Xunantunich and Actun Tunichil Muknal

I started to feel hungover on the bus to Belmopan. I put my head down against the brown vinyl seat in front of me the entire way. When we arrived at the Belmopan station I jumped right into the next bus about to leave for San Ignacio. I tried to pay and realized I was giving the man a very thin worn taped Belize two dollars and he said, “what is this?”. I told him that it was the change someone in Dangriga gave me and he said I’d have to give him something else. It was the change that Kendra gave and I’ll bet she gave it to me on purpose, knowing full well that it was a useless two dollar bill. I guess she probably pocketed the two dollar bill she should of gave me and instead gave me a piece of trash money. After awhile I thought it was pretty cute though, all the little ways that she or her friends would try to get things outta me or short me or hustle me. This was so common in Belize. They were still nice people, but they took what they could get to get by.

I arrived in San Ignacio — gritty place; small city, or, big town; less hollering at friends and commradery on the streets, less so than say Dangriga or Orange Walk; much less creole. San Ignacio itself didn’t invite me to stay longer than I had to to visit the few sites close by — Mayan burial caves, ruins, etc.

I asked a creole man who looked like he probably sold drugs and could get me guns, prostitutes, etc; named ICEMAN where to find such and such street and he walked me over to it. I wondered if he was going ask me for money after showing me the street to my hostel but along the way he said he didn’t care about money only making friends.

My head still feeling shitty from the two beers in the bar morning which kicked a very mild hangover into something less manageable, I dropped my things and sought out food and coconut water for the vitamins. I bought cigarettes and sat on a sidewalk watching the life go by, something I like to do in all the bustling cities that I visit. I finished the night drinking three beers at the hostel anyway with new friends — Jamie from New Zealand (who reminded me strongly of my friend Jason back home, the way he talked and moved his eyes, his energy and even similar facial features and body type; quite the doppelgänger) and his sweet girl Krissie from Germany — smoking too many cigarettes; smoking weed, passed the joint by an old thin Creole man and took slight hits so as not to get too high but to feel good. It made my headache go away and I slept well and the next morning I woke up feeling fresh and fine.

Headed out to the Xunantunich ruins in San Jose Succotz the next morning with Jamie and Krissie. Sweating in the sun as Jamie tried to negotiate taxi fares; the whole time I figured we should catch the next bus for $1.50 Belize (where as taxis were charging us three times that price, each) and that’s exactly what we ended up doing (though I get the feeling, and much like Jason, Jamie got some sort of kicks haggling with taxi drivers when it was almost clear he wasn’t going to take one; he believed he might take one though and wanted to see what kind of deals he could strike). Caught a bus from the city center, hopped off and crossed a river on a handcranked ferry; walked a mile up a dirt road hill in the jungle taking small drags off a joint that Jamie brought; sweating immediately, my tattoo covered up in a red bandana.

Xunantunich — El Castillo — the first thing we laid our eyes on. Beautiful tall sight. Ahhhh, ruins again. My first ruins since last year’s Mexico. They weren’t as impressive as say Palenque or Tulum but of course it was a feast to be back in the ancient weathered Mayan stone palaces. We walked all over, our peepers staring, feasting; climbed El Castillo, 130 feet; iguanas sun bathing, my first time seeing a monkey in the wild, spider monkey; talked with two Belizean army men with machine guns at the top, nice guys enjoying the day, with us, as we sat and stared out below and had our own private thoughts about what the place was like when it was alive, talked about it; Jamie snapping photos galore. We had the first rain of my Central American trip. It came down somewhat hard for an hour while we waited in the museum. We left as the sun started to come out and smoked a joint on the walk back down the hill, smelling the after rain smell, the new after rain smell that I’ve never smelled, the after rain jungle smell, earth and spices; crossed the river on the handcranked ferry, caught a school bus back into town, an actual school bus filled with school children who stared at us.

