Girl Travels Alone Part 6: Don't Stop Belizean

      I've been in Los Angeles for over 24 hours now.  It should be almost 48, but things transpired differently than planned.

      On what was supposed to be my last night, Monday night, I didn't get to a restaurant for dinner until just before 9.  The place I wanted to eat was closing, so I went next door to a Chinese restaurant.  I had what might have been the most disappointing fried rice I've ever eaten.  The bread pudding was okay.  I really like bread pudding.
      A boy maybe a few years younger than me sat at the bar a few stools down.  He kept trying to strike up conversation, but I was tired and not super interested.  The snorkeling experience had taken it out of me, and being friendly to strangers could be a lot of work.
      "Long day?" he asked.
      "Yeah," I said.
      "Yeah, I noticed you were eating alone."
      "I'm traveling alone."
      There was a little more conversation, about as boring as everything I transcribed.  Another American entered the restaurant.  Loud.  He seemed to be a regular.  He was a cook, working at some other restaurant nearby.  He ordered a shot of whiskey I seriously doubt he needed (like, I hope he walked over to pick up his food, because the man seriously shouldn't have been driving) and started shooting the shit with the others.
      I asked for the bill and looked through my purse for my wallet but couldn't find it.  That's when I remembered I had ordered a drink at the bar at my hotel and had taken only my wallet to the hotel bar and left the rest of my purse at home.  When I got back to my room I must not have put the wallet back in my purse.  This is a smart move, taking your wallet out of your purse for small things like that, and I was mentally punching myself in the face about it.
      "I'm so sorry," I told the bartender, Amy, a demure girl from southwestern China who had been in Belize for about 9 years now.  "I left my wallet in my room.  Here, I'll leave my passport so you know I'm coming back."
      "Don't worry about it," the American slurred.  "It's Belize!  Why are you so anxious?  What are you so stressed about?  It's Belize!"
      "Okay… okay, I'll come right back, I'm just going to grab my wallet from my room-"
      "Where are you staying?" the American asked me.
      "Laru Beya."
      "Oh, that… all the way over… that's far, man, just come back tomorrow!"
      "Really?"
      "Yeah, Amy will be okay with that, won't you Amy?"
      "That's fine," Amy agreed.  "Just bring it tomorrow."
      "Oh.  Um.  Okay.  Thank you."
      "Where are you from?" the American asked.
      "Los Angeles."
      "Really?  You sound Australian."
      I should mention that I've been talking how I normally talk.  I mentally high-fived myself for sounding Australian.  I've gotten British and German and suburbs of New York (I've gotten this one a bunch of times, and I sort of hate it because, like, why couldn't I just be from legit New York?), but this was a first.
      "No.  Where are you from?"
      "Boston, but I haven't been there in 25 years!"  he cackled.  What a funny statement!
      "Oh, cool, I went to school there."
      "I've worked all over the world.  I've been to 57 countries and I've worked in 8.  Belize is the only one I've ever been back to.  I love it here."
      "Where have you worked?" the boy I was sort of talking to earlier asked.
      "Malawi, Belize, Japan, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hawaii-"
      I started to mention that the last four places were all in the same country but I could tell nobody cared so I just let it go.
      "Malawi, man, I hated working there.  So much poverty, man.  When I was working there, I was making $1000 US per week.  They were charging $1200 US a night at the hotel.  The other workers, they were making 65 cents a day.  $1200 a night per room they were making, and they were paying their workers 65 cents a day.  Couldn't take it."
      I counted my blessings real quick.
      "A round of shots for the boys!" the American yelled.  "A round of shots for the boys!  Whiskey!  Let's get some whiskey shots for the boys, Amy!"
      There were four customers here, including me.  I was the only female customer.  I was trying to figure out if he meant boys figuratively (which included me) or literally (which did not).  He turned to me.
      "Where are you from?" he asked me.
      "Los Angeles."
      "Really?  You don't seem like you're from there.  You seem like you're from, um… like you're from… hmm…"
      "Australia?"
      "Yeah!  Australia!  You got that kind of vibe."
      Amy brought shots for the boys in the literal sense, and I took that as my cue to leave.  The American offered to pay my tab, and I stupidly said no.  I wish I had said yes.  I wish he had paid for it.  Why did I not take him up on that offer?  Or maybe he was too drunk, and he would have forgotten.  I declined his offer and came back the next morning to pay my tab.

      The next morning I slept in.  I ate breakfast.  I checked out.  I paid Amy back.  I got lunch at the Maya Beach Resort.  I ran into Connecticut from Brenda's Restaurant.  We talked about how fun that afternoon was, and how good that Seahawks-Packers game was.  I began the drive back to the airport so I could leave.
      The drive started out uneventful.  I had learned how to drive over the speed bumps.  I checked the map and saw the fastest way to Belize was Manatee Highway.  I followed the map best I could and took a right on Manatee Highway.

