Well well well. Another page turned in my life. Steve Pappin = College graduate. Bachelors of Science in Film and Television Production. Full Sail is a thing of the past, as it will remain for quite some time. Until they invite me back to revel in my acquired glory. Bam.
Here I am in Belize. If I hadn't extend my trip, I would be on a flight home right now, probably about to land in snowy Cedar Rapids. However, I'm here for another week, and we hit the Cayes (kees) this weekend. I told you I would try and blog as much as possible, which I have been doing, only through facebook, then I realized that some of you have given up on the whole facebook thing, and since it is very likely that Annie and Ben have broken down on the road about 10 miles out (fairly certain the clutch went out on them, since it was going out on me earlier today, and they should have been back over an hour and a half ago), I could be alone here in the jungle as the light fades for quite a while, so here I am to give you a crash course in my last 2 weeks out of the United States of Amurica. Check it.
We arrived in Cancun, Mexico on a Sunday. There were a lot of tourists, and we promptly got on a bus to Playa Del Carmen. I do not deny that this was a good choice. You hear a lot about Cancun, but all it amounts to is a strip of very expensive, kitschy (word of the day) hotels with pools that have "ocean views." Playa del Carmen is still pretty touristy, but a little better than Cancun. Anyway. It was Super Bowl Sunday, so the most American bars (those that served buffalo wings and french fries) were the most packed, and the ones that didn't serve those things only had Super Bowl en Espanol...so, that was a little difficult. It started with 2 Tecates, which is this relatively tasty Mexican beer. We ordered some "tacos" and what arrived was some dry pork wrapped in a thick tortilla....what is this bullshit? Where is my lettuce? Beans? Tomato? I mean I wasn't expecting any Potato Oles, but C'MON! Not even any red sauce. This pissed me off. So, we ditched that bar with the Spanish commentators and shitty tacos. However, the rest of the night I was in search of more Tecate, and no one else seemed to have it. Whenever I would ask, they would chuckle and say "oooh, no Tecate" what is this? You don't serve Mexican Beer in mexico? Or is it like an inside joke, Tecate is the Natural Ice of the Yucatan peninsula? I don't know, but I wasn't in on the joke, and this upset me. Mind you, at this point my head was getting pretty heavy, so I didn't care much AT ALL. At the next place we drank more (mother, close your eyes, father, sorry :D) And before I knew it we were on a beach cheersing tequila. Definitely my first tequila experience, and I ended up sucking on a lime a lot longer than most would consider "manly."
The beaches are very pretty.
But there is no easy snorkeling, which is my primary goal when in the ocean. On the plane ride in, I watched a bunch of dolphins playing in the Caribbean just off Cancun's beaches. That was a nice introduction to Mexico. Then you hit the bars and their tacos are a joke. Of course, there is always the possibility that I didn't venture inland enough, and I wasn't eating what you might call "indigenous tacos" But honestly, give me Tex Mex any day, mmm-mmm.
Okay, moving on. So. I'm pretty sure the rest of Playa Del Carmen was the same. Hit the beach the next day, got burnt. Splotchy burnt. The kind of burnt you get when you apply sun tan lotion as if it were done by your overly excited dog...that was unfortunate. You have to be careful with Playa, because you can find some pretty cool places stuffed back in the corner, but if you follow the main flow you arrive at Papa Johns and Converse shoes, which is a bit of a blow to it's authenticity, and you wonder if you're really experiencing another country or just safely wandering through one of the many splotches of the American Tourist Empire.
Eventually we got on a bus for Belize City. This was a 9 hour bus ride with the first leg playing Spanish Dubbed Premonition with Sandra Bullock. Oi vey. Not the kind of movie you want to watch for the first time in another language. That and Martian Child with John Cusack. Sheesh. I also noticed that the actors available for Spanish dubbing must not be very expansive, because I'm fairly certain that the voices used for John Cusack and Sandra Bullock's dead husband were the same dude...and another thing: can't they get someone with a REALISTIC sounding voice? Is that too much? Not all White American men with brown hair sound like they can perform the bass portion to any devastatingly dramatic opera, ya know.
We got to the border, and as we were funneling off the bus at the border to get supposedly get our passports stamped, some dude comes out of nowhere and tells us that we don't have to get off the bus.
So, of course, I don't.
Myself, and about 6 other tourists of other countries walk back to their seats and the dude demands us to give him $20 U.S. to cross the border.
So, of course, I do.
Then, after a subtle signal from the bus driver (tapping his watch with an eye on the border patrol) the dude bolts before gathering his next 30 dollars from Ben, and some other money from tourists who put up a fight.
So, of course, I've been fucked.
Lost 20 bucks, and most likely, when I return to Cancun via Water Taxi, the Mexicans will demand another 50 dollars for not getting my passport departure stamped on the way to Belize. Oi. Annie had a very hard time grasping the con she was just exposed to. I caught on relatively quick. What are you going to do? Lesson learned: No matter how bad of an idea it may seem, always go to the guys with automatic assault rifles to do your official business, and never listen to random dudes who insist on making things more "convenient" for you...
