Central America: San Ignacio

These ruins are called Xunantunich, and they are right down the road from the place we are staying. Everyone else opted for the $75 tour of caves nearby, I walked down the street- literally- and had a great time walking around for only $5. (They do have an admission fee.) Very interesting place, but on the way out I looked in their exhibit hall, and learned about the restoration. I was a little surprised to see the before and after photos of the site. It seems most of it was re-created...and the friezes are not real at all. They are based on the originals, but then the archaeologists reburied the originals behind the stand ins. Huh. And many of the steps and walls were made from limestone that they cut specifically for the restoration. I guess I just thought that the Mayan ruins would be the way they were found, and that is not the case.

In town, I wandered around and came upon these two guys, swimming their horses upriver. Why they chose to swim them all the way up the river I cannot say! But it was a hot day, and the horses seemed to think nothing of it. It made me think of all the times I swam with Jake. Fun to do...someday I will get to do that again with another horse.

This is the ferry that takes you across the river so that you can continue your walk to the ruins. It is a short ride, and technically it's free, but we tipped the ferryman. Later on, I walked back down and swam in the river. And, honestly, I brought shampoo and washed my hair because the water supply from the rainwater catch system at the huts leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, it's clean water, but it takes forever to even wet your hair, never mind wash it. And since the last several nights my shower was similar, I really just wanted to be able to dunk my whole self into fresh WATER. I don't like salt water, and that day I went snorkeling I sure got wet, but it was the wrong kind of wet, you know? Salt...itchy.

Tomorrow we are off at 9am for Flores.

Central America: San Ignacio

This morning's water taxi took us from Caye Caulker back to Belize City. I loved this ride even more, as it was daylight for the duration (the last one it got dark half way thru, and although exciting because of the speed, we couldn't see much). I took a chance and tried a self portrait with the wee digital camera. Eh.
Belize City. Looking back towards the bus station, we had a half hour to kill between the water taxi and the bus. the BUS, by the way, is one of the old USA school buses that make their way down here. I got such a kick out if that, it still had the children's names (assigned seating) on the walls above the seats. And although buses are large, they are still geared towards kids, right? My knees were right up against the seat in front of me...and I am not tall by any means! Funny. The bus ride was maybe 2.5 hours, and then from there to our sleeping spot for the night in San Ignacio.

The bus windows stuck quite a bit, it was SO hot, and we all struggled to get them open while we sat in the bus station. Then when it got going, it was so fast we were all getting whipped by the wind and had to close them again! A different kind of driving down here. At times, I had to grab a hold of the seat in front of me to keep from sliding into the lady next to me. It was that fast, and around corners, too!

The kids names...so cute.

One of our cabins at the Trek Stop in San Ignacio. A low key, environmental kind of place. They have separate cabins with a fan, rainwater collected showers, and composting toilets. The other girls are a bit leery of the toilets and showers. Heck, after India nothing surprises me much. I am ok with it! Update/Add in: they have a resident tarantula here, as part of their display. (They have children's educational groups in to learn about the ecosystem, animals, birds, etc. They even have a butterfly breeding program and butterfly house to see on the grounds) Although we are clearly not im danger from the caged tarantula, we were told that they release the spider each month and catch a new one. Seeing as the wee thing is caged up like a gerbil, I can understand why a month is long enough. What interests me is how easy is it to find new inventory? Hmmmmmm? Because it sounds like they simply go outside and select a new one pretty easily. Oh, and last night was full of all sorts of interesting jungle sounds. Bellows, yips, howls, and plenty of bird sounds. I couldn't have possibly identified all the sounds. I am grateful I brought earplugs, otherwise I would never have slept at all.

The showers (closer to me and on the left) and the toilets farther back. I have discovered that the water pressure, despite coming from a large tank above my head, is really not much. Seriously. It took me about 4 times as long as usual to even WET my hair, and then I was secong-guessing if I should even bother with shampoo because to rinse it all out.....oh, man. It took forever. Mabe it was just that shower head, perhaps it's a little blocked? I'll try another one later today to see.

As we made out way back into San Ignacio from the Trek Stop (6 miles outside of town) we got stopped, along with everyone else. They were randomly searching cars for drugs. Tomorrow we have a free day to do what we want with. however, our guide brought us to a tour office and they told us about some things that they can bring us to in the area tomorrow as a day trip. because the trips were expensive ($75) I am opting to simply walk around town and then get a taxi to some nearby Mayan ruins. I figure if the trips were something that I absolutely had to go on, I'd pay the money. But they are : Caving (don't love caves), River Tubing (eh, sounds ok but nothing too exciting), Mayan Ruins (we are already set to go to Tikal), and canoeing (again, eh). But most of the guys on the trip did sign up for things. Maybe they have lots of money, but I am trying to be conservative! The digital camera is working really well for blog posting, and it is indeed waterproof. And idiot proof, too, which I obviously need because I am screwing up the Holga pics already. Last night I put it on BULB for a few shots, and then all day today shot in full sun on bulb without even checking it first. This was what I did all thru India and I can't tell you how many rolls of film I ruined that way. Gorgeous shots...and all blurry and overexposed, too. Grrrr. Also, I am discovering that I have almost no interest in shooting BW film, I am shooting almost entirely in color. I only brought like 30 rolls of color film. Half of my suitcase is filled with BW!! Maybe I will ship all of that film home, I need to lighten my load.

