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.