Before we caught the bus for Xunantunich we sat talking to a tour operator named Rudy from Hun Chi’ik tours. We sat talking to him for almost an hour while he waited. He was a short fierce muscular little Belizean, almost had a type of weasel face; but he wasn’t weasley at all; as I said he had a fierce look in his eyes and he even said, “what goes around comes around. I don’t fuck with no one man, I’m a good guy. But if you fuck with me, you’re fucking with the devil”. Anyway, you could tell he was a good guy and when we returned from the Xunantunich ruins, back at the hostel and I laid on my bed going over the pros and cons of spending the money for the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave tour, $80 US, a cave tour that I had been debating on taking since I arrived in San Ignacio when finally I shot up out of bed with a decision and knocked on Jamie and Krissie’s room door. Krissie said to come in, which I did and she’s sitting on her bed with her floral blouse unbuttoned, her breast full and exposed, though with bra on, and I had to avert my eyes immediately; I let her know that I made my decision, and no pressure but if they were going to take the cave tour they should do it before the end of the day. Jamie popped his wet shower head out of the restroom door and I told him the same thing I told Krissie. With that I closed their door and walked down the busy streets to Rudy’s little office and booked myself a tour.

I walked back to the hostel and finished the night drinking a few Guiness beers, getting high, playing Kings and Assholes. I was on such a great level high that I went downstairs and cut open a bunch of pink grapefruits I bought at the outdoor market; grabbed a banana, brought it all back up to the table and had everyone filling their stoned mouths with that sweet tart citrus juice and smiling.

The next morning, the morning of the cave tour, I rode in a truck with two girls from Georgia; one which I thought was the butch of the (what I then thought, but later found out they weren’t lesbians) lesbian couple; and one delicate and feminine and cute, and they were the only other two people on the tour. I mostly chatted with Amanda, the less feminine one, throughout the car ride. They weren’t backpackers. They weren’t lesbians. They were hungover. They worked as some sort of Arabic translators for the Navy or Army or something like that. They were on a little vacation in Belize for a week or two and just at the tail end of it. The more feminine was named Ashley (though I might have their names backward). She was quiet. A thin girl, 28, with a light complexion and curly brown hair braided into a pony tail and big brown eyes and nice skin. Almost a Natalie Portman type. By the end of the trip it was me and her talking the most.

Our guide was a 38 year old short stout Mayan, Lebanese, mixed guy (looked more Lebanese) named Edward who was very strange to talk with. He spoke slow and had a softness in his voice, sometimes like he was telling a mysterious story, like a mystic; or the way you lower and soften your voice when you’re telling a kid a scary story. His eye and mind seemed to be a separate thing from the person who was talking. For example the way he would look at my hat and tattoo and shift his eyes over to one of the girls and look them over and read them (flirting with them in his creepy way and grabbing only Ashley’s hand to help her during the hard parts of the cave) as he was talking all about the jungle, it was like his body and mouth were already trained to move and speak while his mind and eyes lived their own separate life at the same time. He was like two people. I don’t know, it’s really weird and weird to explain.

We walked through the jungle for 45 minutes to reach the cave entrance; crossed the river a few times; ate some termites that tasted like carrot; heard the bone chilling roar of howler monkeys in the distance; walked in the rain and finally reached Actun Tunichil Muknal: The Cave of the Crystal Sepulchre: Xibalba — the slippery stone steps leading down to the almost bright, yet opaque, blue pool of cool water leading into the mouth of the cave, we walked down them with our hardhats fixed with headlamps and jumped in. Ooooh the water was cool, cenote cool. There were tiny fish swimming in it. We had to swim through the first twenty feet of the cave entrance to get to a point where we could stand on the rocks beneath the water.

It was a three hour tour up and back, through ankle, knee, waist and chest high water; among sparkling milkbuttery stalactites and stalagmites; squeezing through crevices barely wide enough to fit through; climbing over rocks and crouching beneath them; beneath bats which hung upside down or flitted about any time our lights bothered them; darkness outside of the four headlamps illuminating the path in front of us; the sound of water flowing; into huge wide open cathedral like chambers, the formations forming silhouettes of ancient Mayan priests and old ladies against the wall when our lamps shone on them; lights out and it’s pitch black, the darkest black I’ve ever seen, you close your eyes you open your eyes and it isn’t any different and they never adapt to the darkness, you can’t see your hand right in front of your face and no matter how hard you try, how hard you stretch those pupils you never see light, shapes, forms, only darkness. That’s Xibalba, the Mayan portal to the underworld.

