Placencia to San Ignacio

I was up at 5:30 so I could catch the water taxi by 6:00. Leena and I walked to the taxi got a quick ride through some mangroves and canals and were over to Independence in no time. I bought some banana bread of a young street vendor and awaited the express bus to Belmopan. We then hopped the next bus to San Ignacio. The day is starting to get hot as we drive slowly through the countryside picking up may people heading into San Ignacio for the Saturday market. I spend most of the reading in my guidebook about the area. Once in town we hustle past a couple of eager cabbies looking for those tourist dollars and land at Eva's Restaurant and tourist information center. We ate some passable Belizian food and then walked around town and checked out the market. As it turned out my friends from the area had headed to Flores, Guatemala for the weekend. I wanted to head over their to see the ruins of Tikal but am beginning to think that I am going to have to save it for another trip. So Leena and I decide to find a room together for the night and settle upon Elvira's Guest House run by nice Latino family as a good budget option. We take another walk around town looking for a place called Hode's recommended to us by a guy named Douglass staying at the guest house. He is an American from Missouri who has figured out how to live in the area for a couple of months each winter on a smaller and smaller amounts of money. It is Douglass that tells that we shouldn't tip or the Belizians wont respect us. In the next breath he tells us that the minimum wage is 1.40US an hour and with gas prices at 5.00US a gallon it is hard to see how any worker would be able to afford fuel for a vehicle. We walked around town trying not to stray too far because of warnings about safety at night. Using pure instinct we found Cafe Cayo and had a lovely pizza and a couple of glasses of wine. The food was good and the service was the most exuberant I have seen in Belize. Our waitress had returned to Belize after 12 years trying to "make it" in the States. Which just goes to show it's tough no matter where you where you are. She's said she was just so happy to be home and without all the junk food she had lost 30 lbs - beans and rice will do that to you. I'm beginning to look a little wiry myself. After dinner we head back to Elvira's and got to bed.

Rainy Days in Sunny Cities

Today we woke to crashing thunder. I heard there was some great lightning too, but I stayed in bed. Elliot was out the door early all pumped up from to go look for land in the south. As I have only a few days left of vacation I thought I would start a trip north to San Ignacio where I have a contact. I walk Elliot to the Hokey Pokey water taxi, make sure I can access my bank account and run for the internet cafe in a break in the rain. Do a blog post, have some breakfast and find another guest house that would be more affordable for the single traveler. I find a little place called Omar's Guest House that caters to the budget traveler. It is a rainy day in a town known as a beach destination so I shop for a couple of trinkets and spend most of the day on the Internet. Back at Omar's I run into Leena the Australian that we ate Thanksgiving with the night before. Her friends were all heading off to Honduras and points beyond while she was planning on heading to the North to San Ignacio. She's got the story on the bus schedule which involves taking a 6 AM water taxi to a town called Independence. We take a little walk into town for some takeout Chinese food (Most Common type of Restaurant in Belize) and some beers from the market. Well we get back to the hostel and are eatin' our grub when the political/religious debate breaks out. I give this Danish guy Jacob my run down on the sad state of US economics and my sympathies for secession. As it turns out my weekly salary wouldn't even be considered minimum wage in his country. Well the debate turns religious and was quite interesting for a while with 2 Israelis and the Dane really gettin' into it. But either the quantities of rum consumed or the language barrier prevents them from coming to any breakthroughs. The Christian sees the Jews as a race that justifies killing yet will not acknowledge his own faith's bloody roots. He just says that if you kill then you are no longer a true Christian. I guess everyone chooses whatever they like from that book and runs with it. After we have rehashed the battle of Jericho and the slaughter of the Canaanites about 3 times, I decide that no more forward progress is going to be made and head out to find some music. Vacation is too short to listen to arguments that clearly can only be solved by war. (Does sarcasm come through on a blog) The bar had just a few folks but some great drumming. I had a beer and recorded a little sample for you all. Check it out.

Thanksgiving in Belize

Elliot took off early today and I never saw him again. But the weather was beautiful and I enjoyed myself eating well, laying in a hammock and catching up on my blog. How ya'll likin' it so far? Contact me and let me know. Well the day was generally uneventful until we were invited to have Thanksgiving Dinner. The funny thing that it was the Swedes who set the whole thing up. The place was called Wendy's Restaraunt I went for the Lobster rather than the Turkey and the food was probably the best I have had in Belize. Highly reccomended. After that we went to ladies night at The Tipsy Tuna the local sports bar. The place was full of a bunch of forlorn looking dudes but I think we livened up the place and the kareoke went till the wee hours. It was certainly the most ethnically diverse thanksgiving I've ever had with 3 Americans, 2 Brits, 2 Swedes, 1 Aussie and 1 Swinglish(half Swiss/half Eglish). It was a jolly time.