Central America: Caye Caulker

Assorted photos from Caye Caulker. I am told that we head out tomorrow for the mainland again, it has been fun seeing this place. It's like a Caribbean island, really.
All the folks watching the sunset. People were watching what I was taking photos of and asking why wasn't I shooting the sunset, isn't it beautiful? Eh. Not really. And the light at that time of day on the buildings was exceptional...people don't quite get it, though.








We left Playa Del Carmen at 7am on a bus that brought us to Chetumal. From there we changed busses (a bit of a wait in between) that would take us across the border to Belize. The border crossing was a long, exhausting procedure. First the bus dropped us off at the Immigration spot, for passport checks and charging us to cross the border ($10 to $30 depending on whether you had arrived in Mexico by land or air...) Then we all got back on the bus, strangely, and it drove perhaps a tenth of a mile and dropped us off at Customs. This time, we had to bring all of our luggage, wait in another line, and make our declarations that we were not bringing bad things into Belize. I did have food with me, but I wasn't about to give it up if they weren't going to search my bags, so I got to keep it. They did search random people and made them throw away all of their food. It was rather comical to watch some people eating their food as fast as they could to avoid losing it into the trash! Once we were given the all-clear to reboard the bus, we headed to Belize City. From there, we were ushered off and directly into a water taxi that took us to Caye Caulker. WHAT A RIDE!! I was so fascinated by this. They loaded a ton of people and all of their luggage into this cramped boat, powered up the 3 huge engines, and took off like a shot. It was amazing! There are some photos below, somewhere.

Above: the 5 gallon water container that actually contained 5 gallons of rum punch that went with our dinner last night. We drank the entire thing. Needless to say, when they all got up this morning and went off to go snorkeling for 7 hours, I stayed in. I still have a headache! And I actually slept for about 12 or 13 hours last night. Needed it. It wasn't ALL because of the rum punch!

A shot of the Caye Caulker hotel that we are staying in. Everything is on poles, my room is in the middle section of the yellow building (which is one of many similar buildings). I have a little deck to hang out on right off of my room!

Caye Caulker, chairs.

This cracked me up. It was on the bus to Belize City. Dirt box??? :)

As the water taxi left Belize City, the exhaust fumes were pretty strong, as they had just started the engines. It was enough to think you'd get high and pass out, but once we got going it wasn't a problem. These 4 girls were right at the end, the only open air spot on the taxi. They got drenched from all of the sea spray, the boat went so fast it just roared past the sides and of course these girls weren't protected by anything. The ride was about an hour.

Dinner last night with the whole group. Shrimp, chicken, fish, conch, rice, pasta, dessert, and rum punch. It was all you can eat for $15 US.

The restaurant was called Wish Willy. At one point during dinner, the a guy from the table next to us came over to our end. "Our" being me and several other girls. Blond, beautiful, and from Norway and Australia. He was from Germany, and I recognized their group as having come over on the same water taxi just an hour or so earlier. He smiled and asked one of the Norwegian girls "So, where's the party at?" with a smile. She told him he should ask our guide, Erik. I had to laugh at that. :)

Central America: Cozumel

Another crazy santa...with penguins! How interesting. I found this over on Cozumel, where I spent the day today. I was up very early (7am) and knew that the group had been out very late last night, and likely wouldn't be up anytime soon. So I made an inquiry about snorkeling, bought a package out of Cozumel, and hopped on the ferry over. I have mixed feelings about the whole day on one hand, it was nice to be by myself and have a little adventure. On the other hand, I kinda got seasick on the small boat that we went out on for the actual snorkeling trip. The boat stopped at 3 different spots, and midway thru the second stop I knew I was in trouble. By the time I made it back to shore 2 hours later, all I wanted was a nice quiet place to recouperate. Eventually I made it back to the ferry and then over to Playa Del Carmen again. Some photos below were taken while out on the snorkeling adventure, and sure enough, the darn thing really IS waterproof!
Rob should get a kick out of this one, it was a "Princess" day! This was the small boat that took me snorkeling.