We pushed on to the finale where we took off our shoes and walked and climbed through the dry part of the cave barefoot, looking at shards of pottery and human bones, skulls; offerings and sacrifices; and the finally to the final resting place of a complete skeleton, the crystal maiden, a young girl calcified into the cave floor. The IDEA of the sacrifices and the offerings, the idea that Mayan high priests held court in that cave with flickering torches and chants and rituals and hallucinogens was bigger to me than actually seeing the artifacts and bones.

We left the way we came, me behind Ashley almost the entire way, her little waist and wet thin cream colored pants that revealed the panties underneath and clung so tight to her butt; her cold goosebumps shivering and poor balance that had me so badly wanting to help her and put my arms around her waist and pick her up over the hard parts (no different than creepy Edward I guess huh — though toward the end she was talking quite a bit to me, nice girl anyway). We swam out of the mouth of the cave much quicker than it took us to complete the journey in. We walked the jungle trail back to the parking lot and ate a simple meal (tortilla, deli slices, cheese, bell pepper, tomato, chili, chips) along with rum punch.

Back at the hostel, exhausted, at night time, I finished the night once again drinking and getting high playing cards (and I got a bit too high this time; though not too high that when this black Canadian guy Jamique that we’d been chumming with brought back a plate of stewed chicken rice and beans, I went out and bought a plate of my own, not even hungry either I just wanted the flavors). The next morning was the last I’d see of my good friends Jamie and Krissie until Flores Guatemala.

Ah mi gat wahn gud gud taim

I bought a couple of bananas for breakfast and caught a bus to Belize City — two hour ride through jungle, at times alongside a river, a few small villages, over a bridge across the river, Belize City — Frenetic bustling dreadlocks Creole shanty city which at times reminded me of Haiti (though I’ve never been) or maybe New Orleans dilapidated colorful wooden houses, on stilts.

I walked across the bridge around the corner into the marina terminal and caught a water taxi to the island Caye Caulker.

I took the water taxi back to Belize City two hours later, unplanned. The island didn’t appeal to me, not after chaotic Belize City and Orange Walk. Sometimes when you arrive in a place you’re affected immediately in one way or the other, you’re captured or you want to split; and the atmosphere on Caye Caulker didn’t capture me at all. It wasn’t an especially beautiful or lively island. No sandy beach (though I knew that coming in), and I wasn’t ready for tourists backpackers hostels snorkeling tour advertisers souvenir vendors and all that.

I walked around the island for two hours. I visited the split. I ate stewed chicken with rice beans and potato salad at a place called Aunties Kitchen; sat there feeding a dog my chicken skin and bits of chicken while deciding on what to do about staying in Caye Caulker. I did like the chalky streets, dreadlocks Creole, Spanish spoken in Creole accents, English spoken in Creole accents, but it wasn’t enough to keep me. I could find that without the tourist vibe four hours south in Dangriga.

I walked back to the Marina and caught the 130 PM boat to Belize City. The strange empty feeling I had in Caye Caulker left me as I crossed the swinging bridge and walked back into the frenetic scene. I fell back in line with the sensory explosion of noise and motion, dust, exhaust, people, shacks, the shanty town feeling.

As I was walking down the street a Creole man caught my attention with a fist bump and he began chatting with me. His name was George. He was born in Belize, moved to Bakersfield CA, spent time in prison, was deported, has kids in the US he hasn’t seen in ten years, the ten years since he was deported back to Belize; no trouble for him in Belize because “the cops don’t bother you”. I asked him if Belize City was dangerous and he said only for locals, only certain parts.

“Which parts?”
“Where I’m taking you”

He led me to the bus terminal — a different part of town than the part I was dropped off at when I arrived which would’ve taken me an extra twenty minutes to find. I would’ve been anxious finding it because it was sketchy looking, but I felt comfortable walking and talking with him and was glad for it. He asked if I could spare anything for a meal and I gave him $5 Belize ($2.50 US) in sincere gratitude. He kept walking with me to make sure that I didn’t miss the Dangriga bus which was already starting to pull out. There was a crowd of people in the way of the gate and he kept urging me to get through, “Those people are not going to move, push through” and flagged down a station worker at the gate to allow me out. I bumped through the crowd and jumped on the moving bus, driven by a big bald headed Creole man playing Reggae music videos on a small tv mounted up front. It was Creole and Reggae thenceforward. As we pulled out of the station I saw George outside scanning each window on the bus and I stuck my arm out and raised my palm to say thanks and goodbye.

