I love traveling when I get the chance, and at this point I'm pretty good at it. When issues come up during traveling, I handle them better than I would in any other situation. I think removing myself from my usual surroundings somehow makes me calmer, more rational, better at adapting than I usually am in my day-to-day.
I landed in Belize City around noon yesterday. Customs was a breeze. The next step was getting across the country to San Ignacio. I figured by bus it would take about 2 hours, and my research told me I could get one right at the airport. I also knew Belize City had a reputation for being a little dangerous and not particularly easy on the eyes anyway, so I was hoping to avoid it. Plus, while I had a good amount of US cash on me, I had no Belizean dollars because I just sort of forgot to exchange money.
But I couldn't be too worried because right now, at this very moment, I was in Belize. What a beautiful place to land. Sunny when I came down. I was ecstatic to be here.
Thanks, Belize! Feels good.
Luckily, as it turns out, US currency is accepted anywhere in the country. It's two Belizean dollars for one US dollar. As long as you have US cash you're fine.
I quickly found out I would have to go to town to get the bus - there is no shuttle as I had previously thought. So I made an impulse decision to check out a car rental. The shuttle to San Ignacio would be cheap and easy, but the bus from San Ignacio to Placencia, my second part of the trip, sounded like a 5 hour venture with three changeovers, and the private transport (more direct) was expensive. So when the car was less expensive than I thought it would be, I decided that was going to be the easiest thing.
The radio doesn't work, and I think the thing is 15 years old, and it's a car make I'd never heard of (Daihatsu?), but it drives when you step on the gas. That meant for the first two hours of my time in Belize, I drove in silence across the country.
This was absolutely the best way to start my trip. I forget how seldom I have silence, and it was a nice transition to vacation. I talked to myself for the first hour because I have some interesting things to say and I, for my part, am always curious to hear them, but after a while I ran out of topics and enjoyed a roadway clear of traffic, stop signs, or traffic lights.
Belizean roads.
I got lost for about thirty minutes as I accidentally started heading to Mexico (not a great map, if I'm being honest), so the trip took really took three hours. The drive over is when I realized I forgot to pack any sports bras, which is cool because I was hoping to spend a bunch of time exploring ruins in 80 degree weather.
Also, the toilet situation in most places in Belize is not great. It is the second worst country I've been to for toilets, after France. France has a really bad plumbing situation. At least in Belize it's not just a hole in the ground.
Seen about 30 minutes east of San Ignacio.
ANYWAY I got to San Ignacio around 3:30 in the afternoon. Parking was hard because, while the streets do have names in San Ignacio, I can't find any of them clearly marked on street signs. Luckily, everyone was really helpful, and I eventually found where I was supposed to park, and from there found my hotel.
San Ignacio hotel selfie.
You can't park at the Venus hotel because it's on a pedestrian street, which is why it was such a challenge, but once I found a good parking lot and got to my hotel, I was glad to be on a street without cars. It turns out I had picked a pretty central place in town.
Burns Ave at 7:30 AM.
Also seen at 7:30 AM. Lots of dogs in San Ignacio.
Mom's Backyard overlooks the town and the nearby river. I got traditional rice, fried plantain, coleslaw, and stewed chicken with an ice cold beer for a total of $5US. I couldn't get a picture of the view because it was too dark out, and I didn't get a picture of my food because I forgot.
I was on the balcony outside, sitting alone. Another table of three guys invited me over. Rainer, studying in Mexico at the moment, was German and traveling for a bit while on break from school. Martin, a Swedish bartender, took some time off work to explore Central America. Rudy lived in San Ignacio and is something of a local celebrity.
Everybody knew Rudy.
Rudy has been to places in the US I haven't been to. He was a musician. He was in the military. He gave tours. He dispensed life advice. He showed you a good time in town. When you're with Rudy, nobody bothers you. Rudy explained this to me himself, but from what I gathered it was actually true.
Martin was pleasant, always smiling. Rainer was a little more serious but still pretty fun. They talked about their different attitudes about most Americans. Rainer clarified that not all Americans were this way, but that he hated when Americans traveled to another country and expected people to speak English. Martin thought the "narrow-mindedness was endearing," and I immediately thought of a few girls I could set him up with. I agreed mostly with Rainer, but I appreciated he added the disclaimer that it wasn't all Americans.
When I come back from the bathroom, the boys are talking about, um, boy stuff? Sex? Sex stuff. Rudy wouldn't repeat what they were talking about because I'm a lady, which is always really annoying when guys do that, and then the subject turned to dating. Yes, I have a boyfriend. Rainer has a girlfriend. Martin is single and happy, a point he made three separate times.
"Why didn't you bring your boyfriend?" Rudy asked me.