Maybe I needed to relax a little, but clutching the snorkel tube in my mouth really hurt after awhile. Yeah, probably too much pressure...I was on the lookout for sharks. (Didn't see any, just some fish.)
The boats all say that they have "glass bottoms". Well, they do. It's just that the bottom is really small! I got a kick out of the marketing, though. They really seem to play up the glass bottoms as an alluring factor. And that crudely written note within the botton area? A sign telling us that "TIPPING IS NOT A CITY IN CHINA". It took me a few minutes to decifer it, and then when the meaning kicked in I had to laugh. And yes, I did give the guide a tip even though I spent most of the time pointedly looking at the horizon and gripping the side.
A ferry abstract of mops. (Whaddya think, Geoff??) :)
Looking back at Playa Del Carmen as the ferry left. The water looks very dark and navy blue here, but part of the areas we went thru were turquoise, all shades of blue and green. I have never seen water like this before. It is truly gorgeous.
This little VW bus looking thing was where I got my breakfast from today. They converted it into a tiny kitchen. BTW, breakfast was 2 beef tacos.
Last night we all went out for dinner as a group. The place was very popular, and they had to rearrange lots of tables to accommodate 15 people, so we were all peeking at the menus trying to decifer them while we waited. It was a good meal. We had appetizers of cactus, tomato and onion salsa, green chili salsa, radish, cucumber, and chips. An interesting assortment to say the least! BTW the tour guide is the guy to the left. Tomorrow we are looking at 10 to 12 hours of transit time, 3 hours to the border, an undetermined amount of time clearing the border, then 4 hours on a bus into Beize, then an hour long boat ride to Caye Caulker. Wish me luck with that leg of the trip, back on a small boat again. Uuuugh. As I sit here typing, I am swaying...side effect from the damn boat. This always happens to me, even if it is a bigger boat. When my friend Susan and I took a ferry to Prince Edward Island years ago, I was sick for a week. I kept having sudden attacks of...I don't even know what to call it. I'd be standing somewhere, say washing dishes, and I'd have to grip the edge of the sink and counter to keep myself from falling over. Lovely side effect. As an additional side not, this also happns to me when I ride in elevators.

Central America: Playa Del Carmen

Today was spent wandering around alone and eventually taking some photos. I say eventually because for the first few hours, I was in my typical beginning-of-the-trip panic mode. Like, as in, about to buy a plane ticket home panic mode. I did the same thing in India (of course, then I had been left behind in Delhi and things were much worse). What´s the problem this time? Well, no specific problem, it is just nerves I think.

It is the Christmas season, I guess. This handsome guy was in a plaza next to the nativity display. Interestingly enough, I just finished reading a book (Aztec) by Gary Jennings, that told about the history of the Mexican people in the 1500's, when Cortes came and invaded the place. Made them all convert to Catholicism, complete with radical priests and their own Spanish inquisition. Amazing the changes to the people of this land in such a short time...their own religions, gods, and goddesses were completely eradicated and replaced with Christianity. My intention was to finish the book and then abandon it in a hostel somewhere (because it weighs a ton), but now that I have read the whole thing, I think I will start it over again. For two reasons, ONE is that I was a lazy reader and skipped some paragraphs that might now make more sense to me. TWO, because I can't find any books to buy.


This is the interior of the hotel we are at today, in Playa Del Carmen. After my afternoon of wandering I came back for a great swim in this pool. By then, all the kids (literally, screaming children having fun...) were gone, and I had the pool all to myself. It was really nice to have it, I was hot and feeling pretty icky. It was really cold water, which was so refreshing. (I don't usually swim) by the way, I was told that I am going to have a room to myself every night of the trip, because everyone else is paired up and the only other odd one out is the guide, who also gets a room of his own. Huh. So I will be sleeping alone and have the room all to myself the whole time. Nice.

Central America: Cancun

Boston...leaving home Jan 3rd. At any rate, it took me 12 hours to get here. (That´s easier than the 36 hours to get to India.) I left Worcester at 9:30 am and arrived in Cancun at 9:30 pm (Boston time). It´s always interesting, travelling with tons of other people, everyone has somewhere to go. Think about how many people are travelling at any given moment...the airports are always packed...there are always lines at security, check in, customs, immigration, baggage pick up. It is a constantly renewing cycle of people getting from one place to the next. And of course, all of them hoping to get there on time and with no inconveniences. I must say, my only complaint is that the girl next to me from NYC to Cancun bit her nails the entire way (that´s 4.5 hours of nail biting, folks). People can have lots of really annoying habits, but I have to say nail biting certainly ranks up there with the gross ones. I mean, I can see if you have just unexpectedly torn a nail, have no nail clippers, and it´s catching on everything. By all means, bite the darn thing off! But really...when it's such a habit that you can´t take your fingers out of your mouth...eeeeesh. She didn´t catch my subtle (?) looks. I am sure you all know me well enough to know how subtle my looks can be....oh, yeah. And then at one point, she crossed her legs and the bottom of her boot was in my space-not a casual crossing of the legs where hers is flirting with my knee, but a serious "my foot and your elbow are friends now" kind of cross. No big crime, here, just a bit undesirable. Here's OOOOHH the wing of my plane...juxtaposed with the tail of another plane. How unique, how creative, how artsy. Yeah. Well, we sat there for awhile, I had to do something.

And myself and the first of the silly self portraits that you will see. The plight of the solo traveller...

Sunset takeoff from NYC. OOooooh.

I guess I have a room all to myself tonight, I arrived a couple of hours after the big GAP Adventures group meeting and by then everyone else was squared away with rooms and room mate assignments. I will meet them tomorrow AM, then, when we all leave to go to Playa Del Carmen. I did see the roster, though...15 people plus the guide. This is a little bigger than the India trip, that was 12 people.

Don´t mind me, I am sure I will deliver much more interesting and thoughtful photos in good time. For now, I am going to go upstairs and lay myself down to rest. I found some food, found the computers, and have only a few more pages to go in my book. Buenas Noches!