We stopped in Belmopan which didn’t seem to offer much in the way of exciting scenes and moved on. The road from Belmopan to Dangriga was long and climbed through endless towering skyscrapers of dense green viney palm tree’d jungle flanking the bus on both sides. There were rivers and black mysterious hallways into the jungle; and you could smell it in the rush of air through the open windows as the school bus zoomed down the road.

We arrived in Dangriga at close to dark. It was immediately appealing, a certain shady appeal with big groups of Creole men hanging out on the sidewalks and in front of faded wooden stilt houses which were falling apart. I would be the only light skinned face walking through the crowd and I was anxious about it. Back in LA I wouldn’t walk through the projects, black dudes in big groups talking and watching the obvious outsider passing through the neighborhood. It was the same feeling. I didn’t know how far the hostel was so took a cab, something I never do; though later that night I found it wasn’t a dangerous town at all.

I got a room at a hostel called D’s. D was short for Dana, a thick Dangriga native who was very warm and friendly and eager to please. She set me up with sheets and a pillow and towel and information on where to eat and drink. She told me that I was the only backpacker or tourist in town, and the only person in the hostel. Fine with me and just what I was looking for after Caye Caulker, though I was still reluctant about walking through the neighborhoods in search of food and drink. It was unwarranted.

A female backpacker came in thirty minutes after me. I noticed her earlier on the boat back from Caye Caulker. I thought she was a bit weird when I watched her on the boat. She made strange facial expressions and seemed a little kooky. As I talked to her I found that she was strange. She would begin to say things and just sort of stop. Not quite trail off. And I wouldn’t even follow up and ask her to repeat herself or elaborate because her abrupt stops were very weird to me. It was almost like she was forming ideas in her head and not completing them and saying them out loud without even realizing she was talking.

She mostly disagreed on every small detail I mentioned about a thing — a common form of response to almost everything I’d say – “Yeh…..buuut” — Example: “that’s white”, “yeh buuut it’s more of an off white”; “the water’s warm”, “yeh buuut it’s more sort of tepid”; “the food here is cheap”, “yeh buuut it’s cheaper in other countries”; “I love the energy of bustling crazy places”, “yeh buuut it’s nice to relax”; little things like that . It didn’t annoy me too much though because I was just glad to have someone to walk around with. And outside of those weird quirks she wasn’t all that bad to talk to.

And she was a braver person than me. She said she wasn’t anxious walking the streets at all when she arrived in the dark and she was looking for a local bar to sit and drink in — where as if I was alone I would have went out and bought beer to drink back in the hostel (mind you I’ve only felt that uncomfortable feeling here — the feeling of hood New Orleans).

Anyway her name was Amy from England and we went out and bought food and afterward walked into a bar — which is where I made the decision to stay another night or two in Dangriga.

We walked in, it was empty outside of the three girls who worked there and two other guys. Spanish music and reggae was playing on a jukebox which had a screen on showing a slideshow of naked ladies (I later talked to the Garifuna girl working the bar about how she felt having naked ladies on the screen; and how she felt about men calling out to her on the street, “ay beb, whachu doon grl” “yu sa beautful wa yu gon”, and she explained how in her culture it’s very sexy and attractive for the men to say things to her when she walks by — she said it makes her blush and feel confident and sexy; and if she didn’t like the guy or guys or if it’s an old man she still finds it sweet and smiles and thanks him and keeps on walking; she didn’t mind the naked women on the screen and said that that’s what the men love, the women, their bodies, and men are men and women are sexy. I explained to her how the sex culture of the Garifuna would not be well received by the girls back at home — and Amy from England agreed).