"He couldn't get the time off work. I made the trip before I met him."
"Oh, and you trust him? How long you gone for?"
"A week."
Rudy shook his head.
"He's gonna go the club, and he's going to see another girl…"
"No, I don't think he's going to do anything in a week."
"How long have you been dating?"
"Three months."
"Oh, three months? If it was three years, maybe. You don't know he's going to stay with you. Stay good. One week after three months? He's going to the club."
"No, he's not."
"He can be at the club right now, you don't know!"
"It's 5:30 in LA, so I doubt it."
"You don't know what he's doing when you're here, and he doesn't know what you're doing…"
"I just don't think anything is going to happen either way."
"You might cheat on him too!"
"No."
"All I'm saying, you're not there, he could be at the club-"
"He introduced me to the Game of Thrones video game, so I'm not worried about it."
"I tell you, my wife, I was in Chicago for two months, and by the time I got back, she cheated on me. Just two months!"
Oh, okay, Rudy was projecting onto me. That made it a little easier. I was laughing a little bit, which is my response to things when I'm annoyed but trying actively not to show it. Usually I don't care, and I get snappy and snarky and mean, but I was alone and these guys invited me to join their table, so I was trying to be nice.
I suggested a drinking game to change the topic, and Rainer and Martin were amenable. Martin had cards with him (Martin, my man, batting 1000 at this point), and he asked if we knew a pyramid drinking game.
This was crazy, because one of my favorite drinking games is called "F*** You Pyramid," and the set up is the same. A pyramid of cards are set face down on the table, and everyone gets three-to-five cards in their hands to look at. Martin's was less hectic than mine, so we played his version.
I went out a little longer, met some nurses from Oregon and another guy from Bristol, UK, and then made it back to bed around 10ish. Everyone was talking about heading to Guatemala next, and I got very jealous. I was going to Guatemala too, but just for the day, and just to Tikal. That was going to be great too, obviously, but Guatemala had been my first choice for my vacation, and I had skipped out on it because I was told by some Guatemalan friends that it wouldn't be a good idea for me to go there by myself. Since they were actually from Guatemala I thought the advice was probably good.
The next morning I woke up and walked over to the tour meeting point for Tikal. It was going to be a full day of Mayan ruins and I was pumped. The owner of the tour group, Max, walked me over to the truck. Inside I met Julie and Albert. They were from New York. She worked in vision research, and he worked in construction management.
We drove a bit to the Guatemalan border. I looked down by the river we were driving next to and a dude was washing his car with the river water. I had never seen that, but it made sense to me.
Then I started to get these ideas in my head. I have a car too. I can come back another day to Flores, a town in Guatemala near Tikal which is supposed to be amazing. I could spend the day walking around there. That doesn't seem too bad. How much trouble could I get in?
Max handed us over to Louis, our tour guide for Tikal. Max doesn't go into Guatemala. Louie doesn't go into Belize. Maybe it's a hassle, I don't know. Probably an easier border crossing than the US and Mexico.
BRB going to Guatemala real quick.
As we drove in the van, now in Guatemala, I realized all the signs were in Spanish. That was problem number one for my Guatemala day trip fantasy. I'm sure most people spoke some English, but that wasn't guaranteed, and I might end up talking to people who didn't speak any English at all. I would be in a city with a serious language barrier by myself.
That didn't bother me too much, though. I'd done it before (Budapest comes to mind), but it certainly made things more difficult.
About twenty minutes into the drive we came to a stop. The car in front of us had been pulled over. The trunk was open. The driver stood outside patiently has five or six men in military gear and AK-47s searched his car.
I realized if I came back to Flores by myself, I would pass this same checkpoint, alone, and these Guatemalan military officers with AK-47s who may or may not speak English would search my car. Obviously I wasn't carrying anything dangerous, but the thought was unsettling and I put the idea of coming back alone to rest. I guess I would have to stay in boring old Belize for the rest of my trip.
Later we stopped at a gift shop for Tikal visitors to get coffee and use the restroom. I guess Guatemala is known for its coffee. It was good coffee. No, it was great.
It was great coffee.
On the way there we found out about the animals we might possibly see while exploring the ruins. There was a Jaguar Crossing sign which the other two Americans and I got a kick out of.
Jaguar crossing. NBD.
There was a sign for a Guatemalan raccoon, which was way less sexy than the jaguar so we didn't take any pictures of that sign. We saw some wild boars cross the road, but I couldn't get a good pic and also I wasn't as excited about the boars as everyone else. Albert especially was into the boars. He kept talking about bacon.
"Be careful," Louis told us as we were nearing the ruins. "There is a snake that, if it bites you, it doesn't release all of its poison - it's scared of you, it just wants you to know its there - but if the poison gets in your bloodstream it will kill you in 20 seconds. So it's not look before you leap, it's look before you step."