      Manatee Highway was a little rougher than the other highways.  I thought it would clear up, because the map gave no indication it was a lesser highway.  I only realized my mistake when my car broke down, and I was literally in the middle of nowhere.
      I took the key out.  I put the key back in.  I turned the key.  I took the key out again.  I put the key back in again.  I turned the key again.  Nothing.
      "No.  No.  No.  This isn't happening.  How is this happening?"
      I got out of the car.  I opened the hood and checked under the hood like I knew what I was doing, but I didn't know what I was doing, or what to look for, so I closed the hood again.  I got back in the car.  Maybe it had overheated?  I put the key in the ignition.  I turned the key.  Nothing.
      "How is this happening right now?  How is this real?"
      It didn't seem real.  It was ridiculous that my car would break down in the middle of nowhere in Belize.  That is not my life right now.  I am not that person right now.  I tried laughing because this was so stupid, but it felt hollow.  I was going to miss my flight.  I didn't even pretend I wasn't going to.  There was no denying that.  There was no false hope that I might make my flight.
      I figured the only thing to do was to keep going towards the airport.  I grabbed my suitcase and started walking north.  Every few minutes I would stop and look both ways.  Nothing.  No cars.  Literally nobody.
      "How is nobody here right now?" I wailed loudly.  I kept walking.  I complained.  "How is this my life?  How am I here?  How is nobody else here?  Where am I right now?  How am I literally in the middle of now-"
      Was that a growl?  Did I hear a growl?  I was worried about snakes, which is why I was walking in the middle of the road, but I didn't think about other animals.  There wasn't enough foliage to remain all that hidden.  Was that a bear?  No, shut up, there are no bears in Central America.  Was that a bear?  Are there bears in Central America?  No.  No.  What animal growls in Central America?
      Jaguars.
      There are no jaguars this far east, are there?  In Guatemala, yes.  In the Cayo District, yes.  Wait, was there a resort called Jaguar Reef in Placencia?  I couldn't remember.  Maybe that was in the Cayo.  That was west.  Or maybe it was Placencia, and it was just, like, a cute name that didn't mean anything.  Oh my god.  This couldn't be real life.  If I came across a jaguar right now I have literally nothing I can use to fight it off.  At least with a person I can barter, I can use words, I can pretend there's something I can do to convince them not to kill me.  This is not true with a jaguar.  I am alone, I am weak, and I've gained like fifteen pounds in the past year.  There is only one way an encounter with a jaguar could go.
      I would stop.  I would look around.  How am I so alone right now?  How has nobody come?  I would check the time.  Twenty minutes.  Nobody.  Thirty minutes.  Nobody.  I would keep walking.  I didn't see my car after a while anymore.  How could there be nobody here?  How-
      I heard a motor.  Finally.  Thank God.  I saw a tent.  I saw multiple tents.  I saw a makeshift covering.  I saw a sign on the side of the road.
      BRITISH ARMY.  DO NOT ENTER.  TRAINING FACILITY.  WEAPONS.
      Well, maybe they would accidentally shoot me.  Fine.  There were finally people here.
      I walked onto the property.  Must have been a sight - a girl in a floral H&M skirt, covered in mosquito bites and dust, with a tank top and a bandana and cheap purple sunglasses and a purse and a large suitcase trailing behind her.  Meanwhile, these gentlemen were all in training for Her Majesty's military service.
      They immediately offered me water.  They asked if I was hungry.  Do I need anything?  How long have I been walking?  And in this heat!  Do I need a phone?  Do I have someone to call?
      I called the car rental agency.  They didn't seem happy about having to come down, but they said they'd see me soon.  The military guys went off to do jungle drills, but they offered to share dinner with me.

      Next step was to see when my next flight would be.  I texted four different people.  My cousin John came back with nothing.  My friend Alex tried a few more ideas but also came up blank.  Turns out, Belize City airport closes at 6 PM.  My brother Eamon also had nothing.
      "I think I'm screwed," I texted him.
      "Yeah, probably."
      "Well, I guess this is that mid-twenties rite of passage where you get stuck in the middle of nowhere in Central America and miss your flight home."
      "I mean, there was really no way you could have avoided this?  You ran out of gas on the way to the airport just last week."
      Okay, yes, I did, that is true, but totally unrelated, thanks.

      Finally, the military guys came back.  They offered me more water.  They offered me more snacks. One of them, who somehow miraculously just showed up, was a mechanic.  They said they could drive to my car and maybe fix it.  We drove a ways and finally found my car.
      "This is more than a mile and a half," the mechanic said.  I had guessed a mile and a half based on the fact that I had walked an hour in flip flops on a dirt road with a suitcase and I kept stopping every four minutes with the hope that somebody would materialize.
      "Really?  How far did I walk?"
      "I don't know, two and a half or three miles."
      A weird sense of pride came over me.  One and a half miles is not that crazy of a story.  Three miles makes a much better story, and I wasn't even the one who had come up with the number.
      The mechanic fixed my car, and I drove back to base.  It was dinner time.  I texted my coworker and told him I missed my flight.  He was not sympathetic, and told me I was needed at work the next day.  I took a breath and tried to figure out how I was going to get home before 8 PM.  My friend Sara had looked up flights for the next day for me, and the earliest one she could find left Belize City at noon.
      The rental car guys came.  They didn't seem pleased that my car was working again, because it meant they had driven all that way for nothing.  They asked if I wanted to drive back with them.  I said yes.  They asked if I wanted somebody else to drive the car.  I said yes again and climbed in.

      The road was bumpy until we got to George Price Highway, where it cleared up.  As we drove on the rocky road, the guy driving my car said to me, "bumpy road here."
      I started crying.  I don't know how I did it, but I had royally screwed up.  There had to have been a way I didn't end up in this situation.  Everything I did, I did impulsively.  I was twenty-five and still unable to be a normal adult.  For every one thing I managed to do right in my life, I did twenty-eight things wrong.  And now I'm sitting in the passenger seat as this big Belizean man silently drives my rental car to an airport hotel and I'm trying to be quiet as I sob.  I wanted so badly to be back in my own bed tonight.  I am bad at everything.  I spent the night trying to figure out if I could get to Cancun for a 6 AM flight to LA so I could arrive there by 1:30 PM, but with no luck.  I was stuck.

      I am a terrible traveler.  I never remember bug spray.  I forgot to bring enough underwear.  I didn't bring my contact case for my contacts.  I don't have a medium-sized bag that's somewhere between my suitcase and my little purse, like I totally should.  I never have cash on me.

      But I will say I'm fun.  I have experiences that most others haven't had, because they travel much smarter than I travel (although the contact case thing was stupid; I really do regret not bringing my contact case with me).  They spend less money by not having to buy another plane ticket home, and they don't break down in the middle of nowhere and rely on the kindness of strangers and lack of wildlife to keep them safe.  But they also… okay, there's something good in here that I do, somewhere, right?  Where fun is something more than a cute nickname for irresponsible?
      I don't know.  I'm tired.  I'm home.  I still need to do laundry.  I had a great week, and I would 100% recommend Belize to anyone.  What a beautiful country, a fascinating history, a lovely culture, and an amazing week.  Just stay away from Manatee Highway.

Girl Travels Alone Part 5: I Belize I'd Like Another Drink

      I had a slow morning yesterday.  Around 12:30, I finally left the hotel.  The man I met the day before who I incorrectly called James but whose name is actually Michael John (where did James come from? Anyway the old stoner sailer I met yesterday was Michael John) asked me to pick him up from his boat so he could get a ride to town as well.
      I signed up for a snorkel excursion, which I went on today.  Michael suggested we take a walk along the boardwalk.  He says it's the longest boardwalk in the world.  As I left the snorkel tour place, a woman outside her stand yelled out to me.  The restaurant was Brenda's Restaurant, and she was Brenda.
      "Hello lady, you want some jerk chicken?  Some rice and beans?  You've been waiting for chicken?  Because it's been waiting for you!"
      You know, once I thought about it, I was hungry.  I told Michael I ordered chicken, rice, beans, coleslaw, and a rum punch from Brenda.  He said it sounded like a swell idea and got his own meal and drink.
      So the jerk chicken was excellent.  Brenda also brought out the best macaroon I've ever had and also a really solid bread pudding.

