Cesna 280s

i am in punta gorda, via maya island airlines, pictured here. this is the furthest southern town in all of belize.

the flight was harrowing. that's actually a lie as it was a totally calm flight without even any turbulance. we landed in three places during the flight. it's like a bus-plane. :) three take offs and three landings on airstrips that are as long as a typical american driveway and surrounded on three sides by water. i'll never be afraid to land at boston's logan aiport (surrounded by water as well) again. if i never fly in a tuna-can-airplane again it will be too soon. the older i get the more scared i am of flying. it sucks.

i am headed out tomorrow a.m. at 6am to the village of laguna. the dude here at nature's way guest house (who is older and american and has been in belize for i think 30 years plus) was one of the founder's of the ecotourism program. he recommended laguna specifically. i'll be back here on monday and then i'm headed north.

off to enjoy the sea breeze even though it's gotta be 100 degrees here and then to eat something. i haven't eaten since my scrambled eggs, tortilla and sausage breakfast on the beach this morning. life is tough.

Into the Jungle

I'm blowing this golf-cart filled, flip-flop wearing, dive-junkie town and heading south into the jungle tomorrow. Who knows what that will bring?

Hoping the rest of Belize is cheaper. Realizing I didn't bring enough cash. :)

Tan, tan, tan. I'll be brown till Thanksgiving!

Will post as soon as I'm able.

Lata.

Prices in San Pedro

This island is much more expensive than I'd planned on. The first day, I was shocked at the prices. Even though the Belize dollar is pegged to the U.S. dollar 2 to 1, prices seem to be inflated so they are roughly the same as what you'd pay in the U.S. for things.

Examples:
- t-shirt: $22 Belize dollars
- lobster: $54 Belize dollars
- coffee: $4 Belize dollars
- internet: $5 Belize dollars for 20 minutes

Thus, I've been eating very cheaply for breakfast and lunch and then eating a real dinner. Breakfast: a baked good at the bakery for $2BD and a cup of crappy coffee for $1.25BD. Lunch: rice and beans with stewed chicken (THE meal of Belize) for $7 or $8BD.

I've had some great dinners. Grouper, fish burritos, garlic shrimp potato, snapper, lobster fritters. And last night, my diving friends Susan and Brock who are from Denver and are aeronautical engineers for Lockheed Martin treated me to dinner. Very nice.

So, here's hopin' that once I hit the mainland and go into the jungle, prices drop. :) Hee hee.

Beer Prayer

Painted on the wall of Fido's (pronounced feed-doze -- get it?) in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize, Central America.

Our Lager
Who art in Barrels
Hallowed be thy Drink.

Thy will be drunk
(I will be drunk)
At home as in the Tavern.

Give us this day our foamy head
and forgive us our spillages
as we forgive those who spill
against us.

And lead us not into incarceration
but deliver us from hangovers.

For thine is the beer
the bitter and the lager
Forever and ever.
Barmen.

(read the post below this one, which is the real post for today!)

The Privelege of Diving

I was laying on a huge boat today, for 2 and a half hours, heading out to the Blue Hole, in the middle of the ocean. And I had a great day. I mean really really great. One of those days that you chalk up and say "Well, I can die happy now."

It started with dolphins entertaining the boat and a captain willing to slow down and chill so we could check them out. Tons of them.

The Blue Hole is incredible. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that. First of all, you can't see it. It just looks like the rest of the ocean. Then, you drop down onto a sandy ledge at about 40 feet and then go over the edge and drop down into the abyss. At 130 feet (30m), there's still another 350 feet below you (350 feet! that is so deep) and huge, amazing stalagtites (or stalagmites, I don't know, the kind that hang DOWN, not point UP) all around. They are HUGE. The DiveMaster next to them showed us perspective. They are about 30-50 feet long. Just hanging down there underwater. The water was really clear, too.

I got bad narcosis/vertigo. I got this a few times when I lived in Thailand, and the result is, instead of the usual narcosis-euphoria, a quick on-set paranoia. I got nervous, my heart pounded out of my chest, I breathed heavy and I started having icky thoughts (panicky ones). So I ascended a few feet (literally about 4 or 5 feet) and it went away, just as it is supposed to.

The DM took us out away from the wall for a about 25 feet into the blue and there were the Caribbean Grey Reef Sharks. Tons of them. Seriously. About 10. Swimming all around us. It was super cool and sort of scary. A few were about 8 feet long and others were only about 5 feet. When we got back on the boat later, because it was low season and there weren't any other divers still in the water, the DMs fed them some fish off the side, and let me tell you, I'm glad nobody did that while we were still in the water, or I wouldn't be writing this right now.

Then we went to a World Heritage Site, the home of the Boobies (birds, all you dirty folks out there) and dropped off our snorkelers and went to the second dive. Very very cool. Amazing reef life. I've never seen anything like it. Some Muppet Show divers, but the fish knew exactly what they were doing. :)

Went back to the island, Half Moon Caye is its name, and ate a wicked lunch with coconut pie for dessert. Then we did the final dive at The Aquarium. That's the name of the site. With good reason. More fish than I've ever seen anywhere. Starfish, shrimp, conch, turtle at the end. It was absolutely glorious.