Ok, cool. So if I'm every stranded in the jungle I'm totally dying. Look before you step? Who does that? I run into tables and chairs at work because I can't be bothered to pay attention.
I will never have my own version of Romancing the Stone because I will be destroyed by an animal that's "more scared of you than you are of it."
Michael Douglas isn't even my type anyway, so whatever.
We get to the ruins and they're amazing. There's so many temples. Tikal was a full city. The Mayan population nearby had continued to use this place to worship, even if nobody was still living there, well into the 20th century. This dude Wrigley, of Wrigley gum, started to come down to get his gum from the trees. He built an air strip down there to make things easier. Some archaeologists at the University of Pennsylvania heard about the air strip, realized the trek to these Mayan ruins was easier than ever, and asked the Guatemalan government for permission to use the site for exploring. Wrigley got kicked out of the Mayan ruins by government order and the UNESCO site Tikal was on its way to becoming the beautiful tourist area we know it to be today.
Capitalism.
Louis is a tour guide all over Guatemala. He told us that in order to be a tour guide you have to have a Bachelor's in History. LOOKS LIKE I'M QUALIFIED FOR JOBS AFTER ALL. Take that, finance majors. Anyway, Louis started to talk about religion and history.
He first explained the large Chinese population in San Ignacio and Tikal. This came as a surprise to us Americans (there are a lot of Chinese people living here). The reason for the number of Chinese immigrants here is because after Hong Kong was reinstated into China, many Hong Kong citizens worried about their freedoms and left. They decided Central America sounded like as good a place as any. I'm sure they went to other locations too, but the Chinese population in San Ignacio is recent and directly related to Hong Kong once again becoming part of China.
Louis taught us so many things.
Louis also started talking about the politics of the Catholic Church, starting way back in the 600s when the Council of Nicea was doing its thing. He sped on up through the middle ages and turned to me.
"Now, this part relates directly to you," Louis said. "The Church kept hiding certain gospels from the people, because it only wanted to tell the story that was convenient to the Church. So if there were any wise people who were researching the religion, they would go after the wise people, and they would accuse the wise people of heresy."
"How did you know I was Jewish?" I asked. But really, he was speaking directly to me because I am white and therefore at some point European-ish, and Albert and Julie are both Chinese.
Anyway, I liked my joke, and so I shared it, and now you're welcome for getting to read that joke.
Tikal is enormous. The temples are incredibly well-preserved. Anything that looks like a hill is actually an old residence that has been taken over by nature. The views are stunning.
Also Tikal was featured in the original Star Wars trilogy so basically - great day.
Sun Temple. Templo I.
I see you, Templo V.
New best friends Albert and Julie.
You see those X marks? That's Mr. Wrigley, trying to get in on the gum game down here.
Steppin' out.
Okay view.
My other new best friend Louis.
At one point we heard a howler monkey, which Louis told us was rare. Apparently, howler monkeys have seventeen fingers. Four on each hand (they have four hands, no feet), and then their TAIL is a FINGER. Like, there is a finger print at the end of their tail. That is insane. That is the craziest thing I've ever heard, and I'm like 110% sure I'm not exaggerating. Nature. Nature is so crazy.
Louis would enter a new courtyard and start clapping. Then other tour guides would respond in kind. It was fun to watch. Louis would tell us about a temple and then let us explore and take pictures while he caught up with his tour guide buddies. Louis was a cool dude.
"Do you smell that? That smell is the snake sending out pheromones as a warning," Louis told us.
"The snake with the… twenty seconds to killing?" I asked.
"Yes. Don't worry. It's sleeping now."
How Louis could possible know the smell meant the snake was not only nearby but asleep was beyond me, but I am typing this here now to tell you I never saw the snake, so Louis must have been right, and I honestly never need to actually see that snake in real life.
On the way back we stopped at the gift shop again. There's a restaurant next to it, where I got maybe the best chicken and the best pineapple I've ever had.
Literally the best chicken I've ever had.
Also, best pineapple.
Louis told us Guatemala is one of the best places in the world to travel to, pointing to CNN as a source for his claim. Okay, sure, I want to. I'm sold. I'll have to bring a friend (I still remember those AK-47s), but I'm sold. He bid us adieu, and we went back to Belize.
I am now relaxing and occasionally reading Yes Please by Amy Poehler on my phone. It did not download onto my iPad but it did download onto my phone. I wish it was on my iPad because when I read it on my phone I look like I'm just texting or facebooking when really I'm being intellectual and expanding my mind. It is important that other people who might glance in my direction by accident understand this.
Okay well that was my first day and then my first full day. Okay good bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment