Internet is expensive here, so not much going to be posted. I made it to the island of Caye Caulker, and I've caught up with Ellis, a Belizean tour leader who is dragging me around to see the sites. Yesterday, we rented a golf cart and toured around the island, which was fun, and then in the evening, we went on a sunset sailing trip which was all right. You just end up getting loaded before dinner time, which is never a good idea. I was on my way home at 10pm, and I woke up with a thick head at 8:30 to head off to the island of San Pedro.
When I went to look for Ellis to go, I found him still sleeping in his bed at 10, but he promised me we'd go on the 11:30 ferry. 11:30 rolled around, and he wasn't at the dock, so I went back and woke him up again and dragged him to lunch with me. Today's a lazy day.
Tomorrow, I'm going to dive the Blue Hole, and the following day, I'm off for a 3-day sailing trip on down to Placencia, in the south. It should be good, but no updates until afterwards. I'm looking forward to the diving tomorrow!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Oh, the luck....
Wednesday morning, I ran around getting some things ready for a package I was mailing... it was a challenge finding a box that wasn´t the size of a TV! Post office doesn´t sell them, nor the stationery store they sent me to... eventually, after asking at several corner shops, I found one with a box full of empty boxes. Hooray! So, I was sitting at the post office with my box, with my goods, with the brown paper required to cover the box, and a big roll of tape. And the post office guys seemed so helpful at first! ¨Here, let me help you cut the box down in size so it can be sent for cheaper... and let me help you cover it with paper.... so, what´s your name?¨ Me: ¨Why?¨ Him: ¨Because you´re very pretty, white girl.¨ Me: ¨Thank you, but I´m at the post office to mail a package, and I don´t need this right now. And I can cover it myself.¨ Note that he is a good 20-30 years older than me. Sheesh... He sat back down and didn´t bother me any more.
That afternoon, I headed to the bus station at about 3:15pm, just in time for my 3:30 bus. The bus didn´t actually arrive until 4pm, so I shouldn´t have hurried. At about 4:15, we pulled away from the bus station. Usually, I´m very ok with the Mexican Time, but this time, I had a connection to make in Chetumal. My bus was originally scheduled to arrive at about 3:30am in Chetumal, and the bus to Playa Mahahual left at 5am. So, 45 minutes behind, I was a little worried about the connection, but what can you do about it?
My seat partner, a Mexican woman of about 50, didn´t really talk much, but once it turned dark, she did have a tendency to start to veer towards my seat as she fell asleep, so I had to gently nudge her back to her side. I slept a little bit here and there (thanks to the motion sickness pill I took strictly because it makes you drowsy), and right in the middle of one of those times that I did fall asleep, I wake up to find a military man with a gun in the aisle of the bus. Checking for firearms and explosives, which means that everyone needs to get off the bus to watch them while they go through your bags looking for those things. That´s been going on for about 6 months now (as far as I know), and it´s annoying enough at about 1pm, but when it´s at 1am and interrupting your beauty sleep, it´s extremely annoying. Anyway, they didn´t find my guns and M-80s, so we were allowed to move on.
At about 4:45am, I woke up with a start and realized that the bus had stopped... and it was Chetumal! I ran off the bus to find they were waiting for me to claim my bag, and then I went inside to check on bus times. There was also a bus at 6am to Mahahual, so I decided to wait an hour and freshen up a bit. Bus arrived at about 6:30, and I hopped on board headed for Mahahual. Along the way, I saw many mangled houses and billboards, which were part of the destruction of a hurricane that passed through several months ago. When I arrived to Mahahual, there was construction everywhere. Everyone was rebuilding their hotels, homes, restaurants, etc. I asked a man in a shop if he could look after my big bag while I searched for a hotel, and he agreed to it. I set off, and needless to say, every place I found was 3-4 times more expensive than I wanted to pay. All of the cheap accommodation had been blown away. It was beautiful, but since I´m going to travel so much, I don´t want to spend 4 night´s worth of accom money in 1 night. So I decided to head back to Chetumal. The next bus was at 1pm, so I plopped myself down at a beach restaurant and had a juice, and at noon, I ordered a beer and dove into my book.
At about 4pm, I rolled back into Chetumal not knowing what I was going to do - my options were to a) find a hotel for the night in Chetumal, b) see if there was a bus heading to Belize that evening, although it´d be kinda sketchy arriving into Belize City at night or c) sleep in the bus station and take the 5am bus to Belize City. I walked up to the ticket counter, and my problems were solved when I heard, ¨Leah, que haces aqui?!¨ I turned around, and it was another tour leader from GAP. He was on his time off and travelling with a friend, and they were also heading to Belize but had heard there was Carneval in Chetumal and were considering staying for the evening. They said it was ok if I tagged along, so that´s what I did. We flipped a coin, and we ended up staying in Chetumal.
