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.

Girl Travels Alone Part 1: Belize in Yourself

      This trip is the longest I've traveled by myself.  The only other time I've gone on a trip alone where I wasn't planning on meeting up with a friend was 4 days in Portugal at the end of my semester abroad back in college, and I spent most of the time wishing I had done it sooner.
      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.

      I hadn't really eaten lunch, and it was about 4 PM, so I decided to take a walk to find a good place.  I first booked a tour group trip to Tikal, Guatemala, for tomorrow morning, and then told the parking people I wouldn't be picking up my car tomorrow morning after all.  They didn't seem worried about it, and said as long as I was a guest of the Venus Hotel I was okay.  They directed me to Mom's Backyard for Belizean food.
      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.