Belize....

This was the view from my guesthouse room in Belize.

Well, I have no regular access to the internet here in Belize so this may be the last post until I get back to Mexico or the US. No pictures either, sorry, because it is absolutely, Corona commercial beautiful!

My trip -

I flew from Mexico City to Chetumal. In Mexico City, it was 70 degrees F. When I landed at the very small airport in Chetumal, it was 90. Mexico City's airport is huge and very strange. You wait in a hall (a big one without chairs) (I got there 2 hours early) for them to "announce" your flight and gate of departure. It sounds just like a fast food speaker. Then, you go through security to get to a hall with chairs. I could have gone through and found out my gate on the screens in the big hall WITH the chairs. So I flew Aviacsa. Mexican airlines are MUCH nicer than American ones. They feed you lunch. They are very clean. You get mints. They are somewhat bilingual.

Let me back up and say I spent a delightful, wonderful, incredibly entertaining time with my couchsurfer host Saul and his friend, Luiz. I really laughed the entire time I was with them. They practiced their English and I my Spanish (kind of). They showed me such wonderful parts of the city that I would not have experienced elsewhere. Most all my couchsurfing experiences have been really great, but this one took the prize. I hope I have made lasting friends with them.

So, I landed in Chetumal, where I asked in Spanish (and I did a damn fine job, thank you) where I could get a bus to Belize City (which in normal time is only 2 and one half hours). So they told me to go to the mercado and ask for a bus...eek. I did, and found a row of...ready...school busses painted in bright colors. My mother is going to shit when she sees the pictures. 4 and one half hours, 300 sweaty Belezians, 2 borders crossings later, I arrived. Yes, it was a $6 chicken bus. You get off the bus at the Mexico border (which is not the Belize border) and pay $10. Then get back on. THEN you get off the bus with your luggage and go through customs at the Belize border, where they ask you all the "why are you here" questions and stamp your passport. We stopped at EVERY hole on the way. I stayed in a very scary place in Belize City. However, they had cable, air cond. and the owner, a Taiwanese woman (single mom with a 15 yr old son, weird), bought me a Belize beer and we sat and gossiped and laughed for a couple of hours. She told me, "you no go on right bus! You ask for air condition bus! You ask next time! Only $8!" Really?! Well, I loooked for an airconditioned one and didn't see any. Sigh... Now I can say I have traveled on a "chicken bus."

This morning I got on a VERY SMALL plane (pilot and 6 people) and flew to Dangriga. Great pictures of the coast of Belize. Then I bought a cab to take me 30 min to Hopkins. THAT was totally worth it as I have had enough chicken busses for one trip! My cabana here is wonderful. Honestly, I was sitting in a chair, drinking pineapple juice and rum, looking at an honest to god Corona commercial view of the Carribean. It's tough, but someone has to do it. Then I had to get up and go lay in a hammock and read Neil Gaimen short stories and fall asleep. Then I had to go to a restaurant (that is really someone's house) and eat a whole (head and all) fried snapper with beans and rice, and plantains, and watch Michael Jackson's memorial on TV with 6 other Belizans in the restaurant all commenting on the shebang. Then I had to come here and whine to you people about how rough it is to be me right now! :-) The Belize people are incredibly friendly and it is very safe because it is such a small town.

I will stay here tonight and 2 more nights. Then I plan to go to Tobacco Caye for 2 nights or maybe 3, to snorkle and drink rum and look at the Carribean. I'll come back to Hopkins for 2 or 3 days. I plan to catch a bus to Dangriga (30 min, a chicken bus, means 1 hour). Maya Island Air JUST added a flight from Belize City to Cancun, where I'll stay with one more couch surfer. Then to Atlanta, then to Branson.

So you may not hear from me much because I'm paying for my time while drinking a Belize beer. And let me say, from a non beer drinker, it is VERY good. It is so hard to be me.... More later.