After passing some shopping malls at the border of Mexico, we pass in to Belize, and immediately there is a change in scenery. You certainly wouldn't find any shopping malls in this country. The bus we're on now certainly isn't as impressive as the last bus showing Sandra Bullock movies, and it also contains the shady bus driver that deals with gypsies ripping of tourists. We stop outside a school or something, and a bunch of people pile on. One gentleman sits down beside me, and then a family with a husband, wife, and child get on. We travel down the road a bit before it becomes apparent that I'm sitting next to the "chivalrous gentleman" He taps me on the shoulder and says: "I'm going to let the lady sit" Oh sure! That sounds good, way to go man! So I awkwardly stand in the aisle, where other Belizians are already standing, and he let's the mom sit down. I think all is settled, and I sort of make my way back to my seat, when from about waist level her son pops up, his big brown eyes looking at me. Of course. He just looks at me. I look to his mom. This feels like a century, but surely it happened in a microsecond. Then I pause and make it look like I was simply shifting my weight (when i was actually making my way back to my comfortable seat that I'd been sitting in for the past 7 hours.
"well, are you going to sit?" I say.
He gives me a big smile and I feel good about myself, until I realize that I might be standing in this aisle for the next 2 hours of this trip. I simply make Annie scoot over (much to Ben's dismay) and we spend the rest of the ride like this. It just figures that I get stuck next to the gentleman. Sure, I perhaps I should have been the one to sacrifice his seat, but hey, man, I'd been on that bus for the past 7 hours, and I was tired.
We got off the bus at the Burrell Boom junction. The weather is nice and the air is pleasant. After a couple minutes, a school bus arrives and picks us up for our trek to Bermuda Landing, then to Rancho Dolores. If you'd like an adventure/crash course in Creole Linguistics, I highly suggest bumming a ride on a Belizian school bus. Apparently there was a very long conversation about gambling on Cricket matches, but all I could pick up was "Saturday."
That bus dropped us off at the last bus stop on the way to Rancho Dolores. He promised the arrival of a White and Black bus that would take us to Rancho, but I was a little skeptical. Lo and behold, that white and black bus did show up, and it was another 15 minutes of dirt roads until we reached a half built bridge over a very still river. Everyone got off here, and there was another 2 mile walk back to our farm. Thankfully, Raymond, a tour guide here, was there to pick up his son Rickman (er something) so we got another ride all the way to the farm where a bunch of people awaited our arrival with Chicken Tamales. This was to be my first "Belizian Food Experience" so, I made sure to quickly finish my Belikin Stout (the official beer of Belize, very tasty) and unwrapped the giant steamy pile of corn and stewed chicken. Woo. I did fairly well eating the chicken, and could enjoy the corn sauce. But as soon as the chicken was finished, I was floundering as I sifted through the clumps of tortilla in search of something with a little consistency. Otherwise it was like a warm baby food. Very tasty, I'm sure, but too much of that one texture begins to tickle the gag reflex, and the last thing I want is to drop my jaw and uncontrollably bellow as I fight back vomit. It's a mental thing, really.
It was a very enjoyable meal, otherwise. Lots of smiling faces and lantern light. Very peaceful. I was already very much into the idea of Belize. That night I fell asleep on the couch with a comforter and fully clothed. This was a bad idea. Within hours, I was sleeping in a puddle of my own sweat. Unfortunately, I couldn't simply throw off the comforter, for the bugs had found me and knew that I was a fresh, sugar filled blood suck prime for the sucking. So, I had to keep the comforter over my head, but even then they would manage to wiggle their way under and surf my ear canal with their high pitched buzzings. Oi.
After those couple of days it was a lot of driving into town to either get vehicles, food, gas or whatever else was necessary. I was very quick to discover Sugar Coca Cola in glass bottles, which was fantastic. We gathered bagels and cream cheese, some Macaroni and even some Froot Loops. However, I've been able to eat most of what was cooked. A lot of chicken. Recently, a French couple arrived and offered to cook Ratatouille...which was interesting. Apparently the one piece of vegetable I discovered I could stomach turned out to be Zucchini, which I thought was surely my ultimate nemesis when it came to vegetable adversaries. I piled them off to the side, and picked one at a time whenever the French cook would look at me, almost offended that so much remained on my plate. She did seem relieved when I would stuff the watery squishy cube into my mouth.
Sleep has been rough these past couple of days. The howler monkeys have moved in close, and a rabid dog has been circling the perimeter of the farm, which bugs the hell out of the dogs here, so they bark all night. Then the rooster feels it necessary to join in on the chaos, so he cock-a-doodles any time things start to settle down. Man, it gets noisy. But the rabid dog is gone, and i believe the howlers have moved on, so quiet nights might return. I have more to say about going west towards Guatemala, but this post has gotten exceedingly large, so I'll spare you until later.
Keep in touch!
