Okay, I know I have been home for over a month, but I am finally getting around to writing about my trip. Some of you have heard some stories/seen pictures, so you may want to just skip my ramblings, but here is the official recap. In a nutshell... it was absolutely amazing.
As most of you know, I finally got my passport and wanted to put it to use (although I guess I could have gone to Canada for sushi, but that might have been a bit anti-climactic).
I had a free flight on United from their Dining Program (since I eat out almost every meal) to Hawaii, the Caribbean or Central America. Several of my friends had been to Belize and really enjoyed it, so I started looking in to it. It is a relatively cheap place, the only English speaking (British colony until 1981) country in Central America, and has great diving (2nd largest barrier reef only beaten by Australia). When I found out they had monkeys AND a place called Monkey River town ON Monkey River, it was a done deal.
I flew in to Belize City. Went through customs (HEY...my passport actually worked!) and headed straight to the small puddle jumper planes to get to Placencia. While in the airport, a woman that worked there asked where I was going. When she found out, she wondered if I could go to the hardware store when I got there and ask for her son to pass a message along to him. Apparently, there was some sort of civil unrest going on and BTL (the telecom company) had been on strike for over a week and people had begun sabotaging the fiber optics lines. So there were no phones, ATMs, credit card machines, internet, cell, or satellite. Since tourists couldn't get money or book arrangements, many were leaving for Guatemala or elsewhere. I left Belize City immediately (luckily, since that night there was a riot and a few people were killed and lots of businesses were looted).
The plane ride was fun and only took about an hour (with a quick stop in Danriga) and ran about $70 one way. Placencia feels like an island since it is isolated from the city and is a rather narrow peninsula. It is a tiny town and people seem to recognize you within a few hours and will wave hello or stop and chat. It has a great feeling of community. There are a few expensive resorts popping up nearby in Siene Bright and around the area (one is owned by Francis Ford Coppola and is supposedly pretty posh...and expensive). Got in a cab and headed to the Manatee Inn. It was a little place owned by a couple, Lenka and Slavek from Vancouver. There were only six rooms but the rooms were clean and relatively bug-free (minus a few ants I saw and one resident gecko) and they gave me the room on the top floor with a cool night breeze and a comfy hammock. It was really quiet and at the end of "the sidewalk" which is the main way to get to town where everything is located. Not bad for $35 a night, other than the shower wasn't on central water so it had no water pressure...rarely hot water and sometimes no water at all. Headed to town and wandered about (and had to head to the hardware store to deliver a message of "hi" from someone's mom).
Placencia is a great starting point for day trips to the jungle, jaguar preserve, caves, and great diving, snorkeling. I didn't even come close to getting everything done that I wanted to do, but did get to take a trip to Monkey River. The rest of my itinerary ended up changing due to not enough people to go on tours or me just switching my plans. For instance, one day I was suppose to go to the Jaguar Preserve, but decided I wanted to lay on the beach for a bit. I accidentally fell asleep for a bit...only to be woken up by a man jumping out of a palm tree next to me. He had been raking the beach for his friends who were out of town, and was worried that I wasn't drinking enough liquid and would get too hot....so he had climbed into the palm tree to get us some coconuts which he showed me how to break open and drinking the water straight out of them. We talked for a minute and then he wandered off. I then walked in to town to mail my postcards, and when I asked a woman for directions to the post office, we started chatting, and she walked my over to mail my cards. She then invited me back to her house in the village and so I joined her. Her husband was home and we all just sat about and chatted until she invited me to stay for dinner. She showed me how to cook boil-up (chicken, egg, rice, cilantro and random other things) and coconut chocolate macaroons from scratch. I gave her a few bucks for my dinner and then headed out to happy hour. Headed with a group of locals and tourists I had met to a karaoke night (which was an experience...since I can't sing and the power turned off every few minutes...not conducive to karaoke) and then headed back to my room.