 Chicken, rice, pineapple, coleslaw.

Macaroon?  More like GREAT macaroon. 

Bread pudding.  Most underrated dessert out there. 

Brenda's restaurant.  Where the magic happens. 

 View from Brenda's restaurant.  Where the magic happens.

      Another group was finishing up their meal.  A man from Oregon talking about how Yelp is a scam, and his Thai wife whose haircut made her look like she just walked off the set of Brink, the sensational 90s Disney Channel Original Movie.  They sat across from Connecticut, a man who said his name about three times over the course of the afternoon and I still don't remember it.  Oregon and Brink left, and Connecticut kept eating.
      Michael was telling me about some of the people he met.  He credits himself with Bill Clinton easing up on civil forfeiture in the 90s (don't we still have a ways to go on that one though?).
      "I met Gorbachev once.  I saw Kissinger at a distance at an airport."
      "Kissinger should be in jail, man," Connecticut said, introducing himself into our conversation.  Connecticut could use a close shave and a cleaner pair of cargo shorts.
      Want to know what a conversation with two nomadic men north of 60 about politics sounds like?  Whatever you're guessing is probably accurate.
      Two women came by and sat down as well.  They were from Alaska.  Dory has been living in Belize for over 2 years now, and Sam is visiting her friend for a couple weeks.  Dory hasn't ever had a proper career, just going from one job to the next, and now her son is out of the house, and she just upped and left so she could figure out who she was by herself, not who she was in relation to someone else.
      Another middle-aged couple sat down as well.  They were from Idaho.  I don't remember their names, so I will refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Idaho.  They came down with their adult daughter and her spouse.  Mr. and Mrs. Idaho run a summer camp in Sun Valley during the summer.
      When I was at the cave tubing meeting ground, there was a gift shop with a bunch of tan hats that said BELIZE on them.  They're so dorky.  I always wonder what kind of person actually pays money for that.  It is the quintessential dad hat, but also why do dad hats have to be so unflattering and weirdly colored?  Anyway, my point is Mr. Idaho was wearing a dad hat and a Hawaiian shirt, and when we were talking about Richard Sherman (there was a game on last night), he made it clear he loved that guy's "DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT ME" speech.  Mr. and Mrs. Idaho were tight.
      As the youngest person there by about 30 years, some of the older people were curious about my being in Belize by myself.  Sam from Alaska has a son my age and a daughter 3 years older, so she immediately put herself in my mother's shoes.
      "What did your mother say when you told her you were coming down here?"
      "Well, when I first told her, it was a few months ago, and I said I wasn't going to not do something because nobody would do it with me, and she said that was great.  And then as we got closer to me leaving, she would ask, 'so who are you going with again?  Where are you going?'"
      "You make sure you email her every night."
      Sam was pretty cute too.  She gave me a pair of earrings with flip flops because she decided it wasn't her style after all.

Me and my new best friend Sam.

      Dory and Michael talked business.  Dory had a place up in Corazol, in Northern Belize, that she was trying to sell.  Good place to dock his boat.  They started talking about novels Michael had written.  One of them was on Amazon.  Science fiction - Rings of Time.  Dory said she wanted to write a book.
      "I want to write fiction," Dory said.  She was slurring her words.  "Can I write fiction?  I don't want to write about my life.  It'd be too sad."
      Mr. and Mrs. Idaho left before the drinking got out of hand, and also to watch the Seahawks-Packers game.  I was surrounded by Seahawks fans.  The couple from Idaho.  The two women from Alaska.  We were 50 yards from a bar showing the game, though, and everyone in there (all three patrons) were Packers fans.

End of first half, when the Packers had it locked up.

      Great game.  Okay I'm not going to talk about football anymore.  It was cool watching it in Placencia though, on a nice TV at a bar on the water.

      Around 6 Michael and I headed back.  I had an early night.  I am loving these early nights.  I never fall asleep before midnight at home.  Going to bed early is so great.

      The next morning I headed into town for the full day of snorkeling.  I wore my super cool but super light pants and a tank top.  I didn't bring a towel because I figured the sun would dry me off and also because I didn't think of it.

      I got to the tour a little early.  The man working there is also a musician who has traveled all over Europe and the US touring.  He moved back to Placencia three years ago.

      "We might not get to do the snorkeling tour today," he said.  "It's too choppy."

      There was no wind, so I didn't understand what he was talking about.

      "When are you leaving?" he asked.

      "Tomorrow."

      "So this is your only day."  The man thought about it.  "We'll go out today."

      I didn't think anything of the almost-canceled tour.  I went to get a coffee.  It was a nice walk - Placencia is a nice town.  I haven't mentioned this yet, but something I noticed about Placencia is how nice the cars are.  They're not luxury, but they're Toyota Tundras in Placencia versus whatever make I've never heard of in San Ignacio.  They're within two years old in Placencia versus older than I am in San Ignacio.  It's all the expats and tourists.

      Anyway, the walk was nice, and the coffee is maybe the best coffee I've ever had.

Placencia.

The name of the coffee shop is a play on words. 

His name is Java. 

Above Grounds Coffee Shop.

      When I came back to the snorkel place, Chandy and Frank had also arrived.  They were a couple from Seattle who had a son who was my age.  They are grandparents.  Chandy had back surgery in October.  Swimming in salt water made her feel better.

      We got on the boat where our tour guide, Tiger, got behind the wheel to take us.

      "We are going to Silk Caye.  It's 22 miles off shore.  It will take us an hour.  After we snorkel for a bit, we will eat, and then we will see the turtles."

      22 miles?  Okay.  I guess it's worth it to go to the second biggest barrier reef in the world.  The first biggest is in Australia.  That one is called the Great Barrier Reef and it's on wikipedia.

      We very quickly understood why musician man owner was hesitant to send us out today.  There were some seriously choppy waters.  It was fun at first, but it didn't let up.  We were soaked within fifteen minutes.  Chandy had not been informed about how choppy it was, and she had mentioned her own condition, so she was understandably upset. I began worrying about my no-towel situation.