The staff were amazing. All Belizean. All really good. And so back to the privelege of diving, the title of this post.

I'm fine with the fact that diving is for the priveleged. It's expensive. Some things are. And I guess that's just a fact. Not everything is accessible to everyone. But what struck me when I got back to my room and showered and was sitting and thinking is this: all the staff of the diveshops here are Belizean. The DMs, the owners, the equipment folks, the boat captains. Everyone.

Then why did I convince myself for years that Thailand needed me to bring diving to their country and help their tourist industry? Because they did. I don't think your average (or even your relatively priveleged) Thai could afford the fees to learn to dive and learn to be a DM. So they are priced out of running their own diving industry. And PADI or NAUI certainly aren't going to drop fees to help locals, I don't think.

Belizeans, from what I can tell, can make this happen for themselves. The experience is better for the diver I think. Germans came to Thailand and learned to dive from a German. Americans could seek out another American to teach them. I learned a lot today about Belize and hurricanes and marine life and names of fish and how the barrier reef protects the islands; from someone who has lived here his entire life.

Not that heavy of a thought at the end of my amazing day. Just some awareness I've never had before. Glad it found me today.

Buceando

Diving!



By the numbers:

- 6 divers
- 2 nurse sharks
- 1 very nice Belizian Divemaster
- 1 very nice Belizian boat captain
- 80 feet deep
- 3 stingrays (2 of which were very big)
- 1 brown-spotted moray eel
- 1 baby boxfish (so cute!)
- 20+ huge-ass brown spotted grouper
- 2 fish who came along on the whole dive with us
- tons of awesome canyons and rocks covered in coral and fans
- 5 little bags of water (Crystal, the Belizian water company makes these little 10 oz bags of water. you bite the corner off and suck the water out. We decided they should make beer like that. In strips like bandaids. Then you just rip off a little bag of beer and go!)
- 10 more dives to look forward to! (Including 2 at the Blue Hole, pictured at the top of this post.) Woot!

Estoy aqui!

I'm here. Tiny little island. Looks and feels a lot like Koh Tao (where I lived in Thailand, for those of you joining the Karen Show in season 2 or 3 or whatever).

Flew on a tiny, itty-bitty little prop plane to get here. I hate flying, even in big, giant, reliable planes, so it was a test (especially after that little one recently crashed in Thailand).

The "airport" here on Ambergris Caye is an airstrip with a bunch of little huts clustered on one end. You get off the plane and walk to whatever hut belongs to the airline you flew in on. Yes, there is more than one airline...capitalism! Then, there's a little porch and a little wooden sign out in the "yard" off the porch that has"Baggage Claim" painted on it. The guys take the bags out of the plane (which I can only hope were strategic in their stowing to balance weight) and pull them over manually on a cart to the area between the sign and the porch. Then they unload the bags, handing them to you over the porch railing. This part I believe was due to the rain. I think that when it's not raining, you just go get them off the cart. They even had a tarp to cover them for the trip from the plane to the porch.

So yeah, it's raining, but the locals tell me that it just started today and it's been raining at night, but not during the day. Diving doesn't need sun, so I'm cool. Just talked to the dive school and I'm good to go for tomorrow a.m. I have to be there at 8:30. Woot!

According to the taxi driver, everyone speaks English and Spanish here. So that's good. After I asked, he said that he tries to speak English, but...and he faltered. So I finished his sentence, "Tu preferencia es espanol?" And he smiled and then the rest of our conversation was in Spanish. Very nice.

Once I actually have something interesting to report, I'll back. For now, I'm going wandering.

Besos.

Independencia

It is 9:05 p.m. The Sox are up 3 to 1 in the bottom of the 4th. I just parked my car in my new neighbor-friends' driveway two doors down. The taxi is coming at 4 a.m. I have traveller's checks, a full pack ready to go, reservations at a dive operator for a week, and no plans for my second week. I'm off!

I haven't been on a true travelling trip in a few years. Actually, I haven't just gone and figured it out when I got there since I came home from Asia in 2002. In early '04 I went on a Caribbean cruise. In Fall '04, Alaska. In Summer '05, Bolivia, and that was 2 weeks of homestay and Spanish school, totally organized. In early '06, Barcelona (didn't have solid plans for that one, but no plans to go anywhere other than that one city). Then Paraguay, which since it was Peace Corps, was obviously organized. Finally, Puerto Rico in January '06 for only 4 nights, one town, with a friend.

So the nervousness I felt this morning as I was getting all the last minute details ready to go is normal. Even though everyone thinks I'm all adventurous and risk-taking and bestows upon me all the bravery that goes with that, I'm not really.