The Garifuna girl working the bar was dark thick and curvy in a short bright tight blue dress. We ordered two Guiness stouts and the bartender offered me a cigarette. She was quick to start a conversation with us and the ease of conversation was very comfortable. The music was very loud at first so I just sat and watched her talk back and forth with Amy without interjecting. There was another girl who worked there, not really working but having a beer and hanging around the bar; light skinned, looked tired and older than she was, 26, looked 40; she had voodoo eyes and a hint of crazy about her but I liked her. I told her to have a seat next to me and I bought her a beer and smoked cigarettes and talked in Spanish and then had her talk in quick Creole which I could hardly understand. The two girls explained to us the Creole lyrics in the reggae music and how a lot of it talked about sucking on tits and having sex and ejaculating in mouths — which was ironic because the singing was so romantic and pretty sounding. The girls couldn’t help shaking their asses up and down every few songs. They kept talking about dancing in the middle of the room but they never did. They wanted me and Amy to go out and dance with them but we were shy.

I had three beers and Amy had two. We drank there for an hour and at one point an old skinny drunk man with grizzled white beard sat next to us and kept asking for a dollar. We didn’t give him one and the bartender girls became annoyed and gave him a dollar and told him to go away. He grew very sad and serious and put his head down for five minutes. Then he popped back up again asking us for a dollar. Finally he went and fell asleep on the bar floor. The girls kept talking about how high he was. I said, “weed?”. “No, he drink too much”. They used the word high the same way I use the word drunk. So the bartender referred to her very pretty 18 yr old sister as high when I asked if her little sister was tired. She kept laying her head down on a cooler and then walking over and talking to one of the guys in the bar. Her big sister bartender kept telling her little sister to calm down or go home or something. I couldn’t quite understand. The younger sister would walk back to the bar and lay her head down and stare at me. “She so high”.

We paid up and left and walked over to another bar Amy noticed earlier close to the bus station. It was an open air bar. In fact just a little small bright yellow wooden hut where a man pulled ice cold beers out of a freezer. There were four or five tables and it was all covered by a palm thatched roof. There was a table of five big hard faced no nonsense older Garifuna ladies playing poker. Very serious about it. Men were sitting in their own group off to the side. One dreadlocked man was smoking weed and watching a UFC fight in the corner. Nobody seemed to pay attention to us. I was feeling the effects of the beer from the last bar and was quick to finish my beer and want to leave. I was out of cigarettes and didn’t feel like chatting.

As we left the table of big girls started hollering about a tip. And the bartender too, though finally he said don’t worry about it. But the big girls kept barking so I popped a dollar Belize coin on the table and as I walked away I heard them talking bad about the 50 cents US I just gave them. But they were only asking the tip because we were tourists. The bartender didn’t do anything but give us a bottle of beer which we opened for ourselves. Amy said I was encouraging bad behavior by giving them money. I explained about it only being 50 cents and how they’re certainly much more poor than me and it was no big deal. She really counted her pennies when it came to giving it to these people who were much worse off than we were.

The next morning Amy left and I walked the main road till it ended at the beach. At some point along the main road the scene become noticeably poorer; wooden houses falling apart; old men in dirty rags; graffiti everywhere. I told myself I’d be alright. I wasn’t gonna turn back anyway. Too many people had already told me Dangriga was safe. I made it to the beach without incident and was flagged down by a guy sitting alone under a palapa. I walked over to him and had an hour long conversation about his life — Robert; 44 yrs old; Gold front teeth with dollar signs; a dark face but not as dark as the Garifuna; solid build; born in Roatan Honduras; six years in prison in Florida for drug trafficking; deported; living in Central America since 1994 when he was deported from the US; has family and a kid he never gets to see; three kids in Belize; didn’t have any color or shine in his eyes; had a hard life; still hard, but he was good in spite of it.

Robert did most of the talking and I just sat there listening. His stories were fascinating. Guns Drugs Money Robbery Murders Prison The Good Lord Staying Alive Being a Free Man. I left telling him I’d see him around later on the main street and walked a different route back toward the hostel. It was a marshy route and the mosquitoes started sucking my blood (as I type this I probably have over twenty bites on my feet thighs and arms). I picked up the pace, constantly swatting at my arms and made it back into town, passing by a few schools and looking in at the kids who were facing another direction and didn’t notice me watching.