      "Are you from Seattle proper, or just outside?" I asked.  Chandy and Frank had an accent that wasn't particularly urban.

      "We live in a boat just outside the downtown area."

      "Oh that's nice!  I have family in Graham."

      "No kidding!  I'm an Arlington girl.  We just moved to Seattle a few years ago."

      CALLED IT.  Farmland.  Chandy and Frank are great.  Chandy complimented my pants, because she is a woman with excellent taste.

      After an hour of getting soaked and almost losing my contact, we made it to Silk Caye.  It is an island that is literally the size of my apartment.  It has a bathroom and a barbecue on it.  It is a national park.

Come vacation in sunny Silk Caye. 

Look at that beautiful bathroom.

I am already cold.

      We snorkeled around the Caye.  It was okay, but my goggles kept fogging up.  Also, bobbing on the surface of a windy sea is, well, not relaxing.  And the water wasn't freezing, but I wouldn't use the word "warm."  I was already looking forward to the hot shower I was going to take when I got back to the hotel.

      The wind had only gotten stronger, and I was only in a wet bathing suit.  Luckily there was another tour there, and Tiger's second cousin was leading that one.  Tiger scored a towel for me, so I was a little less cold, but still very cold.  It might have been the coldest I've ever been.  I talked to a woman from Michigan on that Silk Caye, and she was also freezing, so I am validated.

Cold. 

Clothes drying. Chandy likes these pants, and it's easy to see why.

      Tiger barbecued up a mean potato dish with cheese whiz (you know, I was a cheese whiz hater for a long time, but I've come to terms with how much I enjoy cheese whiz and I think I'm a happier person for it) and a yellow jack fish.

Tiger cooking up some fish and potatoes.  Sheet metal is protecting our food from the wind. 

      Tasty.  But I was not interested in going back in the water at that point for sea turtles.  I was too cold.  I could feel that hot water from the shower I was fantasizing about on my skin.  I was only three hours away from paradise.
      We motored to the second location, which was about 200 yards away.  The sea turtle apparently hung out by a fishing boat.  These guys had a clothing line set up as well.  I will never see so many clothing lines again as I have seen on this trip.

Fishing boat.

     We saw a turtle in the distance and I decided to suck it up and go back in.  I was also told to stay away from the turtles.  

      I took a deep breath and jumped in.  What a difference a couple hundred yards makes!  The sea floor was covered in grass.  My goggles weren't fogging up.  We swam closer to the fishing boat and suddenly it was a wealth of animals I've never seen in the wild up close.  An enormous turtle going to town on some grass.  Sharks within a couple feet of where I was floating.  Manta rays.  Schools of fish.  And this was all within water about seven feet deep, so when sharks or manta rays swam directly below me they were really, really close to me.  But it's super chill I totally didn't freak out because I know they can smell fea- that turtle is not eating grass, it is eating a crab that is trying to crawl out of its mouth right now, and I suddenly understand why I'm being told to stay away from the turtle.

      So that last snorkel bit was really amazing.  Tiger took us back to shore.  I immediately went back to my hotel and took my hot shower.  I've never been this cold in my life, but I've also never had a hot shower feel that perfect.

      It's been a crazy trip.  I'm going to go eat dinner.

Girl Travels Alone Part 4: Can't Belize These Views on Hummingbird Highway

      I'm running out of ways to use Belize in my title, but I also put myself in a bad spot when I started using the super funny and very original pun in the first place, so I'm kind of stuck now.

      I woke up yesterday morning with my toe still throbbing.  Venus Hotel had mismatched stairs to get to the lobby, and I stubbed my big right toe hard on it.  Combined with the mosquito bites, the leftover nail polish from my Christmas work party, and the blisters from the water shoes, my feet are in terrible shape right now.
      I went to the Saturday morning market in San Ignacio before I left town.  I picked up some bananas and limes and oranges.  I got a coffee and a chicken burrito for breakfast.  A young man gave me a poem about sadness.  I got in my Daihatsu and hit the road.

      Getting to Belmopan, the capital of Belize, involved driving on roads I've already been on.  George Price Highway.  Once at Belmopan I took a right.  At first it was like everything else I'd seen.  Green, sort of flat, homes and restaurants with sheet metal for roofs.  Clothes hanging on a line.
      And then I took a turn.  And I was suddenly on mountain roads, full of rainforest.  My road to Placencia consisted of rainforest mountains.  Jesus, how's that for a Saturday morning drive.

Drove this.  Lived this. 

Glamor shot of my luxury vehicle. 

      While taking the first picture I almost got run over and honked at by a van that said ARMENIA on the back.  I thought that was interesting, as I did not know there was an Armenian population in the middle of Belize.
      There isn't.  There is a town called Armenia, which is where that van was going to.  Or I don't know, maybe Armenia is a town full of Armenians.  I'm still not sure.  I do know Armenia is in the middle of nowhere, just off Hummingbird Highway.
      I also got to drive over tiny bridges.

 This is the tiniest bridge I've ever driven on.

      Near the end of Hummingbird Highway, I took a right on Southern Highway.  Now, when you're in the middle of nowhere, the roads are actually pretty smooth.  But the closer you get to a town, the more random speed bumps you have.  I have still not learned how to navigate these speed bumps, though I suspect it's really just slowing down and going over them carefully.  The worst one I came across was on the Southern Highway, where I drove over a speed bump so high my arm hit my mouth and my foot hit the top of the little area where the gas and brake pedals are (what is the name of that?  Don't look at me, I just sell cars, not make them).  This hurt, because my toe was already throbbing from incorrectly walking upstairs, and now it was reinjured from not properly driving over speed bumps.  

      Finally I reached a turn for Placencia.  There were three women on the side of the road hitchhiking, so I pulled over.  They came from the Toledo District to sell their headbands and jewelry and tablecloths to tourists.  Two of them were from Punta Gorda.  The third was a little more inland.

      "Now you don't have to worry about anything happening to you," one of the women told me.  "We are four warriors!"

      I dropped one of them off in Placencia the town (I'm staying a little outside) while I drove with the other two, Tomasa and Raquelia.  While driving to town, we went past the airport.  Here are some photos from driving past the Placencia airport.  Or air strip, I guess.

STOP.  All vehicles must give way to aircraft landing and taking off. 