I'm pretty psyched, though. I can't wait to dive and am holding my breath while still on land that I will get to dive! (Weather may still, in the end, work against me and everyone knows that you should never hold your breath while diving!) I am still up in the air about whether I'm going to Guatemala or not. It depends what the traveller so'o (gossip line) tells me about the election activity there. No matter what, though, I'll foray across the border to Tikal on a tour from San Ignacio in Belize. Then I can at least say I went. (BTW, San Ignacio was the name of the biggest town close to my site in Paraguay. Interesante, no?)

I also just read in my Lonely Planet and saw again in my National Geographic Traveller magazine about this cool ecotourism company in Belize where you go to a town, wait for the bus to a series of villages and then go stay in a small Mayan village for a night or two. 80% of the money goes directly to the village and only 20% to the overhead costs of the company. Very cool. I might be VERY up for that.

I will purchase the prize for the winner of the pool in my office regarding how many emails I will have on my work email when I return. After 10 work days, 6 weekend days and one holiday day away, the guesses range from 397 to 540 and one savvy person went with "1" since the rule is "closest without going over." I will take care to choose a very good prize for the winner.

I love to travel. The signature quote on my email is from Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It says:

"I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby - I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to - I just don't care."

Yup. And that's why I go. There is nothing like independent travel. Nothing.

Are you .... than a 5th Grader?

Fifth Graders in the U.S. are 10. Approximately. We have all been treated to Jeff Foxworthy on Fox since February on this show where adult contestants have to answer questions that any American 5th Grader knows. It's annoying. (And amazingly enough, has already been replicated in Australia, beginning this month.)

The question I ask myself is not if I am smarter than your average 5th Grader, but whether I can compete with them in other ways. I am inspired to write this post given what just happened to me at the Government Center Plaza farmer's market. Read on.

1. Am I a Better Flirter than a 5th Grader?
I'd venture to say "no" to this one. 10-year-olds are notoriously interested in the world around them and willing to talk to people to learn more about whatever's going on. Not only that, but they are still young enough to be cute and charming and old enough to know how to manipulate the person they are talking to into giving them what they want. Further, they are full of confidence. They haven't crossed over to the "am I good enough, cute enough, blah blah crap" that hinders our ability to organically interact with other people. Now, I realize it probably isn't all that appropriate to call this flirting, especially when the participants are one 10-year-old and one adult, but fast forward it 20 years and it's flirting. And they'd kick my ass. Boys and girls.

2. Am I in Better Control of my Body than a 5th Grader?
A dead tie. I fall down. Regularly. When I'm just walking down the street, sometimes. I trip over things that aren't there. I walk into poles, corners, and doors. I bump my head. I hit things with my bag when I'm carrying one. I drop stuff. I had this problem when I was young, as many 10-year-olds do. They aren't totally aware of their size or their surroundings, they don't pay enough attention, and they are usually growing so fast, that as soon as they get used to their body, it changes again. Most people grow out of it. I apparently haven't. I fell today on nothing on the sidewalk at the aforementioned farmer's market. I don't even really get that embarrassed anymore, I'm so used to it. So now, I can add "totally scraped up knee" to the long list of injuries and scars I've added to my body just in the past year. It's amazing.

3. Do I Need Less Sleep than a 5th Grader?
Not really. I am a bit of a disaster when I don't get my 8 hours. Most 5th graders need tons of sleep -- you know the whole growing, learning thing is tiring. I haven't really gotten the reprieve that was supposed to come with age.

4. Do I Rely Less on my Parents than a 5th Grader?
Well, obviously, yes. But not really. I think some 5th Graders, if given the choice and the ability to earn their own money to feed and house themselves, might do better than I at this one. I really dig my parents. I like spending time with them, like talking to them, and feel like it's my duty to help them out when they need it. I talk to my mother almost every day. Pretty sure most 5th graders would rather die than admit what I just wrote.

5. Can I Do my Hair and Makeup Better than a 5th Grader?
No. And this one is even more humiliating given the fact that most 5th Graders number 1, don't wear makeup (I hope.) and number 2, don't usually do their own hair. But, I'd venture to guess that if they did, they would do it better than I. My makeup is usually either gone or all over my face my noon. More than half the time, I pull my hair up because I can't deal with actually doing it. I'm too old to lose this one, but I think I would.

6. Do I Get Along with my Siblings better than a 5th Grader?
Yes. Big yes. Most 5th Graders are usually trying to kill a sibling while their parents aren't looking. This is the game show for me. I'd win this one. I love my siblings and they love me. We fight, sure, but they are adult fights (with an occasional carry-over from childhood thrown in). We don't give each other noogies or wedgies and we don't pour stuff in each others' beds. We know better than to run to a parent to rat out another. We understand how sacred our relationships are.

So there you go. I'd win one stand off against a bunch of 5th Graders, and that one is largely due to perspective. I've always harbored a secret desire to go back to being 8 or 10. Apparently, I've maintained enough characteristics of someone this age that I don't have to go back. I'll just carry on!