An uneventful couple of weeks

Well I'm sorry to report that the past week and a half has seen me doing not too much at all. I have kept on moving and everywhere I've been I've been commonly referred to as the sick girl or coughing girl.

I spent a couple of days in Placencia in Belize before getting the boat across to Honduras. One thing that constantly surprised me in Belize when on buses was the cultural mix. Yes, there are plenty of Mayan, Spanish, Garifuna, Caribe, Creole in Belize - to be expected. But every time I got on a bus in the mainland, I would always see Mennonites. The plainly-dressed white skinned, blonde haired and blue eyed Mennonites always beckoned a second glance. There is quite a large community of them here in Belize.

The boat ride to Puerto Cortes was quite a trip. I was coughing the entire way to the point where my eyeballs nearly popped out. But that was quite okay considering I didn't notice half of the driftwood and trees floating in the water. We were on an extremely fast boat and it wasn't always easy for the captain to see whatever was floating in our way. At one point we did hit something but it did no great damage. Often we'd be speeding along and then at the last second quickly turn to avoid something. Most things I think were the product of Tropical Storm Matthew, as well as the regular debris. I did manage to spot a few entire coconut palms floating by though - no kidding.

I managed to get as far as San Pedro Sula that day - the HIV/AIDS capital of Central America. Not a particularly desirable location and it was probably just as well as I didn't really get out much. The one saving grace was a very nice restaurant across the road from the hostel so a group of us had a bit of a splurge on Saturday night - steak and red wine - as enticing to me as lobster right now. I got down to the chemist as well. You can get most prescription medications over the counter here but I thought I'd just stick to mega doses of vitamins.

I've spent the past five days in and around La Ceiba - another non-eventful and undesirable location. Its where you can really see the difference between the Central American cultures as well. I can't remember the last place I was in where you are constantly wolf-whistled and hassled as you walk down any street - it is constant and annoying so far in Honduras.

I just spent a couple of days at a place in a national park nearby La Ceiba, quite a pretty spot by a river. You can really tell it's low season though as there is hardly anyone around. Most of yesterday we were without electricity and last night there was no beer at all. Fortunately I had my travelling bar of rum and wine. There was another couple staying there too - Aussie guy and Dutch girl. We'd sit around at night drinking and playing cards - I provided the bar and they provided the cards and company. Who knew there was a Monopoly version of cards!

Tomorrow I'm heading off for a week long trip to La Moskitia - the Mosquito Coast. That is the main reason I've been hanging around here this week - that and to get back to health. I'm looking forward to getting on the road and doing stuff again.

Tobacco Caye

I was lucky to get a room on Tobacco Caye as most of the places were still closed - dealing with the big clean up and most of the staff were still not back after the evacuation. Dean who owns the Paradise, where I stayed, was reluctant to let me in but looking sick and pitiful he agreed to clean a room up for me.

Tobacco Caye is a very small island, only five acres. In the storm the water rose several feet and washed up all sorts of rubbish and debris and the place was covered with fallen palm leaves, coconuts, dirt and shells. It was a really big clean up with only a few there to get it done. I told Dean if I felt better I'd give him a hand but all I could manage was to lay in my hammock and read.

The accommodations on the Caye include all meals so I felt quite spoiled coming to dinner to see two lobster tails on my plate. Dean also decided to give me some medicine for whatever it is I have. He is after all the island doctor he told me, qualified because his girlfriend is a nurse!

The next morning there was a knock at my door - the only other tourist on the island was Leanne, an Aussie. She arrived the day before me and heard there was another tourist here. Sadly I wasn't up to joining her for a day out on a boat with snorkelling but I did promise to catch up with her in the bar that night for a quiet rum - it would be good for my cough.

I didn't do much that day either although I did pop out for a little snorkel which you can do right off the island as the reef is just there. I also went for a walk to circumnavigate the island - that took about ten minutes. It was slightly embarrassing when people who I'd never met before were asking me how I was feeling. With only about 10 locals on the island and two tourists - there's no secrets here.

Tobacco Caye is lovely although I didn't get to see it in its usual beauty and the weather was just okay. Although if I'm feeling like crap I think I'd rather be in an overwater cabin, laying in a hammock reading a book, than anywhere else...

Waiting for the storm

The mainland towns in Belize are more like country towns - dusty/sandy roads, old tumbledown wooden houses with not a straight wall or floor in sight and people slowly going about their business.