No parking.  Low flying aircraft.

      The woman I dropped off in town told me she lived in San Ignacio for two years, but moved back to Punta Gorda.  Her kids had to go to school, and she couldn't afford the $65 it cost to send them to school in San Ignacio.  In Punta Gorda, it only cost $8, so she moved back in order for her kid to get an education.

      Tomasa and Raquelia told me they did not have an education because they couldn't afford it.  They don't have jobs because all jobs require the education they don't have.  So they make their living through selling the knick knacks up and down the tourist towns on the coast of the Stann Creek district, where Placencia sits.

      "We are Mayan," Tomasa told me.  "There are three kinds of Mayan in Belize.  The Yucatec live in San Ignacio, in the Cayo District.  The Mopan live in Toledo.  And the Kek'chi live in Toledo.  We are Kek'chi Mayan.  I do not understand the Mopan language.  It's different."

      Tomasa and Raquelia asked to come with me to the hotel where I was staying so they could sell their wares on the beach to tourists there.  I bought a couple things from them and went to my room.  I gotta tell you - big bed, view of the ocean and the infinity pool, a shower that has a door that closes with hot water that works - this place is tits.

Pretty happy with this view, honestly.

      Yes, I've spent a good amount of my time awake on the hammock so far.  Actually, since I've arrived, I've yet to leave the hotel.  I was very lazy yesterday.  I had a late lunch and met a man named James, who owns a boat and spends half his time down here and the other half in Marin County up in Northern California.  

      James told me he's retired a few times.  He was a graphic designer at one point.  He did other things that are like graphic designing but aren't graphic designing - artistic or something, I don't know.  Then he started a company that sells hash to dispensaries in Oakland.  Years ago he envisioned living in a boat and now he's had it for five years.  He started in Guatemala, and then Costa Rica, and now he's here.  Now his partner does most of the hash work and he does some work sometimes, but it's his company so it wouldn't exist without him, and he takes it easy until he gets bored and then he goes back up to help work.

      Years ago he spent three weeks on a beach in Australia to see if he could deal with being bored on a beach with nothing to do.  It was a test.  Could he stand having a boat?  Well, there are worse things than being bored on a beach for three weeks, and now he gets to be bored on his boat and he's pretty happy with the arrangement.

      He told me all the different places he's smoked hash.  In an airport in Tokyo at 4:30 AM.  I don't remember the other places.

      My biggest struggle the next few days will be how little I want to do.  Yes, I do intend on taking it easy.  But I'm a naturally lazy person, and if given the choice I typically want to do nothing all day.  Doing nothing is always my first choice.  However, if I do nothing, I'm going to come back to Los Angeles full of regret concerning all of the things I should have done in Placencia and didn't.  And I will not necessarily feel more restful for it.  I might even feel more tired.  I need to go to town today.  I need to go to the beach today.  I might try ziplining.  People who have been ziplining - do I care about ziplining?  Do I need to go ziplining?  There's a waterfall nearby.  I think I definitely want to go there.  Do I get a massage?  I can't decide if I should get a massage.  I can't tell if the price for the massage is in American or Belizean dollars at my hotel, which is sort of a factor right now.
      I'll probably get a massage.  That's like doing nothing but there's soothing music and someone is rubbing you in a dark room.

      So that's where I am until Tuesday.  My big struggle will be to do more than literally nothing.  It's gonna be hard, because my toe hurts and my blisters are bleeding and I'm very good at validating my choice to do nothing because I validate that choice whenever I have a day off work.  But it's 2015 AND I HAVE A NEW LEASE ON LIFE.  I think I can do this.

Girl Travels Alone Part 3: Gotta Tube These Caves to Belize Them

      I live in Los Angeles.  You know what's great about Los Angeles?  A lot of things.  Pretty good weather, for one.  Close access to the beach, for two.  Getting to feel proud for pretty much no reason when people you meet traveling know where that is, for three.  Basically no mosquitos to speak of for four.
      I am literally covered in mosquito bites.  This happened last time I traveled out of the country too - I was eaten alive in the Cook Islands.  I came home from the Cook Islands with the skin burnt clean off (well, it was a little infected, but there was no skin there is my point) the inside of my right shin, the rest of my skin burnt from too much sun exposure, and bug bites covering my skin.
      I don't have the sunburn (yet - still have the beach tomorrow), and I don't have the burned skin (yet - no motorbike riding in Belize), but I DO have bug bites in places I didn't know you could get them.  My neck, for one.  The insides of my feet, for two.  A line of bites that looks like one big bite at the top of my left thigh/bottom of my left buttock for three.  Wasn't that covered by shorts?
      I always think to myself that mosquitos don't really like me because one time I went camping when I was a kid and I only got bitten once and everyone else got bitten way more times, but I guess my blood as sweetened over the years and also I'm probably the only one in the group NOT using insect repellant, so I am one big walking mosquito bite right now.
      I did finally buy insect repellant, but I am just so itchy right now.

      Our tour guide for cave tubing was a man named Amin, thus disproving once and for all my theory that all tour guides in Central America are named Louis.
      Cave tubing was ostensibly the least educational activity I signed up for.  However, under Amin (was was clearly very excited when I told him I wanted to learn more about Belize), I learned that the "street language" for Belizeans is Creole, which is English that is purposely broken.  When the slaves spoke the broken English quickly, their slavemasters couldn't understand what they were saying.  If they spoke it more slowly, it was easier to recognize the words as something close to English.
      A typical meal in Belize is a johnny cake.  It's a type of meat cake you can enjoy for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  It was originally called a journey cake because it's portable and you can take it with you on your journey, but with the Creole the word ended up sounding like johnny.
      When I was taking notes about slavemasters my phone autocorrected to space masters, which I think is something different.  This is what we call a fun fact.
       Belize used to be called British Honduras.  If you already knew this, bully for you, but my ignorance about Belize is kind of embarrassing it turns out.  So Amin was great.
       The Spanish, with Christopher Columbus, were the first Europeans in Belize.  The British came soon after, and a small battle, the Battle of St. George's Caye, the British took over the tiny territory of Belize while Spain went about conquering the rest of Central America.
       Belize is in pretty good shape regarding its natural conservation because the only natural resource the British were interested in was the mahogany tree.
      The flag for Belize is a white man and a black man.  It's the only flag in the world with two men on it.  The white man represents the slave master, and the black man represents the slave.  There is a ship on the Belizean flag.  That's the Pinta, of Christopher Columbus's fleet.  There are 50 leaves on the flag.  This represents the year 1950, when Belize first began to fight for independence from the UK.
      In 1981, Belize became independent but was still part of the Commonwealth, sort of like Canada.
      This is maybe the most educational trip I've ever been on.  I was so ignorant about basically anything to do with Belize.  I had just done some preliminary research on whether or not it was a safe enough place to travel alone, and if there would be new things for me to learn, and fun things for me to do, and then I just went with it.  I'm so glad I'm here.

