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Published: September 23rd 2006
Orange what?
Ah Orange Walk, this really was a strange place and not at all what I expected of Belize. This 2 street town really didn’t have anything to offer, apart from more Chinese restaurants than residents, a couple of cracked out beggars, a few hotels and a brothel, all of which can be visited within a 15mins. I booked into a really nice friendly family run hotel called St Christopher’s Hotel. They were very helpful and told me that most people only stay for one night so they can do the Lamani trip. Great that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I booked my trip through the hotel, eventually gave in my attempt to find local food (impossible past lunch time I think) and got some fried chicken from a Chinese place. Then I returned to my lovely room and spent the night looking at movies (Spiderman 2 and Interview with a Vampire) both of which had characters that were at odds with the world, made me feel right at home. I also had a private disco watching and bopping to the latest reggaton videos. It’s purely for educational reasons, I’m learning Spanish from them, honest!
The
next morning about 10 people set off with me on the trip to Lamani down the river. I’m really loving speed boat rides; it feels like you flying, especially when you get front row seats. The guide was witty and made us all comfortable and pointed out flower, fauna and birds. The river was flooded and had risen 8 feet, I think he said, which is why we could see rear birds protecting their nests at eye level. The thing that got me the most were the patterns we made in the water and we passed through it and the colours, I was a little disappointed when we reached the site because I could have kept going. The site was very interesting; first of all we walked through this avenue of the tallest palms you have ever seen. They weren’t palm trees, they were palms. The stem of the leaf started in the ground and the leaf soared up at least 6 metres. They were amazing, with the light coming through them making dancing swaying shadows I kept falling behind the group mesmerised.
Then we reached the first ruin and the howler monkeys, they were a special treat.
Our guide said you don’t always see them and then four males appeared. Our guide told us not to stand under the trees as the monkeys are quite rude and like to pee and pooh-pooh on visitors. Then he told us that they very rarely come close and never, never touch the ground, ever. And then one of the young males started dangling on this branch very close to us, dangling lower and lower. We all stood there with baited breathe as we witnessed in very slow motion this monkey get closer and closer to the ground, showing off all the way. I’m sure the other young monkeys were saying to him, ‘what do you think you are playing at’, because they seem to be freaking out at him. Finally he was maybe a foot off the ground and even our guide was holding his breathe. Plop, on the ground he was, stared at us for a second and then jauntily went and climbed back up the tree. It’s nice when even your guide gets to see something new.
Then we were off through the avenue to find and climb the big pyramid, which I did. It was
quite daunting at the top, not like the others I had climbed. It was strange because it looked like you could see the edge of the world, there was dense forest all around and this blue is line that really looked like a full stop to me. On one side there was water after the forest. It was a bit scary starting the descent but once I got into my stride I was ok. We visited the court and a few other pyramids and then headed off for lunch. Back on the boat I was at the front again and loving it. As soon as we got back to Orange Walk I collected my bag and headed for the bus stop, well the place where people stop for the bus. It’s not been my policy to travel this late in the day, I knew I would reach Belize City around 7/8pm but I couldn’t stand the thought of staying another night in Orange Walk.
Belize City
As we were driving into what looked like another town, I thought, ‘please let this not be Belize City’, it doesn’t look like the paradise I thought Belize would be. Orange
Walk was already one shocking disappointment. But this was about the time we should be reaching BC and yes we had. At the bus station I got a really nice taxi driver who appreciated my confused jabbering in Spanish /English, as I was still forgetting that I could speak English. He was from El Salvador and was pleased to hear that I planned to visit his country. He took me to the wonderful Seaside Guest House, which a lovely Garifuna family ran. There was a dorm but I still wasn’t ready to go all out traveler and opted for a private room. In the common room there was an assorted bunch of travelers. I’d barely stepped into the room and started talking to the English guys when this Canadian woman starting telling me that if I wanted to buy beer I had to hurry and she would go with me as she needed some more.
Ok, I could do with a beer. This lady was lovely but a raving alcoholic who could talk the hind legs of a donkey. When I got back to the room I got introduced to one of the guy’s girlfriends and we hit
it off. We cracked each other up for the whole night. More travelers arrived and I have to say that this was the first time in my travels that I had connected with other travelers and made some cool friends that I was later to see in Caye Caulker, my destination for tomorrow. After talking to the English couple I was convinced that I should give Belize Zoo a chance. Yes I said Zoo, and yes I went to the Zoo, and guess what it was really nice. No bored looking, slightly mad animals in sight. They were all rescued and seem to have loads of space. You really had to search for some of them as the Zoo hadn’t made it like a shop window where people just stare at the specimens. I was really happy with it. When I got back to the City, I went to the museum which was nice. They had this made stamp collection (Belize is known to have some of the most beautiful stamps) and another room just full of butterflies and moths. Other rooms had prison cells, replicas of Mayan artifacts and a hall of fame for Belize Sports personalities. I headed
out, got my bag and headed to the dock to catch the 4.30 boat to Caye Caulker.
Caye Caulker, what a ride.
‘The boat that blew up’, is what I should call this section, because basically that’s exactly what happened. What felt like 20 mins into the ride I heard a big bang saw lots of thick grey smoke and got overwhelmed by the hysterical screaming Latino family sitting right next to me. I was sitting just about as far away from the engine as you can get, which was good because two women had burnt legs that were sitting right by it. The Captain said nothing to anyone, not even in Spanish and because of the hysterical, climbing out of windows, snatching life jackets from out of peoples hands family was dominating my world at the time I couldn’t make sense of anything. They seemed to be trying to fix it, even though I was really calm, I could feel myself getting really really angry. I was angry at the family and really wanted to slap a few of them just to get them to calm down. They had no idea what they were screaming about
Underwater bubble
Me on my sixth dive, the one before was the Blue holeand after 30mins it was wearing thin, I was also angry at the lack of information coming from the crew. Finally I got from someone that they had called for another boat, which seemed to take it sweet time, everything felt like it took forever. We finally got to Caye Caulker and I was truly rattled and very pissed off. I knew two things, I wanted to dump my stuff in a room and I wanted a drink and a cigarette (this is where I momentarily fell off the wagon). I got directed to Bella’s which was reasonable and nice. Right next to it I heard someone shout my name. It was one of the English guys from the Seaside Guest House. He was in the disco next door with a guy from Holland and a lovely American and European couple, so I joined them, got my happy hour 2 for 1 rum and told them about my boat ride. This was the start of the Caye Caulker Crew, it lasted for another day but we had a lot of fun.
I’m surprised that I remembered that I had agreed to go on a snorkeling trip with them
underwater leaf
These pictures I sent as postcards they were so beautiful with my writing that I took pictures of them again. the next day. This was to be my first snorkel and it’s a shame it was with a hangover. Still I really enjoyed myself, after that I decided to go for the dive course there. The night before I’d met up with who was to be my dive buddy, a lovely South African lady who had been living in London for years. We were both at similar points in our lives and both disliked the first couple of days on our dive course. It was nice to have someone to spew with. I guess I was just scared and thinking, ‘what the hell have I done paying all this money to do this. I don’t like it and I’m never going to use it again, it’s a bloody crazy arse thing to do…’. Needless to say by day three I was lovely it and so was my dive buddy, we completely changed our view on it and couldn’t wait for the next dive. I know I should be saying that the coral and the fish I saw were the best things underwater, they were absolutely amazing, really you spend the whole time thinking Wow! But for me it was the
bubbles that we made, they came out and looked kind of metallic and if you were above another diver, the feeling as their bubbles came up and passed you was magical. I don’t know, I just loved the bubbles.
I had some ups and downs on Caye Caulker, at some points I felt like I was everybody’s business (it’s tiny and I guess they don’t get many black tourists there). I seemed to cause a bit of a stir, which I found annoying at times. I hated then loved diving, I snorkeled some more and after I got my certification I decided to go for the big one and dive the Blue Hole. This was a dive that was almost twice as deep as I had done before. Some people were saying it would be a bit much for my first certified dive and others were saying go for it. The worry was Nitrogen Narcosis (where you feel drunk , act stupid and get extra nervous from the gas that you breathe in). That and the Reef sharks that they said we’d see were my only concerns. The Blue Hole was amazing but I was amazed that I
didn’t get NN, I didn’t freak out when the dive instructor pointed out the 6 or more sharks swimming at our level checking us out. I was really pleased with myself and getting more and more confident under water.