Later in the night as I was walking out for dinner the entire town went dark. There were loud whoops coming from houses. Candles appeared in window sills. Glowing cigarette embers floated past me. People were still walking and riding bikes through the streets, no different from the afternoon. I stopped in the middle of the road and stared up at the starlit sky, the milkyway. The occasional smell of ganja floated by. This was everybody’s chance to break the law.

I made it to Alexis’ place and bought two chicken burritos, loaded them with Marie Sharps hot sauce, burned my lips in the best way; bought an orange juice and sat having a candle lit dinner for one. Left and walked around in the dark, down the main street digging the nighttime power outage scene; over the bridge and headed to the bar I was at the night before. The door was closed so I peaked through the window. A lone candle sat on a table in the empty wooden room. I walked away debating whether I should buy beer from one of the Chinese shops which ran off of generators and were well lit. A dog led the way and kept looking back at me and changed street sides every time I did. I passed a truck playing Hot Child in the City and whistled the tune the entire way back. I was too full from dinner to buy beer. Right as I walked up to the hostel all the lights in town kicked back on.

I finished the night drinking at the bar. I was the only one in there and Kendra, the thick curvy huge breasted dark skinned bartender from the night before, sat and talked with me all night. Her energy was lower than it was the night before. She had a cold. Since it was only me and her talking she began telling me that I was handsome and asking me if I had a girlfriend and all kinds of other flirtatious questions. She told me that she had three children and the kids’ father was mostly in and out whenever he wanted. She worked 16 hour days 6 days a week. She only made $130 Belize a week, or $65 US. She wanted to go to the US but it would cost her $3000 to get her across illegally. In order to cross legally, at least the easiest way, she needed to marry an American. A few years back an 83 year old American asked to marry her but she was shy and he married her friend instead. The man took her friend back to the US and they had a baby with “clear skin” and “beautiful blue eyes” and her friend is doing okay. Kendra’s parents thought she was stupid for not accepting the offer. I drank and shared cigarettes with her all night as we talked. She really seemed to like me. She gave me her phone number, but I didn’t have a phone. I gave her my email address. She said she would like to kiss me but a guy who was there the night before came in and was having a coca cola in the corner. His name was Giovanni and he was a friend of her boyfriends and he was always watching. A flirty eyed friend of hers named Samantha came and bummed cigarettes off me. I didn’t know she was flirting but Kendra told me that she liked me. I asked her how she knew and she said that she told her when they were talking in back at a table. The friend asked if Kendra was getting sex from me. Kendra told her no, and then later in the night asked me more than once to visit her the next morning and buy her a beer and we could go off alone and maybe get a room. But she also mentioned HIV being a big deal in Dangriga so the idea of having sex with her made me think twice. She told me she was still breastfeeding and staring at her excessively large and mostly exposed breasts all I could think was to have a sip of her milk. I was buzzed and too many bad ideas sounded like good ideas so finally I paid and left, telling her I’d visit the next morning.

Feeling good on the walk home, crossing the bridge and staring at the catfish in the river, I was hollered at by a young light skinned guy on the balcony of a green stilt home. I’m shouting back at him from street level and thinking about Jack Kerouac shouting at “negroes” in second story windows in San Francisco in October in the Railroad Earth. The guy had a “loose feeling good” feeling in his voice and I recognized his style of speaking. It was similar speak to back home in a similar dialect. And he was from back home.

“Where you coming from man?”
“You know where the starlight is? Around the corner there’s a bar, this wooden shack. Had a few beers”
“Where you from”
“LA”
“Ah I’m from LA man. Pasadena…”
“Yeah I’m from Pasadena”
“Rialto, I stay in Lancaster though”
“Lancaster? Lancaster’s dead man”
“It’s not dead if you’ve got shorties!”
“And drinks! you got that right”
“Go to San Ignacio for the light skinned spanish beauties”
“I like the curvy dark skinned beauties here though”
“How long you been in Dangriga?”
“I just got in yesterday”
“When are you leaving?”
“Maybe tomorrow, I don’t know”
“Go to such and such bar tomorrow man it’ll be jumpin, it’s Thursday”
“Yeah the girl at the bar I came from said things pop off on Thursday Friday and Saturday. Where’s such and such bar?”
“It’s a walk from here. Do you know where such and such is?”
“Nah”
“Man come by tomorrow I’ll show you around talk to some hunnies”
“Cool. I’m up and down this street all day long man. I’ll be around tomorrow just holler if you see me”
“Yeah I feel you. I seen you walking by here a couple times today. Alright man cool have a good night”

I walked back home feeling real good about the night, about Dangriga, the people and even myself. I felt a little “high” from the booze while I laid in bed wondering if you could get HIV from breast milk. I was hoping I wouldn’t be hungover the next morning.

The next morning I woke up feeling halfway hungover but easily manageable and had breakfast before walking over to the bar where Kendra worked. She didn’t think I would keep my word or that she would ever see me again because “men tell many lies”. I began to realize that she was the one who lied about taking off and hanging out for an hour before I left. She didn’t forget that she told me, but now it was — “Jeff, we can go walk around and hang out but you need to pay my boss $50 Belize for the time I am gone”. I told her I wouldn’t do that, that was a crazy amount of money. She didn’t push it.

I didn’t want to drink but I bought I myself a beer. The night before she had asked me if I’d buy her a beer when I came the next morning and she didn’t forget. I bought her a beer (strange that because she is the bartender her beer costs $8 Belize, a little more than twice the amount of a patron’s beer) and we drank them and talked and she told me over and over that she didn’t want me to leave and I just kept telling her that’s the way it is. Her friend Samantha came in and asked me to buy her a beer but I told her no. Kendra told me I was very rude; and I don’t think I could make her understand that buying everyone who asks for a beer or giving money to everyone who asks for it just doesn’t work. It’s hard to tell her I don’t have money when she sees me on vacation. Samantha ended up buying her own beer and a revolving group of people came in and out throughout the two hours I sat there.

Before I left Kendra grew bold and walked over and sat next to me and wrapped her arms around me and stared at me. I knew she wanted a kiss so I kissed her (I wanted to kiss her anyway just for the story of kissing a Garifuna girl in Dangriga). It was a strange style kiss that I wasn’t accustomed to, and I didn’t like to do it in front of other people. I told her that my culture was much more private about it. She said in her culture nobody cares or stares at you. She thought that I was embarrassed of her. Sometimes it was really hard to make her understand that I wasn’t lying when I said a thing. I said goodbye, paid up and left.

Hustled at the Border

I woke up with a throbbing pain in my arm. The same throbbing pain I had when I walked out of the tattoo studio. The outline of it didn’t hurt much. The shading had me clenching my jaw and squinting my eyes. I brushed and washed up and put cream on my arm and had a quick ham cheese sandwich fruit & coffee breakfast; chatted with a Korean lady (the hostel Rio Playa had plenty of Korean tourists the year before and it was no different this time) and split for the ADO station for a bus to Chetumal.

9 AM: walking outside of the hostel the streets still felt sleepy. No evidence of the animal night the night before.

Sitting in the station waiting for my bus — something odd about flying into a trip rather than the long begrimed greyhound hitchhiking journey to get there (as the big Mexico trip the year prior). It somehow feels like cheating. Something empty about it. But I don’t have the time and the money to do the month long thousand mile trek from Arizona across Mexico just to start the Central American leg of my journey.

The Chetumal bus ride was long and uneventful. 4.5 hours through dense monotonous vegetation on either side of the road and when we finally arrived, 2 PM, I decided I’d use the remaining hours of sunlight to push on forward into Belize.

I stepped out of the bus into the thick wet air and asked directions for the mercado (where I would find the Belize bound buses).

“Dos cuadras y dos cuadras direcho”

15 minute walk. As I strolled up to the line of brightly painted retired US school busses, one just starting to pull out, I asked a candy vendor where I could buy a bus ticket. He flagged the attention of the driver pulling out onto the street and told me to hurry up and get on. I ran out into the street and hopped in.

“Vas ir para Orange Walk?” (excuse the poor Spanish)
“Si”
“Cuanto cuesta?”
But he was busy negotiating a big turn on a busy street, smiled and told me to wait and have a seat.

In Chetumal you begin to see Creole faces and dreadlocks; more of that to come further south.

It was a quick fifteen minute bus ride and along the way a Creole girl collected my last $20 USD and gave me 35 dollars Belizean change. $2.50 USD for the bus ride. Belizean money is double American dollars.