Carneval wasn´t all that much - it was a parade of kids in costumes, then there was some music in a park and lots of street vendors selling food. And beer. And not many foreigners at all. We downed a few beers, grabbed some street food, downed some more beer, then (against our better judgment) decided to tackle one of the carneval rides. This one spins you around and around in an up and down motion so your stomach drops ever couple of turns. And it goes backwards most of the time. A full 10 minutes later, we got off on wobbly legs and decided to head home. We got a full 8 hours of sleep and are now at the bus station waiting for the bus.
Tonight I´ll be on an island (Caye Caulker), though, and all will be well. I´m really glad I ran into Martin and his friend - another example of the good coincidences that happen on the road!
That afternoon, I headed to the bus station at about 3:15pm, just in time for my 3:30 bus. The bus didn´t actually arrive until 4pm, so I shouldn´t have hurried. At about 4:15, we pulled away from the bus station. Usually, I´m very ok with the Mexican Time, but this time, I had a connection to make in Chetumal. My bus was originally scheduled to arrive at about 3:30am in Chetumal, and the bus to Playa Mahahual left at 5am. So, 45 minutes behind, I was a little worried about the connection, but what can you do about it?
My seat partner, a Mexican woman of about 50, didn´t really talk much, but once it turned dark, she did have a tendency to start to veer towards my seat as she fell asleep, so I had to gently nudge her back to her side. I slept a little bit here and there (thanks to the motion sickness pill I took strictly because it makes you drowsy), and right in the middle of one of those times that I did fall asleep, I wake up to find a military man with a gun in the aisle of the bus. Checking for firearms and explosives, which means that everyone needs to get off the bus to watch them while they go through your bags looking for those things. That´s been going on for about 6 months now (as far as I know), and it´s annoying enough at about 1pm, but when it´s at 1am and interrupting your beauty sleep, it´s extremely annoying. Anyway, they didn´t find my guns and M-80s, so we were allowed to move on.
At about 4:45am, I woke up with a start and realized that the bus had stopped... and it was Chetumal! I ran off the bus to find they were waiting for me to claim my bag, and then I went inside to check on bus times. There was also a bus at 6am to Mahahual, so I decided to wait an hour and freshen up a bit. Bus arrived at about 6:30, and I hopped on board headed for Mahahual. Along the way, I saw many mangled houses and billboards, which were part of the destruction of a hurricane that passed through several months ago. When I arrived to Mahahual, there was construction everywhere. Everyone was rebuilding their hotels, homes, restaurants, etc. I asked a man in a shop if he could look after my big bag while I searched for a hotel, and he agreed to it. I set off, and needless to say, every place I found was 3-4 times more expensive than I wanted to pay. All of the cheap accommodation had been blown away. It was beautiful, but since I´m going to travel so much, I don´t want to spend 4 night´s worth of accom money in 1 night. So I decided to head back to Chetumal. The next bus was at 1pm, so I plopped myself down at a beach restaurant and had a juice, and at noon, I ordered a beer and dove into my book.
At about 4pm, I rolled back into Chetumal not knowing what I was going to do - my options were to a) find a hotel for the night in Chetumal, b) see if there was a bus heading to Belize that evening, although it´d be kinda sketchy arriving into Belize City at night or c) sleep in the bus station and take the 5am bus to Belize City. I walked up to the ticket counter, and my problems were solved when I heard, ¨Leah, que haces aqui?!¨ I turned around, and it was another tour leader from GAP. He was on his time off and travelling with a friend, and they were also heading to Belize but had heard there was Carneval in Chetumal and were considering staying for the evening. They said it was ok if I tagged along, so that´s what I did. We flipped a coin, and we ended up staying in Chetumal.
Carneval wasn´t all that much - it was a parade of kids in costumes, then there was some music in a park and lots of street vendors selling food. And beer. And not many foreigners at all. We downed a few beers, grabbed some street food, downed some more beer, then (against our better judgment) decided to tackle one of the carneval rides. This one spins you around and around in an up and down motion so your stomach drops ever couple of turns. And it goes backwards most of the time. A full 10 minutes later, we got off on wobbly legs and decided to head home. We got a full 8 hours of sleep and are now at the bus station waiting for the bus.
Tonight I´ll be on an island (Caye Caulker), though, and all will be well. I´m really glad I ran into Martin and his friend - another example of the good coincidences that happen on the road!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Leaving San Cristobal
I've spent the last while here in San Cristobal in Chiapas, Mexico. Today, I've got a ticket to the Caribbean coast, so I'm finally leaving.
San Cristobal is one of my favorite places, but it's somewhat counter-intuitive that I love it so much. The three strikes against it are that it's cold, it's not very close to the beach (seeing a pattern here), and it's got a lot of tourist traffic.
But there are many things to love about it, too, including some of those tourists. The foreigners who hang out here come in several varieties... you've got the 1-or-2-dayers, who are here to check out the textiles & Mayan culture and appreciate its colonial charm.
Then there are the backpackers who enjoy the above plus the good nightlife, and they end up staying close to a week. They have live music here every night. And not just in one or two bars - I can count at least 4 bars that have live music every night of the week that they're open. And that live music is more along the lines of reggae and ska, as opposed to salsa, merengue and cumbia (which are also prevalent, but not as heavily as in other Latin towns).
There are also lots of hippies/artesanos who sell their wares (mostly jewelry) in the markets and on the streets at night who came for a few days and ended up staying here for weeks or months because of the music, the nightlife, the cheap food and cheap accommodation.
The expats who now call San Cristobal home are pretty decent, usually slightly alternative/hippie-ish, but still pretty down-to-earth. There's a large number of French, French Canadian, and Italians who have decided to settle down here, which means that there are some good restaurants around. Unlike some places in Costa Rica and Nicaragua where you see a lot of divorced and retired men praying upon the sweet local flesh, that's not generally a reason why the expats come here. In fact, I don't recall seeing any of that here, which is refreshing. That's probably because of the lack of warm weather/beach - the pretty young thangs are quite covered up here, so not as much flesh to gawk at.
What this all means is that this place is full of people drawn to this place for similar reasons as I am (music, ambiance, beauty, vibe), and there's hardly a dull moment around. On top of that, I stay at a hostel that has a pretty well-stocked kitchen, and I've been cooking up a storm the past 10 days. Veggie curry last night, home-made creamy tomato and basil sauce with pasta last week, quesadillas, and some good ol' sloppy joe-fu. (Thanks, bro, for coining that name.)
Maybe it's because I've spent more time here than in other Mexican towns, but maybe it's because it only happens here (I doubt it), there are two things that I think are kinda funny, but once you get the hang of it, it works!:
1)The people who sell big jugs of purified water just drive around town all day with a big speaker on top of their truck that blares "The water theme song," which, depending on the company, can be a Mission: Impossible-type theme with a guy announcing the arrival of water to your doorstep just a few blocks away dubbed over or it could be a cheerful xylophone sort of tune. It seems weird and/or annoying at first, but it works. You need water, you know when it's coming with a couple of block's notice. You just hope the driver's shift doesn't start at 7am.
2) The propane gas guys function much in the same way with the back of their truck full of canisters of different sizes. They don't have a theme song; they just have a chain with different-sized metal rings hanging off of the back which end up jingling around as they hit the cobblestones and you hear a multi-tonal metal-against-stone sort of sound. Again, annoying at first, but when I used the last of the gas one day, it worked out AOK.
I'm sad to be leaving here because I know people, and when I go out at night, I run into old acquaintances. However, I haven't quite developed any really strong friendships, so it's probably best I get a move on and start my vacation. And get some of my color back. :)
San Cristobal is one of my favorite places, but it's somewhat counter-intuitive that I love it so much. The three strikes against it are that it's cold, it's not very close to the beach (seeing a pattern here), and it's got a lot of tourist traffic.
But there are many things to love about it, too, including some of those tourists. The foreigners who hang out here come in several varieties... you've got the 1-or-2-dayers, who are here to check out the textiles & Mayan culture and appreciate its colonial charm.
Then there are the backpackers who enjoy the above plus the good nightlife, and they end up staying close to a week. They have live music here every night. And not just in one or two bars - I can count at least 4 bars that have live music every night of the week that they're open. And that live music is more along the lines of reggae and ska, as opposed to salsa, merengue and cumbia (which are also prevalent, but not as heavily as in other Latin towns).
There are also lots of hippies/artesanos who sell their wares (mostly jewelry) in the markets and on the streets at night who came for a few days and ended up staying here for weeks or months because of the music, the nightlife, the cheap food and cheap accommodation.
The expats who now call San Cristobal home are pretty decent, usually slightly alternative/hippie-ish, but still pretty down-to-earth. There's a large number of French, French Canadian, and Italians who have decided to settle down here, which means that there are some good restaurants around. Unlike some places in Costa Rica and Nicaragua where you see a lot of divorced and retired men praying upon the sweet local flesh, that's not generally a reason why the expats come here. In fact, I don't recall seeing any of that here, which is refreshing. That's probably because of the lack of warm weather/beach - the pretty young thangs are quite covered up here, so not as much flesh to gawk at.
What this all means is that this place is full of people drawn to this place for similar reasons as I am (music, ambiance, beauty, vibe), and there's hardly a dull moment around. On top of that, I stay at a hostel that has a pretty well-stocked kitchen, and I've been cooking up a storm the past 10 days. Veggie curry last night, home-made creamy tomato and basil sauce with pasta last week, quesadillas, and some good ol' sloppy joe-fu. (Thanks, bro, for coining that name.)
