Caye Caulker, day two

I had a proper fry jack (stuffed) and coffee for breakfast, and watched the world from the dock at the hostel.

I developed a routine in the morning of eating breakfast, then coming back to first slather on sunscreen, then insect repellent, and only then going about my day. I didn't have to meet at the snorkel shop until 10 am, and I'm an early riser, so I stopped by "Ice and Beans" to get an iced coffee and walk about the island again. It was quite a bit windier, which meant the sand fleas/flies wouldn't be biting much (they don't care about repellent at all, they eat it for breakfast).

I met the group at the snorkel shop and sat and talked with the other tourists while we waited. There was a couple from France that shared their travel experiences, a few other people, and one girl from Japan traveling solo. The French woman remarked that it was rare to see a Japanese girl traveling alone, and I wondered how true that was. Mostly, I felt a sense of pride to meet another solo female traveler. We're out there, and we're more common than you think: women who yearn to see the world but can't wait around to find a travel partner. After all, you could wait for years.

All geared up, we walked to the docks on the west side of the island (actually the dock right next to my hostel) and first took a look at some protected tarpons.

I can never get over how blue the Caribbean is. It's my favorite sea.

And into the water we went.

It always takes me a few minutes to get used to breathing with my face underwater, but once I adjust it feels very natural. Almost too natural actually. When I dive under to take a closer look, I have to remind myself not to breathe.

I apparently need to work on my underwater selfies. You're seeing the float strap for my camera in the corner.

The jellyfish above do not sting. The guide passed one around to all of us underwater so we could feel it.

The reef is very shallow in some places. Oh, by the way, this is part of the Great Barrier Reef.

While trying to get closer for a better photo of this guy, something stung/bit me. Felt like a fire ant, if you've ever experienced that. I didn't see anything though, but swam off pretty fast. I later only had a small red dot from it.

I have always loved the shimmer of looking up towards the surface when you're underwater.

After snorkeling around there for awhile, we got back up in the boat to go to shark/ray village. Some might find this questionable practices as far as ecosystems go, although I only slightly understand it. But here they feed the sharks and rays to get them closer to people (docile nurse sharks). While yes, it does teach the sharks and rays that they can come get food, I don't think they forget how to get food when tourists aren't around (like never). And since this has become a protected area, and probably always will be, I don't know. I can see it both ways. In any case, they tossed a little food over the side and we jumped in to swim with the sharks and rays.

After we finished there, we headed over to the coral gardens for more snorkeling for those who weren't tired of it yet. I think less than half of us got in at this last spot, the rest sat in the boat drinking rum punch. But I wasn't about to let this opportunity go by. I was starting to get chilled, even though the water was in the low 80's. I didn't wear any sort of wet suit.

After awhile I started shivering, which made taking photos a little difficult, but of course I wanted to stay in as long as possible.

I did the half day (three stop) tour on Caye Caulker, because I would also be heading to San Pedro where I could do the other half at the sites closer to Ambergris Caye.

My feet hurt a little from I imagine the fins (I hope), and my ear was a little achy from diving under. When I was little, I had a pretty bad ear infection where I had to be taken to the ER or Urgent Care. My eardrum wasn't ruptured but it did have blood on it. Whenever I go on a plane, I can clear my left ear just fine, but not my right. I did buy Ear Planes (I highly recommend those, especially if you have to fly with a cold or other sinus issues) and use those sometimes. When I'd dive under to get better pictures, maybe 12-15 feet, I could not decompress my right ear at all. It made it fairly painful, so I tried to stay at a depth that my ear could handle. It was a little frustrating though.

Every night on the island, people come over to the west side of the island to watch the sunset. It's a sight to see in itself, the sudden migration of people and animals to the west side, onto docks that they get kicked off of, then onto a small window of beach. It's a serene time.

It was time to find dinner. I went out in search of food with two Canadian ladies and one British guy. I had lobster, salad, and .... mashed potatoes maybe?

The girls shared fish and lobster. I don't remember what the Brit had.

This place was pretty cool. They had a small grill out front, grilling up all sorts of things. We sat by the window to the bar and they kept giving us free rum punches... to go with the Belikins we were already drinking. That got us a little tipsy, which inspired the group to drag me out to the bar.

Of course, the crazy French Canadians (not the non-French Canadians I was with) at the bar got everyone riled up to do some weird green shot... out of a bamboo post.

I normally do not do this sort of thing. It inspired a pretty significant hangover, which was a concern since I was taking a water taxi to San Pedro the next day. We had fun though.

On to Caye Caulker **updated with photos

If you've ever wondered, "caye" is pronounced "key". I have to remind myself of that constantly, like before I open my mouth. It is a little odd here to not only speak the same language as the locals, but also not detect a major accent. It makes me hesitate to use certain words that can be slang in our language, or different in another country. It's easy to understand that slang words aren't the same in another language, but more difficult if everyone is speaking the same language.

This morning, a driver from my hotel drove me into Belize City to catch the water taxi. And from what little I saw of Belize City, it isn't nearly as bad as the guide books would have you believe. It was cloudy again, with pleasant weather.