Dangriga is the largest town in the south of Belize with a population of about 10,000 - but there is nowhere to go out at night. The streets are full of locals hanging around or walking about but no-one actually goes anywhere in particular for entertainment. It's kind of strange. Sam and I ended up at a little restaurant type place for a couple of beers after wandering around for a good hour trying to find somewhere to go.

With not much to do here, i figured I'd head out to Tobacco Caye the following day. To get there you head to the Riverside Cafe in the morning and the boat captains wait for enough people to make the trip worth their while. The day before I was having lunch in a restaurant and they had the weather channel on. The Tropical Depression "Matthew" which was on its way had just been upgraded from a tropical depression to a tropical storm - not great news as it was heading directly for Belize. At the cafe in the morning they were studying the satellite images on the internet and it looked as though we might be okay, Matthew would hit Honduras sometime on Saturday night and hopefully dissipate once it was overland. Just before we were about to go the call came in that they were evacuating Tobacco Caye so I wasn't able to go after all. Given I was ready to go somewhere, Dog, the boat captain, suggested I head to Hopkins.

Hopkins is another Garifuna town and has a population of about 1,000 and I can confidently say that I was the only tourist there. It is a long dirt road that runs along a spit for several miles so everything is very spaced out making quite long distances to walk from one place to another. Most of the restaurants were closed and there wasn't really anything else going on so it was probably quite good timing to pick this place to get sick and wait out the storm.

Matthew finally arrived on Saturday night and while it downgraded again to a Tropical Depression, it packed a huge punch - the wind and rain was unbelievable. It was about midday on Sunday when the weather finally settled down and everything had an eerie calmness to it. Dorothy who ran the place where I stayed suspected it was then the eye of the storm and we would get the other half soon but it turned out that last night's chaos was all there was - thankfully.

Independence Day

The 21st of September is Independence Day in Belize. Originally a British colony, Belize gained independence in 1981 and today has a population of just over 300,000. Belize is a small country bordering Mexico and Guatemala with a long coastline on the Caribbean Sea boasting the second longest barrier reef in the world.

The festivities for Independence Day have been going on for a while and when I arrived there was a huge party next door at the basketball court, ahem, I mean, Central Park. Last night was the fireworks and today the parade.

The island was in a party mood last night and we kicked off with a visit back to our karaoke bar where we realised we weren't as good as we thought we were. But we kept practicing.

At midnight were the fireworks. Everyone piled over to the eastern side of the island where they were set off from the end of a dock. Given the population of Caye Caulker is somewhere between 1,200 and 2,000, there was plenty of room for everyone and you could hear the oohs and ahhs from people standing a long way away, rather than someone on top of you screaming in your ear like in Sydney on NYE. The fireworks were absolutely beautiful and went for a solid fifteen minutes, about twelve minutes more than I expected. After the fireworks the "Central Park" again turned into a big nightclub type place, booming music but not much dancing. Unbelievably, every child was still there at 1.30am - no one misses out on this party.

Today was the parade which everyone was looking forward to. A local guy, Madingo, who I met at the Lazy Lizard yesterday, was making hats and costumes for some of the girls. He actually made a hat for us while we were at the bar - you'll see it and him in the video if you can bear the hectic pace of the parade - it's towards the end.

The 2pm parade kicked off just before 3pm and there was much anticipation. It travelled about 100 metres up the main street and then down one of the side streets and around the block. It's a small island so we do small versions of everything, Kevin told me. Most people get around the island with either golf carts or bicycles so there were plenty of decked out versions of both in the parade - as well as the hilarious fire engine which led the parade. As I write this, "Central Park" is again party central with very loud reggaton music and the odd nationalistic song thrown in. Everyone's having a great time - how could you not?

Caye Caulker

And so here I am in sunny Belize after a long, hot, journey involving two boats and a bus. Caye (pron. key) Caulker is a post-card pretty island in the Caribbean, with white sand streets, colourful buildings and the odd coconut palm tree. It is quite strange being in an English speaking country after so long, and it takes a while to adjust to the accent here – but it is beautiful. I wish we all spoke with a laid back Caribbean accent. Another weird thing is understanding what people are saying when you overhear conversations - it really has been a while.