      Amin got us to the main site for cave tubing and ziplining.  I might try ziplining later, in Placencia, but Julie and Albert were doing just the cave tubing so I decided to also stick with that.
      We applied our bug repellant and sunblock.  We changed into our bathing suits.  My bathing suit is hanging on by a thread.  I had to tie two pieces together so it doesn't fall apart.  This is a bummer, because I find bathing suit shopping to be up there with jean shopping in types of clothing I hate to shop for.
      This time I rented water shoes because I was tired of having wet running shoes.  It was a good choice.

Mad stylin'.

      "I see you're all about to go cave tubing," a young Belizean man with an entrepreneurial spirit greeted us, "and I just want to offer you some of our coconuts, picked fresh this morning, more electrolytes than gatorade.  You can drink the milk straight from the coconut, and when you're done, you can just throw the coconut away.  It's tree dollars."
      "From the coconut?"  I was curious.
      "Yes, baby girl, and you can add rum for two more dollars.  Do you want to add rum, baby girl?"
      What?  Rum with the coconut?  It's not even 11 in the morning.  Who would-

Rum and coconut, straight from the source.

      I again didn't bring my phone with me, because we were going tubing and I figured there was a 100% chance I was going to drop that thing in the river.  Julie knew herself similarly well and also opted to keep her phone in the truck.
      I do have some pictures of the walk over, though, because we did it a second time.  I'll get to that in a bit.
      We each grabbed an inner tube and a life vest (which only Albert ended up using) and began the 30 minute walk to the cave entrance.  The walk again began with us wading through a river waist deep, this time with a swift current that boded well for our tubing adventure.  We were walking across the part of the river we were going to end up at.  Amin pointed to the rope and told us that if we were going to fast to stop, just grab a hold of it.  Otherwise, he'd meet us in Belize City in a couple days.
      As we walked I was struck again by how lucky I was to be here, in the middle of this beautiful jungle that was mostly untouched but still accessible enough for me to go cave tubing.  I was grateful for the opportunity to experience something I wouldn't be able to experience back home.
      Also the views were pretty dope.

      We soon made it to the cave entrance.  Amin took his time getting us into the tubes.  He told us to hang out for a bit, get comfortable with the water.  He told us when they first started bringing people here for tubing from the nearby hotel back in 1994, the man who had bought this land didn't like people using it.  He would pay the villagers to take away the signs.  He would send men with nine millimeter guns to just walk around.  Amin said when he was doing a tour and a man walked by with a nine millimeter gun it made some of his tourists uncomfortable.
      People are so touchy.
      Anyway, below is the cave we chilled at for a minute before we went cave tubing.

Oh hey!  You can see the bumps on my arms from the stupid amount of mosquito bites I have. 

      Finally we got started.  Amin gave us a quick tutorial on how to steer.  "Row your arms backwards to slow down."  It was not a very in depth tutorial.
      Albert got stuck very quickly in a rock.  When the current first took us, Albert's camera fell out of his pocket and he lost it.  He had bought the camera specifically for this trip.  Luckily he had uploaded his pictures from San Pedro, where he and Julie were first staying before coming to San Ignacio, and that's where he took the underwater pictures of himself scuba diving, but it's still a bummer.  The current was too strong and they couldn't find it.  We came back a second time, and that's when Julie and I took our phones, knowing we wouldn't be going in the water, and took as many pictures of the walk over as possible.

      Outside of the unfortunate camera incident, cave tubing was great.  Sometimes it felt like a real life version of that Disneyland ride Pirates of the Caribbean, only instead of fake pirates and singing there was real life caves and no drops.  Sometimes it felt like Jungle Tours, only instead of a funny tour guide and fake jungle, our tour guide was Amin and also the jungle was real.  Other times it felt like Indiana Jones, only not really as much because you're not in the water for that one.

      For lunch we had curried chicken (Belizeans have their own version of curry that's very tasty) and I had a Belikin.  For the road I got one more rum and coconut.

Jungle diet.

      Our last stop before getting back to town was a shop called Hot Mama's, which makes hot sauce, honey (both regular and spicy), chocolate, and other knick knacks.  I picked up a really solid sweet pepper sauce and chocolate with habaneros.  I was going to give the chocolate with habaneros to my parents because they're into exotic chocolates but I've already started eating it.

      Last night, for our collective last night in San Ignacio, Julie and Albert and I ate at Eva's.  I got the curried chicken again, with a drink called the Pantie Ripper that was sweet and didn't taste all that alcoholic.  We walked around town for a bit and and hit up that one club in town - Blue Angels I think - but we were there at 8:30 and nobody was there and the music was loud but sometimes you have to go to a club to remind yourself why you don't go to clubs (I CAN'T HEAR YOU).

      We had an early night and I said goodbye to my new best friends.  I went back to the restaurant, which had given me wifi on my phone for the first time since I've been here.  I had uploaded pictures on instagram and it was very important for me to see how many likes I was getting.  While I was on my phone, a couple of kids came up to me to sell me something.

      "No thanks," I said.

      "You don't even want to look at it?" one of the boys said.  He was like 9 years old or something, and I am just the biggest sucker that ever suckered.

     The boys pulled out two tablet things they made.  Circles that represent the Mayan calendar.  Zachariah made one with a butterfly in the center, and his little brother Zephediah made one with a Mayan pyramid.  They looked like they had made them themselves, but the boys said they were going to use the money to go to school (all schools are private in Belize).  They started asking me where I was from.

      "Los Angeles," I said.

      "Oh, I thought you were Canadian."

      Um.  Is that a compliment or, like, just a thing he thought?

     They had a littler brother, who must have been 6 or something.

      "Who's your basketball team?" the little guy asked.

      "Clippers," I said.  The little boy kept looking at me.  "And Lakers."

      "Lakers!  That's my team.  I love the Lakers."

