  The alternative is a golf cart, which is slow and expensive and a real hassle to park - of course I would never go that route.  As much as I love bicycles, I didn't think I would like this homely red one with broken pedals.  But it got us around.

We mistakenly pedalled into town, and immediately got accosted by golf carts.  The Belizeans knew how to drive them, but not the Americans.  Amy was weaving in and out, trying to get used to the bike, and we ended up doing a U-Turn and headed back out of town.

Has someone ever molested a crocodile? Seriously?  

Once we got past the tourist zone, everything was right with the world.  The road was a bumpy sand, gravel mixture with pot holes full of water. But we dodged them handily and took our time.  Really, you don't need pavement out here in San Pedro.  Everything's fine white sand mixed with water, and it's just naturally hard.  As you get out of town further, the houses are more plush but further spread out.  The resorts are the ones you have to take a water taxi to get to (if you tried a golf cart, the first bump would send your luggage all over the road).  But it was green and lovely.

Then we went snorkelling - a first for me!  It was a mixed bag.  I put the tube in my mouth, ducked underwater and got a mouthful of sea water, and couldn't breathe. This tends to make snorkelling a bit uncomfortable.  I tried it three times, with the same results each time.  Our guide said just to ditch the tube, go underwater for a bit and come back up again when I need some air.  This is when all my adolescent training of swimming for long periods underwater really came in handy.  Good thing I quit smoking.

Underwater is a different kind of gorgeous.  It's colorful, yes, but mainland Belize is colorful.  (Unfortunately I have no pictures - my cell phone isn't exactly waterproof.)   Underwater, it's more about the motion. Schools of fish moving this way, and turning on a dime.  They are afraid of nothing.  They'll swim right for you, or bob around you.  There are traffic patterns, but they look like they'd take a lifetime to master, and the fish seem infinitely flexible about it.  They've seen it all.  There were groupers, some of whom we'd eat later.  (I like to think we picked, say, the organized crime elements of groupers, thus leaving the rest to lead a quieter, more free life).  There were lots of fish and coral, all of which I've forgotten the name of.

Then we headed for Shark-Ray alley, and Amy lent me her equipment there.  Much better!  We quickly jumped over the side to find ... big surprise ... sharks and rays!  The sharks were not Jaws, or anything close.  They were small, ugly sharks, sort of like bulldogs.  They didn't come up to you, but they didn't go too far out of their way.  They were not interested in eating anybody.  I saw one ray, who glided over the bottom like a sea bird gliding over the surface of the water, kicking up a little sand along the way.

Stunning!  The water was clear and crisp just like the air above it.  The plants undulated in a group like people doing Tai Chi. I can see why people get hooked on this.  They come to Belize, stay in the cheap hotels north of the city, and spend all their money going straight to the diving sites.  It is what hiking in the Adrirondacks is to me and Amy.  But after a few mouthfuls or salt water, and the nausea that comes with, I decided that I'm really not cut out for that life.  Aquaman I will never be.

We dried out in our hammocks.  Amy said, "The hammock is the best invention since velcro."  And then ... snap!  It came to me!  Velcro hammocks!  You stick yourself in one, and you can swing as high as you want, even loop-the-loop, and never fall out!  My plan now is to market this idea, make a ton of money, come back to Belize with Amy and live the quiet life.  I'm sure I'm the first one who ever had this plan.

Walking along the beach, a couple of nice gentleman offered us spliffs.  They don't really hide it here.  Amy doesn't like the smell of pot, so I declined gracefully.

We made it to El Patio for dinner, where I had my first ever Rum Punch.  It's free with your meal there, and it tasted like something I needed a non-free version of.  I had coconut fish, Thai  inspired fare, and Amy had blackened grouper.  It was pretty good - certainly better than any seafood than we could get in Ithaca.  But it was kind of let down from Lily's the night before.

But here, where everything is so gorgeously blue I've already become spoiled.  And I don't want to be.

Belize Day 1: Grilled Conch

"Don't go on vacation during a major project."  That was my rule and since I only took vacations once in a blue moon anyway, I lived up to it.

Of course that's moronic. A major project, with all the stress and fighting and hacking people's ideas to little bitsy pieces and questioning their ability to do simple things like add two numbers ... this is the perfect time for a vacation.  And being on the Workday Human Resources project for Cornell, and with three months to go until rollout, it's the perfect time to pace yourself until the final sprint.  (I can't believe I'm using sports analogies.  This is proof positive I need a vacation.)

Fall is the really the pinnacle of beauty and richness in southern New York, with peak color on the trees, apple festivals, pumpkins filling the roadside stands, donuts and cider.  One last hurrah before winter drops down like a tablecloth.  

Screw that!  Amy and I are going to Belize. It's subversive!  After a hot summer we're going to cap it off ... with more heat!  And it's the last of the wet season.  Next month, it'll be overrun with tourists escaping the blizzards and dysfunctional holiday dinners with family.

 In case you don't know, and I certainly didn't, Belize is a small South American country near Guatemala. It's the former colony called British Honduras, and it's on the Carribean Sea and shares some characteristics of your typical Carribean tourist destinations like Cancun.  But it's FAR less built-up.  You can see it when your jet lands in Belize City, on a single landing-strip airport.

We got up at 3:30 to take the early plane from Syracuse (already you're thinking, who gets up at 3:30 for vacation?)   We stepped off the plane in jeans and shirts and jackets, and got blasted by mid 80's heat and humidity.  Obviously we were overdressed.  We took a puddle-jumper over to San Pedro island, got to our villa and took care of the situation right away.  Shorts and t-shirts.  Standard Belizean vacation uniform!

So the picture above is not from the travel brochure.  It's the real deal, looking off our patio door.  Palm trees.  Coconuts.  The infinite ocean.  The soft sea breeze.  The professor pedaling his bicycle to charge the radio battery.  OK, I made the last one up.

And the sounds!  First you think it's your electronic going off, beeping and blooping.  But the beeps and bloops end with rasping or a flip in the tone and you realize ... that's a bird, idiot!  I have no idea what their names are.  Supposedly there are toucans all over, the Belizean national bird.  But I haven't seen any yet.  Nor have I seen Fruit Loops.

We swam in the ocean - beautiful and clear and waveless (thanks to the barrier reefs out there, which we'll see tomorrow).  The sand is soft and supple. My toes were happy squishing around in them, and if you can get your toes happy, the rest is sure to follow.

There are virtually no cars on San Pedro, just bicycles, a few motorbikes.  People just walk from place to place.  What a concept!  We walked up the beach to Lily's for dinner.  Amy and I split a plate of grilled conch and tequilla-roasted grouper.  The grouper was the freshest fish I have ever tasted - it melts on your fork, much less in your mouth!

Conch is really good stuff, and you can't get it very many places in the states,  My only knowledge of it was from Lord of The Flies, where the conch shells the kids blow are some symbol for something-or-other (god knows what - my English teachers are cringing.)  We had ours grilled, although it's most popular in soup.  It's a little like squid, but the outside is more chewy and the inside is more tender.  It's not as fishy as most seafood, it almost takes like a vegetable.  I'm sure Grover wouldn't appreciate it.

It's time to let go, let go, let go...