Caye Caulker is great if you like diving, snorkeling, sailing, fishing or just lying around in the sun. There aren’t really beaches to speak of but around the island there are long docks where you can jump off the end to swim. There is also what is called The Split which is in the middle of the island, well the north of the island now. A few years ago a hurricane came through and cut the island in two so the area called the split is quite a nice spot for swimming and sun bathing now. The bar there, Lazy Lizard, is the perfect spot to have a cool beer if you’re a little overheated. Most things are on the island south of The Split.

My friend Nick from Puerto Escondido and Oaxaca turned up the day after I did which was a great surprise. We spent that first afternoon lounging about in the water up at Lazy Lizard, followed by a lobster dinner, a couple of drinks and a karaoke number at the Oceanside. I have to say that out of the eight or so performances we witnessed at the bar, we were the only ones to get both audience participation and applause!

To celebrate spending International Talk Like A Pirate Day in the most appropriate of places - Belize - we went out for a day of snorkeling, opting for the sailboat rather than a little speedboat. Instead of listening to the drone of an engine we had reggae. Yeah.

It was such a magnificent day – perfect weather, unbelievable coral and marine life. We got off quite literally to a rocky start with the ship beaching itself on a small reef not long after setting off. Sails down and after a little rocking of the boat we dislodged ourselves. I couldn’t help but laugh.

We went to three different locations. At the first, North Channel, we were lucky to see and swim with two manatees. They are the giant creatures that are sometimes called sea elephants or sea cows. It was just amazing to watch them play with each other, only a few metres away.

The second stop was Shark Ray Alley where we jumped into water full of nurse sharks and sting rays to then swim over to some more beautiful coral and see even more amazing fish.

The final stop was Hol Chan Marine Reserve. This area has been a protected marine reserve for 25 years so all the fish there have grown really big and there are just so many of them – large schools of all kinds of fish. It was great to see really large snapper and grouper, as well as all sorts of brightly coloured tropical fish in huge numbers, sea turtles, eagle rays, sting rays, starfish and an eel. Our guide was the super-cool Kevin – he would just jump straight in the water with his full length commando pants and then free-dive down around 20 metres, swim through underwater caves and pick up sharks and rays in his arms to bring them up for everyone to see.

I think I'll be here for a few more days...

Guatemala

Guatemala is a truly fascinating country. I have now spent a collective six weeks here and could easily spend twice that amount of time here, or more. The roads are terrible but the country is blessed with both natural beauty and wonderful, interesting and friendly people.

It’s hard to say exactly what it is that is so magical about Guatemala, but it just is. Everyone should try to come here at least once in their lives – you’ll leave both content and happy – sort of like that feeling after a big Christmas lunch.

The video upload is playing up but you can view the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG7sS2lIjRA

Livingston

I was grateful to arrive in Livingston after quite a pleasant boat trip up the river. It is amazing to have this little town stuck out in the far reaches of Guatemala that is unique both for Guatemala and Central America. The town is only small and if you walk along the main street from the dock on the river, after about ten minutes you get to the Caribbean Sea, from where you can see both Belize and Honduras. Livingston is only accessible by boat so it is more like being on an island than on the mainland.

There are four cultural groups in Livingston, the Garifuna (decended from the Caribe and, apparently, escaped West African slaves), Maya, Hindu and Chinese, although I didn’t see any evidence of the last two groups.

On my wanderings on the first day I met Paulo who took me for a tour through the Garifuna neighbourhood. No-one comes here he told me, they’re afraid of the black skin. It was Guatemalan Independence Day and there were a lot of celebrations going on although I’m pretty sure it is like this most of the time. The full bar with loud music and dancing, he explained was an everyday occurrence, not just for the holiday.

Paulo told me stories about himself and the community which was really interesting. He was telling me about something that happened the day before. One guy wanted to go after a younger guy with a machete – obviously he wasn’t happy about this young punk who got is 16 year old daughter pregnant. Paulo intervened, Man he said, this kid is not your enemy. The hormones are the enemy and there’s no way you can fight those. He also told me about his daughters, 15 and 17 – they were very hormonic he said.

Unfortunately I didn’t spend as long in Livingston as I could have. The boat to Belize only goes twice a week and it was either two nights there or six. I’d have preferred six but I have limited time left and I can’t dilly-dally around anywhere for too long now, and after the Rio Dulce thing...

The hostel there, Iguanas, was great, similar to Zephyr in set up and vibe – this was also helped by Dieter who works at Zephyr coming to Iguana for a few days to celebrate his birthday. There were some late nights and lots of fun and good conversation but it was time to end my second visit to Guatemala, sadly.