I hung out with some great and not so great locals. My favourite were this lovely couple that I met towards the end. They were hanging out with this American banker (enough said) who seemed ok at first but had some strange views. A Nurse shark on one snorkel trip tried to take a bite out of him. It was funny but that’s what you get if you wear a silver bracelet (looks like fish to sharks), where a guide is feeding sharks and stingrays and swim really close to them after being told not too. The Nurse Shark doesn’t really have teethed to speak off and all the locals said they can only suck on you, but sure enough he had bite marks although they were more like scratches on his arm. The couple was so hospitable and so in love that they really made me feel good. Especially as this was the time I was missing my
best friends wedding back home. They really helped. However I couldn’t really shake the blueness and it followed me around for the next week or so, I think the wedding made me really miss everyone back home. I couldn’t believe I had missed her wedding, even though I had known that I would for 4 months.
Dangriga
After Caye Caulker I went back to Belize City to catch a bus down to Dangriga and have lunch with a local friend. This is when I lost my phone in a taxi, felt really stupid and annoyed. Had a nice lunch and headed off to Dangriga. My plan was to go to Tobacco Caye from there and do one dive and head onto Punta Gorda. Dangriga was a nice quiet looking town, more streets than Orange Walk and known to be a Garifuna strong hold. I liked the quiet sleepiness with Garifuna music playing on one street corner and hip hop on the next. I searched for the boat guys but I was too late that evening. The hotel I stayed was nice and again I had a session of reggaton videos and the BET channel. The next morning
I heading off to look for a cheaper hotel and met these lovely French guys who were heading to Tobacco Caye that morning. I went and talked to the boat guys and quickly got my stuff together to head over that morning also.
Tobacco Caye
Tobacco Caye was tiny, really really small and lovely. The people were nice and after talking to the dive instructor he convinced me that I would have a better dive the next day when he didn’t have students with him. I agreed and got a room, it was quite expensive but owned by a lovely family who cooked amazing meals which were included. I walked round the island in seconds and lay in a hammock and snoozed. Because it is difficult to get a boat back to Dangriga unless there are many people, in the end I didn’t get to do my dive, I had to leave that following morning because I couldn’t really afford to spend another night and do the dive. Also I had arranged to me a friend back in Dangriga and wanted to keep my word. I was so rushed getting my stuff together and apologising to the
dive place that I didn’t have time to be annoyed that I had essentially wasted money I couldn’t afford to on this aborted dive trip. That was until I was on the boat heading back. Slowly but surely I was getting more and more pissed off at the whole situation. I had to focus on something and calm down. That’s when I noticed the white dancing beads of water speed boats make as the cut through the water. Out of the annoyance sprang a new passion for me, watching the beads dance and jump. My camera wasn’t working for most of my Belize trip; I would have loved to video the beads, another time, another camera.
No Punta in Gorda
After returning to Dangriga and meeting up with a friend we went for a Chinese, there wasn’t that much of a choice. I couldn’t understand why the Belize government had given so many concessions to Chinese business; well that’s what one local said. It was the same in all the places I visited there, the shops and restaurants were mainly owned by the Chinese. The locals didn’t seem to like it and the Chinese didn’t seem to
underwater shots3
spot the shark yet? like them. We did a tour of the town and sat by the water. The next day I was off to Punta Gorda. I was expecting much of the same but no this place was more like Orange Walk but even more drained of energy. I didn’t like it one bit and was glad to know that I could catch a boat the next day to Livingston, Guatemala.
It really was time to leave Belize for me, with a run of poor luck and a blue sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach Punta Gorda was not the place to be. I was hoping that starting in Livingston would give me a soft Caribbean landing in Guatemala. I could get my bearings and hopefully pick up where I left off with my Spanish (yeah right).
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