The water taxi to Caye Caulker was about an hour. For the first couple hours I was on Caye Caulker, it was fairly cloudy and cool. But then the sun came out and it warmed up. The internet is pretty slow here, so photo uploads aren't going so well. I'll have to save most of those for another day. (**yay photos!)

I had a second breakfast of bacon, beans, eggs and fry jacks, which I took to eat on the beach. I walked up the beach and found a place that sells iced coffee and the most amazing chocolate rum balls ever.

The hostel where I'm staying is called Pause, and while I didn't read the description of the place well enough to figure out that I'm actually staying at a "wildlife sanctuary", it's a pretty nice place. It's on the west side of the island, with a dock and free kayak rentals. There are cats (domestic type), a few dogs, and one weird looking duck. I'm so bummed about the internet, because I've got some photos. (updated with photos)

The view from the private dock at the hostel:

I kayaked around (in the Caribbean by the way) and took some photos with my waterproof camera.

The view of the hostel from the water:

I walked around the island more, had an amazing fruit smoothie, scheduled a snorkeling tour for tomorrow, and came back to have a beer and watch the sunset from the dock. I talked to an amazing woman who's cycling down to Argentina. She's taking a year or two to do it, enjoying the countries she visits on the way.

It had gotten dark and I still needed to find dinner, so I set off to locate a place I had seen earlier that looked much less touristy than other places. I ate at Reina's where a guy named Elvis announced he would be my waiter, bartender, and chef. I had a couple beers, Jerk Chicken with coconut rice and vegetables, and lemon meringue pie. All made by him. Except the beer, but he at least served it to me.

Tomorrow I will head out to snorkel in the morning...possibly with rays and nurse sharks...we shall see.

Greetings From Belize!

Yesterday I took the train from San Jose to San Bruno, where I would fly to Belize early the next morning.

While the weather wasn't too bad in San Jose, it was cold and drizzling in San Bruno (just west of the San Francisco Airport). I checked in to the hotel and walked through the gloom to find food, reminding myself it was temporary and I would soon find myself in the tropics.

Not long after climbing into bed, I got an automated phone call from American Airlines saying my flight was delayed (where the heck was that thing coming from?) by about an hour and they would follow up with me if they felt they needed to reschedule my connecting flight in Dallas. I double checked my ticket. According to their new estimated arrival in Dallas, I would have about 5 minutes from the time we landed until they closed the doors on my connecting flight...two terminals over. That wasn't going to work. And I'm pretty certain there was not a later flight into Belize.

The hotel provided a complimentary shuttle to the airport at 4:30 am. Posted inside the shuttle was a sign that read "Your generous gratuities greatly appreciated."

While that does help clear things up for people who aren't sure whether or not you should tip the shuttle driver (you should), the sign also made me feel obligated to tip. The only thing I had in my wallet was a $20. I'm a grad student. $20 can be a lot.

The driver pulled up to my terminal and announced that this was my stop, but didn't open the door. I should've said that I only had a $20 or asked if he had change. I mean, we weren't coming from the Hilton, we were coming from Super 8, a budget hotel. That early in the morning, my wits weren't entirely about me, so I turned and faced the door, and noticed his agitation as I did. He opened the door and let me out. I felt like a jerk. I still feel like a jerk more than 12 hours later. Chances are, years from now I will still feel like a jerk when I think about it. I do things like that. Socially awkward situations follow me indefinitely.

Walking around the deserted airport by my gate, looking for breakfast, I heard a gate announcement stating it was the final boarding call for Dallas (a couple hours before my flight would depart) and that the doors would be closing whether the passengers were all on board or not. It occurred to me that some passengers had not yet shown up for their flight. I approached the gate and told the lady there that my flight was delayed and I would probably miss my connecting flight, but that I hadn't been re-booked, so was there any way....

I handed her my tickets and she asked if I had checked any bags. I had not. She booted one of the late people off the flight and let me board. Yay! I was going to make my connecting flight!

One of the flight attendants on board saw me and was a little snippy. "Oh, you must be one of our missing passengers".

"Um, no", I said.

"12D?"

"Yes."

"Is it 12D?" she shouted to the other flight attendant.

"I was just bumped up..." I tried to explain. Please don't hate me, I'm not the late person.

But whatever, I was on board, heading to Dallas, then on to Belize.

Dallas was fresh out of Belize dollars, so I confirmed that American dollars were accepted there, then got ones for my $20. I needed all the karma I could get and didn't want to insult another driver that was tasked with getting me safely from one place to another. Especially in another country.

In retrospect, it always amazes me how quickly (most of the time) you can suddenly find yourself in a totally different part of the world. I landed on a small airstrip just outside of Belize City, surrounded by jungle. It was cloudy but warm. Small island hopper planes parked alongside the tiny runway. They wheeled a set of stairs to the door to allow us to de-plane. Customs was a breeze. As a matter of fact, a guy working there saw me and my purse and backpack (medium sized backpacking pack), asked if this was all my luggage, took my customs form and sent me on my way, ahead of a line of people.