      "I like OKC," Zachariah said.

      "OKC is a fun team to watch.  They always get so close.  It's fun to root for the underdog."

      (Shut up ahead of time, basketball aficionados.  I know a very little bit about basketball, and it is enough to get through a conversation with Belizean children, which is what I was doing.)

      "Have you ever been to a basketball game?" they asked.  I showed them a picture I took of when I was in row 6 of a Lakers game.  They all three asked me to add them on Facebook.  Zachariah wanted me to send him the picture of the game.

      I overpaid for that tablet thing.

      I'm headed out today to Placencia.  This morning I'll peruse the Saturday market - it's supposed to have a ton of fresh fruit - and then I'm going to the Stann Creek district.  

      Goodbye San Ignacio!  If anyone is going to Belize I will have to recommend you as a stop.

Girl Travels Alone Part 2: These Caves are UnBelizeable

            Last night I ate the Creole Special and drank a Belikin at a restaurant on the outskirts of the downtown area in San Ignacio while Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” played and I read Yes Please.  I got back to my hotel around 9:30 PM.

            Great night.

Seen on the walk home.  LOTR quotes are appropriate anywhere.

            The next morning I wandered down to Max Tours for the Actun Tunichil Mikal tour, or ATM for short.  There would be cave exploring, Mayan artifacts, pots, and skeletons from human sacrifices.  I was told to bring a bathing suit.

            I did not realize we would be in a cave the whole time because my reading comprehension is poor.  I also didn’t realize the point of the bathing suit was because we would be wading waist deep in cave water for almost two hours, also because my reading comprehension is poor.  The only shoes close to suitable I had were my running shoes (spoiler alert:  they were not particularly suitable).  I was told to bring a change of clothes, and I still wasn’t getting how unprepared I was.

I had half of these things, and that's only because they were provided to me.

            Julie and Albert and I rode in the back while the tour guide made a stop for another couple, Jess and Lucy (actually I don’t remember her name, but his name was Jess).  Jess and Lucy were a couple from Seattle who were finishing up a three week tour of Belize.  They spent some time in Placencia, my next stop, and said they spent a day on the beach drinking rum and occasionally grabbing coconuts from low-hanging palm trees and breaking them open for mixing.

            My next location sounds like a garbage time, is what I’m saying.

            We then stopped at an archaeologist field base or something – some sort of home where archaeologists live, I don’t know.  I don’t think either of the two guys we picked up there were archaeologists.  One of them wore a button down shirt to our cave exploration trip, and the other one, upon hearing he needed a second shirt, simply went the other direction and took the one he was wearing off.  The guide (also named Louis, as luck would have it – maybe all guides down here are named Louis) politely told him that wasn’t going to fly and sent him back in for a second shirt.

            Shirtless man – let’s call him Dave because I don’t remember his name – walked back to get a shirt.  He had a tattoo of an eagle on his lower back.  He had two missing front teeth and he smelled like cigarettes.  He is the most grizzled person I’ve ever met with a tramp stamp.

            Dave was a pretty nice guy.

            Louis was the most terrifying driver I’ve ever been in the car with.  We were speeding at what felt like 80 miles an hour.  The van was old.  I kept thinking I heard chickens squawking in the background but it turned out to be weird noises the van was making as Louis sped along at 100 miles an hour.  As Louis sped along at 120 miles an hour, I was sure this was how I was going to die.  “Caitlin shouldn’t have gone down to Belize by herself,” people would say, and I would protest that I was just trying to learn more about Mayans and caves and actually I could have died in a car accident anywhere thanks much, but it would fall on deaf ears because I would be dead.

            We got to the entrance and are told there will be no phones.  We were given hard hats with tiny flashlights on them.  We were not given waivers to sign.  We were told no phones because it would ruin the artifacts.  Tourists are the worst, basically, and you only have those exactly like you to blame.

            All pictures concerning the tour are things I found online, taken back in the days you could take your camera with you.

Quick selfie action before they took my phone away.

            The walk to the caves was gorgeous.  In the background we saw hills covered in trees.  It looked like walls of trees.  Jungle trees.  Within five minutes we came across a river.  The path picked up again on the other side.  There was no bridge or boat or rocks to walk on.  We were supposed to wade waist deep in river water – three times I found – to get to the caves.

            I had no idea what I had signed myself up for.  I had done as little research as a person could possibly do.  Rainer and Martin from the night before told me I absolutely had to do ATM and I just listened.

            Here’s the thing.  The caves were the main attraction, and they’re amazing.  I’ve never done anything like this before.  It was incredible.  But even before I got to the caves, I stopped myself while wading across the river the second time and looked around.  I was surrounded by jungle.  I was waist deep in the middle of a river in the Cayo District surrounded by jungle.

            On a Thursday.

            So I was into this ATM thing right off the bat, is what I’m saying.

            On the way to the cave, Louis told us a story of a young girl, maybe 12 years old, who kept bragging about how easy the cave traveling was.  “This is easy,” she said.  “This is a piece of cake,” she said.

            At one point they came across an orgy of snakes writhing around and procreating.  The girl just lost it.  She started crying.  Bawling.  Sobbing.  She couldn’t handle these crazy snakes.  She could handle climbing a level described by the tour group as “requires some agility,” but she couldn’t handle snake fornication.

            I pictured this nondescript 12-year-old obnoxious know-it-all crying about snakes and I laughed.  Oh man.  I’ve told myself this story like 7 times already and it’s still funny.  I laugh every time.  I’m laughing now.

            (I’m not laughing now.  I’m in a public place right around the corner from my hotel and I’m on my third drink so I’m trying to keep a low profile.)

            Finally we arrived at the caves.  Louis went into a long speech about what we were and were not allowed to do.  I was sort of paying attention but I also just wanted to keep going.  See, I was still unclear on how the cave thing worked.    I saw water in the cave entrance, and I saw the group in front of us dive in, and I still thought there would be some water and then it would be dry mostly.

Entrance to the cave, where I still thought it would be a mostly dry trip.

            After about 45 minutes of wading through cave water I realized I was mostly wrong about the very little conjecture I had done regarding the water-to-dry-land ratio.  And even when you’re on dry land, these caves are still so wet.  The light on your hardhat shows flecks of water in the air constantly.  It’s not raining.  You’re just in the wettest air you’ve ever been in.

            The caves are also pitch black.  The hardhat light was necessary. 