We arrived at the border and I stepped off the bus, along with everybody else, and got in line at the immigration booth. When it was my turn to step up and hand the lady my passport and FMM, confident that everything would go smoothly, I was asked to pay an exit fee of 332 pesos.

This all in Spanish:

” I don’t have 332 pesos. I bought an airline ticket and the FMM was already paid for”
“No, it wasn’t paid for”
“Yes, it comes with the flight ticket”
“332 pesos please”
“I don’t have 332 pesos. How much is it in Belizean Dollars?”
“48 Belizean dollars”
“I don’t have 48 Belizean Dollars. Can I use my card?”
“No. You need to take money out at the atm”
“Where is the atm?”
“It is back in Chetumal”

I walked away with a head full of congested thoughts and frustrations. As everyone was boarding the Belize bound bus that I was just on, I stopped a travelling couple about to reboard and asked if they could give me 13 Belizean dollars (6.50 USD). I told them I would pay them when we got off the bus, that I would take out cash immediately and give them the money. They weren’t stopping at the same stop. They got on the bus and I watched it drive away.

I began walking back the way I came when a taxi pulled up beside me and asked me where I was headed.

“The nearest ATM”
“It’s in Chetumal. Get in, I’ll take you”
“How much?”
“Not much, don’t worry. Get in I’ll take you”

I opened the door and got in. That was a mistake and I knew it as I sat down. We drove about 8 miles to an ATM and I pulled out 500 pesos, enough cash to pay the exit fee and ride. Throughout the ride I would casually ask how much it would cost. His reply was, “no mucho, no te precupes” (don’t worry). We drove back the way we came and I paid the lady. I received 150 pesos and some change. The cabbie drove me to Belizean border crossing and stopped right outside of it.
“250 pesos”

I was being hustled and I knew it, and I knew it the moment I got in the cab and it was one hundred and fifty percent my fault. I only had 150 pesos left so he took that and he took a Belizean 20. It was a $22 cab ride which is more than I pay for four hour rides on an ADO across the Yucatan. I had no choice but to give him the money. How could I argue? What could I do? Stupid move buster. So I was hustled at the border.

I walked into the immigration building to get my passport stamped and had to fill out some form full of questions that I somehow kept missing. The lady at the booth kept returning the form, “Please complete all!” I was still busy thinking about the hustle.

Finally complete I walked over to a Creole girl who spoke great English and asked me a handful of questions in a severe tone. Passing through that, I was officially and legally in Belize. I waited outside for another bus to Orange Walk. It wasn’t long before I hopped in with the rest of the Belizeans and Mexicans; sat there sweating, staring out at the jungle that flanked the narrow chalky road which along the way blew all kinds of grit into my eyes. The terrain was similar to everything I’d seen on the Yucatan peninsula, though in some way, maybe it was the old colorful mayan faced jam packed hard seat school bus blaring rhythmic Mexican music, it felt distinctly Central America. It was there and then on that bus that I felt it. Welcome to Central America.

We arrived in Orange Walk two hours later. It’s the grit I experienced in Northern Mexico at the beginning of last year’s trip. The grit to keep you alert. Sensory grit (and I there I was yesterday uncomfortable at the clean tourist ease and familiarity of Cancun, Playa. Now here I am at home — the alone time I prefer in a skeezy motel far from hostels and tourism ). It’s a very poor looking town. Chalky roads blind the eyes. Lotta traffic noise on the streets. English is spoken in Creole dialect. Spanish is spoken just as well by the Creole. You see Creole and Chinese, Mexicans, well Belizeans, mingling. School kids. Anybody. I have to abandon the idea of US white face black racism. It’s a different thing here. I think how strange to see it as in Los Angeles, or the US in general, we’re divided (mostly). Plenty of Asians and Chinese food joints. In fact I’m sitting in a cheap basic hostel run by Chinese off a busy street close to the bus station. The roar of traffic outside booms through my open black bar windows, curtains in front of them fluttering in the light breeze. Orange Walk has an eclectic flavor which grips me. I could spend another day watching the scene, the people, the everyday goings on.

Ahh, well, time to eat, drink, smoke, stare out at the night through the balcony window.