Scuba Diving in Belize

In the morning Elliot went on a snorkeling trip with George while I prepared to go scuba diving for the first time in 8 years. Eric, the divemaster at Reef's End Lodge eased me back into it and reminded me that it is just like riding a bike. The whole island out there is run on generators and solar panels so the massive compressor that it take to compress air for the scuba tanks runs on diesel fuel that down here is about $5US a gallon. Which must make running this lodge very expensive. But I was very excited to get down there and see the fish, lobster, and coral. We went down to 50-60ft and were underwater for about 45 minutes. It was just like riding a bike- underwater. So Miss D cooked up another nice meal and we headed back on the boat to Dandriga. I am planning another trip down here in January for people who want to learn to scuba dive so if you are interested you can contact me for more details. We jumped the next bus to Placencia which traveled at high rates of speed on sketchy roads but we made it safely and posted up at a nice place on the beach called Lydia's.

Tobacco Caye

In the morning I found the saint and got our trade worked out. I visited the office for their dive center and picked out a domain for their new expanded scuba diving operations in Belize. This took most of the morning mostly because this place is like most tropical places I've been to and taking the time to talk story is just as important as anything else. We took the boat out in the afternoon and once on this tiny little island (5 acres total) we put our stuff in the cabin, went for a swim, saw some manta and eagle rays and then spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and learning dominos from George a man who has been living mostly on Tobacco Caye for the last 15 years. Miss D, the lady in charge cooked us a great conch dinner, then George gave us a tour of the island and we met most of the islands 20 residents. The moon is almost full and a real beauty viewed from the reef far away from city lights.

Parties and Politics

We slept late after being up to 3:00am. We talked to the owner for a long time an Ex-Pat from South Carolina who has been coming to Belize for 20 years, now married to a Garifuna woman. They're place was really quite nice and the also run spear fishing and adventure tours in Belize. We caught a ride into town in order to find a cheaper room. The town had been partying throught the night and people were starting to look a little haggard. The parade was in full swing with music blairing and so many people you couldn't even walk through the main street. We connected back up with the saint and I arranged a deal with him to go out to his resort on Tobacco Caye- Reef's End Lodge. We ate some more creole cuisine and headed back to our place near the beach to relax for the rest of the day.


We've also started learning a bit about the political situation in Belize. There are two main political parties in Belize the PUP and the ADP. They use the colors Blue and Red respectively just like in the states. The PUP has been in power for many years and have attained a high level of corruption and are running large deficits for such a small country. One interesting analysis was that there are 2 things crushing Belize- America and Cocaine. The two go hand in hand with America driving the demand for cocaine with huge profits to be made by the drug lords. As the cocaine travels through Belize people involved in the trade are paid in cocaine which floods the market with cheap drugs and lots of addicts. Belize City is in bad shape in regards to the use of crack cocaine and violence at the moment. This country still in its infancy is being fed tons of coca like a fetal crack baby in the ghetto. Its problems may be too great before it even gets out of the womb. What was the suggested solution? Legalization and taxation in the US to fund rehabilitation this would in turn take all of the money out trafficking and the illegal market giving the poor in Central America a fighting chance.

Garifuna Day in Dandriga

We walked around town for much of the morning. I actually found a little Cuban coffee shop where I got some real coffee for the first time since leaving the states. We packed up our stuff and headed back to the water taxi where we were planning on going over to Caye Caulker for another night of island life, but we met this guy Cones who told us that the Belizian national holiday Garifuna Day actually started that night in Dandriga. When traveling it is always important to be flexible with your plans especially when it involves the biggest party that happens in the country all year. Even if it is a celebration of black culture and you are about as white as they come. So we took the taxi back to Belize City and jumped on the bus to Dandriga. Well when you arrive in town on the big national holiday without a reservation you might be out of luck. We stopped in every hotel and boarding house looking for some place to stay but couldn't find a thing. When we ran into a fisherman who was trying to sell us a water taxi to Tobacco Caye we asked him if he knew a man named "the Saint" who Elliot had met a couple of years previous in Guatemala who owned a place on Tobacco Caye. Well the saint turned out to be this man's cousin and told us where we could find him at the Riverside Cafe (which served excellent Belizian creole food and was where I ate several meals over the next couple of days. He brought us out to the Salty Dog Tavern where we found the last room in town mostly because it was much more expensive than any we had seen in Belize.

But beggars can't be choosers so we ponied up the $75US for the cabana. Had a couple of beers with the saint and headed back into town which was packed to the brim with people in full festival mode. The streets were packed and we riding around in the back of the saint's truck while he and another Belizian guy were catcalling every beautiful woman and girl in town. They are quite aggressive and vocal about their affections down here. It was a great night that included lots of African drumming an Belekin stout. We did get in a little hot water with a couple of hustlers who put something hard in Elliot's side and told him that he could make it all better for 1000 US dollars. Elliot being an ex-marine didn't take it so well and hit him nice and hard right below the solar plexus grabbed me and said "It's getting bad let's get out of here quick and we were off back to the cafe. Another hustler girl stole 20 bucks out of my hand as I was trying to buy some water but other than that it was a really good time. I just thought of it as a cover charge for an amazing festival where people were really celebrating their culture. A small price to pay to be a part of it. A redistribution of wealth as a Mexican "judge" once said.