Another highlight was getting to see a whale shark. The first night I was there, I met a bunch of guys while I was eating dinner. They were all local dive instructors. One was actually from Monkey River Town/Village and offered to take me out on the boat the next day and show me around, but I could hear my Mom's voice in the back of my head saying "you don't know them...they seem nice enough but they could be ax murders". So I declined and said I would meet them the next night for happy hour. They turned out to be genuine nice guys and we ended up hanging out every night. It was a bit strange being alone and out of my comfort zone and not really knowing who was trustworthy or not, but after hanging out with them a bit, I saw that every one in town knew them and reacted well when they were around. On my last day there, Elroy had invited me to go out on the boat with a whale shark scuba trip he had. Whale sharks are only show up in Placencia for three days before and after the full moon for sometimes March, April, May, and June. It is a huge deal! I hadn't planned to do any diving in Placencia (I still needed to take a refresher class) so I decided to just take my snorkel gear and go along. The first dive there was nothing... but we pull up to the second dive and get in and I hear Louis yelling "Whale Shark" from another boat nearby. I look and it is heading right for our boat! It surfaced right by the boat and I tried to get a picture (but failed). It was a juvenile, but still about 20-22 feet in length. Amazing!!!After my week was up in Placencia, got on the local bus. I figured it would be an experience, and that it was! It was only about $15 (but leaves at 6:00 and takes anywhere from 6-8 hours since it stops anywhere along the way that people are standing or need to get off) and went through Danriga and Belmopan before hitting Belize City. The bus was PACKED and was an old run-down school bus. I was one of the only non-Belizeans on the bus. I only had a backpack and my dive gear, but people did not like that I had luggage and it was taking up room. So I ended up sitting up on my pack and then let a few kids sit on my lap which seemed to make them more at ease. As full as the bus is, it continues to stop and let people on. The front and back door are open and people are spilling out as the bus driver cranks loud reggae music and drives super fast along Hummingbird Highway. Occasionally the bus would break down for a second and the ticket taker would have to go crank something in the front and it would start up again. But it did give me the opportunity to see a lot of the countryside and the mountains. Worth it for the experience, but may not choose it again, should I return.
Belize City was a pit. It is dirty and has relatively high crime and there was still the weird vibe from the political issues going on. I decided to walk from the bus terminal to the water taxi which was stupid. But luckily nothing bad happened (Some guys I met later said that they live there and still cab it) and there was a heavy police/guys with big guns presence. Grabbed a water taxi to Caye Caulker (runs about $30 for a roundtrip ticket but way better than flying).
Caye Caulker was a laid back little island. I had a nice cabana at Trends which was right at the water taxi dock. Caye Caulker is quieter than San Pedro/Ambergris Caye, but still seemed loud compared to Placencia. Being further north and closer to Belize City, there was less creole/mayan influence and way more rastafarians. The sandy beaches were really nice white sand, but there is a lot of sea grass so you can't really swim off the beaches (you can go lay on one of the public piers and swim from there). My main issue with Caye Caulker was that some of the guys there are REALLY aggressive (apparently it stems from Americans coming down there and trying to hook up with the locals so they have grown accustom to hanging out and waiting for what appears to be single women coming of the water taxi and latching on to them immediately). Throughout the trip they would be riding by on bicycles and trying to grab their hand, coming up to the cabana and knocking on my door or milling about outside at midnight, etc. This always makes me massively uncomfortable but especially alone in a foreign place, I wasn't sure how to handle it. Luckily, my first night there, I met a guy (named Jacob originally from Denmark but works for a German fashion company and lives in Miami/Mexico City and San Paulo) staying in the hotel next to me. He and I became buddies for the week, as we both dove during the day and could use a dinner and drinking partner at night so it got the annoying people to leave me alone.
The good part about Caye Caulker was that the diving was amazing! We went to Hol Chan and dove in Eagle Ray Canyon. Also joined along for a day trip to Blue Hole. Went on a total of 6 dives and saw turtles, eels, a nurse shark, tons of eagle rays, lobsters, and barracudas. Jacob was "lucky" and got circled by 3 bull sharks during his safety stop. All and all, awesome! Jacob left a few days before I did, so I went with some locals to Belize City to check out the howler monkey sanctuary. Monkeys! The food was also pretty decent (but not as good or as cheap as Placencia) and I tried conch fritters and barracuda and random other things on my trip to Belize City with the locals on my last day (they got a bunch of stuff like strange unidentified meat in baggies from street vendors that I wasn't sure what it was but I figured I would try it since it was my last day, and if I got sick, I would be home the next day). There is also lobster, bamboo chicken (which is what they call iguana), or gibnut (which is some type of rodent that they occasionally eat) to chow down on.If you would like to see them, my photos are up from the trip. You can also view the photos as a slideshow.
So what I learned:
- NOW I understand why people take vacations...and I will not wait 10-15 years ever again.
- I want to travel everywhere now...I would like to take a trip to Vietnam/Singapore/Thailand and Trinidad/Tobago and Australia is still on my list as well as Greece and Egypt. Yikes, I need to win the lotto!
- Work equals bad... beaches, bathing suits and flip-flops equals good.
- Although it is probably nice to travel with people, traveling alone makes you more available to converse more with the locals and hopefully experience more of their culture.
- Did I mention that I don't want to work any more and would like to run away to live in Placencia?
Love,
Betsy