            Louis told us these caves were mostly used for rituals.  People didn’t explore without a religious reason usually.  They were first used in 250 AD, and then around 400 AD the ball really got rolling.  Mayans saw the caves as a sacred place, which is why Dave was required to keep his shirt on.   In fact, the direct translation for cave in Mayan is not cave.  It’s called “place of fright.”  Caves were meant to be feared.

            Oh, but the caves were beautiful.  The stalagtite and stalagmite formations were unlike anything I’d ever seen.  Glad the internet can help share what I saw with anyone reading this!

Caves.

            These caves were discovered around 1991.  When considering Tikal was discovered by Americans around the mid-20^th century and became a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s, we have a part of the world that is only just sharing its history with the rest of us.  How amazing – how exciting!  This is why tourism has skyrocketed in Guatemala and Belize.  This is why they’re cracking down on drugs, and why as a tourist you can get away with pretty much anything.  The economy has entered such an upswing since tourism became popular around here.  The Belizeans and the Guatemalans are happy for the extra money it brings in.

            The other thing about these caves is that sometimes the spaces we were in were very tight.  I am easily claustrophobic.  The guy in front of me, Dave’s buddy Tommy (I also forgot his name so let’s just use that) was very, very slow.  I was not slow, and I also needed to keep moving sometimes. 

            “Keep moving forward,” I said, trying to sound as calm and sweet as possible.  “I’m a little claustrophobic.”

            But oh my god Tommy was slow.  I felt my breathing get more and more labored.  Finally he made it through the crevice, and I could see the bigger space on the other side.

            Then Tommy stopped.  He looked around at his new surroundings.  He marveled.  “Wow,” he said out loud.  OKAY GREAT MOMENT TOMMY but I can’t breathe right now so can we marvel when I’m not in the crevice anymore?

Somebody else's pictures that I'm using to demonstrate small crevices in the trek.

            I did not think my claustrophobia-in-caves thing through.  This is for the best, probably, because otherwise I might not have experienced the caves at all, and they were truly amazing.

            At one point Louis told me to climb up to a new level that wasn’t on the ground floor with the water anymore.  We took our shoes off, because this is where we were going to see all the artifacts and skeletons.

            People volunteered to be human sacrifices.  It was considered an honor to die in this holy cave.  They would die by being savagely beaten to death as a form of penance.  
            I am glad I live now.

            They would break pots as sacrifice to the gods, in the hopes that it would bring more food.  They would do a monkey dance for more rain.  They thought a full moon was a moon full of water, and a crescent moon was a moon about to spill out her water, and rain was when the moon was totally upside down.

  Pots.

Pots, with added red tape that says "hey, tourists - no."

 This dude was brutally beaten and had some teeth removed for the ceremony.

            Also invented by the Mayans?  Grills.  People would pull their teeth out and put something like jade (I don't remember the actual name) in their gums instead.  This was to flaunt their riches.  In the case of the skull right above, this man's gums were still open, which is how archaeologists know the teeth were taken out for ceremony and not for some sweet grill action.

            Louis started talking about drugs when discussing the holy rituals.  He said people would lick certain toads for their hallucinogens.  Sometimes they would smoke marijuana.  He said all kids stories have drugs in them.  Alice in Wonderland.  Snow White – one of the dwarves was named Dopey - hello.  Peter Pan talked to a fairy.  I did not agree with his analysis but I was still entertained.

            The guides I've had so far love talking about drugs.  Guatemalan Louie nonchalantly told us the stops and searches from the militia were to curb the drug trade, like that’s a normal thing and everyone should respect that.  Max told us as a tourist they will never search our bags, because they assume that if there’s something wrong we’ll start acting funny and call ourselves out.  The trick is to not know you’re carrying drugs.  That’s why when the drug lords send people across the border with drugs, they do it to people who don’t know they have anything on them. 

            This is all valuable information for when I become a drug mule.

            Louis offered a wealth of knowledge.  Did you know brown eyes are an adaptation to too much light?  And blue eyes are for people who see less light.  And straight hair – that’s a cold weather adaptation, whereas curly hair is a warm weather adaptation.

            Fun history note – when the French and English used to fight (which was all the time, always, for most of their histories) and the French won, they would cut off the two forefingers of the English soldiers, because those were the fingers required for using a bow.  When the English won, they would show them their two fingers as an act of defiance.  Americans cut that act, with all the same vitriol and attitude, down to one finger.

            And thus flipping the bird was born.

            History is so cool.

            We also found out why we weren’t allowed to wear shoes or have cameras in the cave.  One tourist stepped on a full femur, centuries old and still going strong, and broke it.  One lady dropped her camera on a skull that had been in great shape for hundred of years and broke it.  Some super cool dude found a perfectly preserved skeleton – an entire skeleton, preserved in a cave in its complete form for centuries, the only remotely one like it in a cave setting in all of Central America – and decided that was a great place to spread his relative’s ashes.  Bold move, ashes dude, and now that part of the cave is blocked off for everybody.

A photo of the skull before tourist lady dropped her camera in it.

Hmm, what a great place to lay some cremated ashes.

            On the way back Louis had us turn off our lights for a moment and then we walked single file in the dark in the caves, sort of just hoping we wouldn’t hit a rock and that Louis’s instructions were good enough.

            It was an amazing experience.  I didn’t have to do any thinking.  It was a “Louis, take the wheel” kind of moment.

            I quickly changed when we got back and dug in to some homemake chicken and rice and plantain.  My socks and shoes were soaked through.  I think I have to retire these socks.  I've had them since 6th grade, so I've known them longer than I haven't known them.  It may be time though.

Farewell, beautiful socks.  14 years strong.

            I found out this morning that my shower is supposed to have hot water, and I guess maybe I was racist for assuming that it was all showers in this hotel that were like that and not just mine.  Also, I’m a little self-conscious as I write this in a public place, because I’ve run out of underwear already (for someone so proud of how good she is at traveling, I am literally never prepared for anything) and I feel like everybody can tell by looking at me.

            Okay, I’m going to have dessert now.  The restaurant I just ate at offered a dish with fried chicken feet and gizzard and legs and wings and liver.  I’ll eat anything but the chicken feet weren’t great.  They’re just bone.  I do not recommend chicken feet.

            Okay thanks for reading everybody stay golden pony boy.

Chicken.

 Mmm.  Rum cake.