Maybe it's because I've spent more time here than in other Mexican towns, but maybe it's because it only happens here (I doubt it), there are two things that I think are kinda funny, but once you get the hang of it, it works!:
1)The people who sell big jugs of purified water just drive around town all day with a big speaker on top of their truck that blares "The water theme song," which, depending on the company, can be a Mission: Impossible-type theme with a guy announcing the arrival of water to your doorstep just a few blocks away dubbed over or it could be a cheerful xylophone sort of tune. It seems weird and/or annoying at first, but it works. You need water, you know when it's coming with a couple of block's notice. You just hope the driver's shift doesn't start at 7am.
2) The propane gas guys function much in the same way with the back of their truck full of canisters of different sizes. They don't have a theme song; they just have a chain with different-sized metal rings hanging off of the back which end up jingling around as they hit the cobblestones and you hear a multi-tonal metal-against-stone sort of sound. Again, annoying at first, but when I used the last of the gas one day, it worked out AOK.
I'm sad to be leaving here because I know people, and when I go out at night, I run into old acquaintances. However, I haven't quite developed any really strong friendships, so it's probably best I get a move on and start my vacation. And get some of my color back. :)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
In the beginning...
Anyone who's known me for a while knows that I'm pretty crap at keeping in touch with everyone... my work was an excuse for a long time ("I'm so busy!"), but now that I no longer have that going for me, my true colors are going to show - that I'm just not the best at keeping in touch. Now that doesn't mean that I don't love to open up my e-mail inbox to find messages (short or long) from friends and family... in fact, I'm always a bit disappointed when no one has written me.
Why do I think writing a blog will work? I don't, really. I have a feeling that it'll be something that I do for a bit, then I'll slowly but surely melt off the face of cyberspace... But then again, I may not.
Anyway, that said, a friend (thanks, Katie!) told me that as a woman who gets around so much, I really ought to start a blog regardless, and it doesn't matter if I write once a day, once a week or once a month. And she's probably right. My mom said that she feels dumb when people ask her what country I'm in, and she can't give more than a general continent - well, until I forget all about blogging, this might be her solution.
This is the beginning of things for me in a sense, seeing as I just wrapped up one chapter of my life (tour leader), and I'm starting another (mini-trip around the world). Further chapters might be all over the place, but at least this one will be documented.
So, for those of you who don't know, here's the scoop on my next several months:
Now through March 12
- Mexico (San Cristobal & beach)
- Belize (diving, sailing, island hopping)
- Utila, Honduras (more diving)
- Nicaragua (San Juan del Sur, baby! Bring on the Flor de Cana.)
- Costa Rica (say hi to a friend's new baby, bye to old co-workers en route to the airport)
March 13-26
- Dublin (St. Patty's Day!, visiting friends)
March 26-April 2
- Rome (visiting another friend)
April 3-Julyish?
- Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos (no set itin yet)
And then back to the States just in time for my 10 year high school reunion in Iowa, whenever that may be.
Throughout it all, I'll be posting some of my best pictures on http://www.flickr.com/photos/roamingleah , so check back frequently for updates.
That's all for now. And you hung in there until the end! Congrats...
Why do I think writing a blog will work? I don't, really. I have a feeling that it'll be something that I do for a bit, then I'll slowly but surely melt off the face of cyberspace... But then again, I may not.
Anyway, that said, a friend (thanks, Katie!) told me that as a woman who gets around so much, I really ought to start a blog regardless, and it doesn't matter if I write once a day, once a week or once a month. And she's probably right. My mom said that she feels dumb when people ask her what country I'm in, and she can't give more than a general continent - well, until I forget all about blogging, this might be her solution.
This is the beginning of things for me in a sense, seeing as I just wrapped up one chapter of my life (tour leader), and I'm starting another (mini-trip around the world). Further chapters might be all over the place, but at least this one will be documented.
So, for those of you who don't know, here's the scoop on my next several months:
Now through March 12
- Mexico (San Cristobal & beach)
- Belize (diving, sailing, island hopping)
- Utila, Honduras (more diving)
- Nicaragua (San Juan del Sur, baby! Bring on the Flor de Cana.)
- Costa Rica (say hi to a friend's new baby, bye to old co-workers en route to the airport)
March 13-26
- Dublin (St. Patty's Day!, visiting friends)
March 26-April 2
- Rome (visiting another friend)
April 3-Julyish?
- Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos (no set itin yet)
And then back to the States just in time for my 10 year high school reunion in Iowa, whenever that may be.
Throughout it all, I'll be posting some of my best pictures on http://www.flickr.com/photos/roamingleah , so check back frequently for updates.
That's all for now. And you hung in there until the end! Congrats...
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