Out by the curb, people stood with signs. I didn't see my name, but a lady saw me searching the crowd and asked who I was looking for. I told her Global Village Hotel. She hadn't seen him yet today but would keep an eye out for him and let him know where I was. Two minutes later, he showed up and she pointed him over to me. He had a sign with the hotel and my name printed on it. He apologized for being late, but not only was my plane early, I hadn't checked any bags.

I climbed in the van, where a very pleasant woman was behind the wheel. We drove past houses in various stages of repair, most resembling something between colonial and Hispanic, but a lot of them had the living quarters on the second floor, with the garage on the bottom, like I've seen in House Hunter's International (love that show). It looked much like other Caribbean places I've been (Mexico and the Dominican Republic) where away from the developed sites, lay thick tangles of jungle. A horse roped to a chain link fence grazed on the sized of the road.

Maybe a mile from the airport, we pulled in to the hotel. The man waited while the lady checked me in, then he showed me to my room, how to operate the lights and the air conditioner "But it's pleasant now so you probably don't need it". It was about 75 and 90 percent humidity. I however, was dressed for San Francisco. I decided I just needed to change and my body would be fine with the temperature (humidity). The hotel is very basic but everything is spacious and the staff are incredibly friendly. Whenever I walk in, they jump up to see if I need anything. They've also volunteered to drive me to the docks tomorrow for $5 US less than the taxis charge. It feels very safe here, and I'm thankful for the familiar people to take me into Belize City, where it's not so safe. From there I will take a water taxi to Caye Caulker.

Also, like other Caribbean areas I have been to, a gecko just ran across my wall. By the time I got my memory card out of my netbook and into my camera, he had taken off behind the tv stand. I looked and he's no where to be seen. I hope he doesn't decide to climb into my luggage.

I should note that while Belize is located in Central America, it was originally part of the British Empire (thanks Wikipedia). English is the official language and it is part of the commonwealth with Queen Elizabeth as the head of state.

As fate would have it, the first place I ate was a Chinese restaurant. As the hotel is not located in town, there is only the amenities across the street: one restaurant, a bank (and ATM), and a market. But I did have a Belikin, Belize's official beer (I gather).

I ordered the orange chicken and listened to Lady Gaga while writing in my travel journal. The chicken was very fresh tasting, the beer delicious. It reminded me of Pacifico. They also had Guinness on the menu. A different world for sure.

The market was an eclectic mix of American, European (think Cadbury chocolate bars), and Latin American. I was there for bottled water as I was informed not to drink the water here (some places in Belize the tap water is potable, but not here as it turns out). Two large bottles of water for $1.50 US. You can't even get one in California for that price. Also, the exchange rate here is $2 Belize dollars (BZ) for every $1 US.

Also, the CDC does not recommend Americans in Belize take anti-malaria medications, just that they practice "mosquito avoidance". After researching my options and wanting to stay away from Deet, I found 20% Picardin (or something close to that) was the most reliable and it wasn't as chemically bad as Deet. So that's what I'm trying out. But it also says I need to wash it off before going to bed. Oh, and apparently the malaria you can get down here isn't the really bad kind.

Well, after several days of not sleeping well, I'm hoping to get a good night's sleep tonight (if the gecko and mosquitoes allow it) so I can get out to Caye Caulker tomorrow. Adventure awaits!

Just a Snippet of Memory

I drove out to Arizona for Thanksgiving, it must've been the year after my dad died. My grandfather was is in the early stage of Alzheimer's, and I was asked to drive him into town to pick up his prescriptions. Before he got in, I had to clear off the passenger seat to make room. I apologized for the clutter, explaining that without a co-pilot, I had to be sure everything I needed was in arm's reach: snacks, water, music, coffee.

As I cleared the seat, he looked up at me, hearing words I hadn't even thought.

"I'm sorry your marriage didn't work out."

Caught off guard, I stopped and looked over at him, standing outside my jeep looking me in the eyes. I hadn't meant to imply anything about being lonely or wishing for a travel partner. I wonder what he thought about me roaming about on my own.

I don't remember how I responded, but to this day there are so many words nestled into what he said, why he said it. I don't even know if he still remembered my name at that point. A lot of that time is so foggy now.

I don't know that my grandfather and I have ever really talked, like my grandmother and I did so frequently. She and I would sit at their dining table and talk for hours over coffee or tea, and usually something chocolate. My grandfather never really said much. I think that moment outside my aunt's house was the most intimate conversation we've ever had, and it was no more than a sentence or two.

I know there was so much behind that sentence, even if I will never fully understand it. And while it was such a brief moment in time, it is so vivid in my memory: him standing in a white t-shirt looking over at me, gravel and cacti in the background.

Legs

The morning was gray and cold outside my kitchen window, and inside were at least two of my very favorite things: warm and quiet. It was the kind of morning that all I wanted to do was lay around all day wrapped in a blanket sipping hot coffee. But goals are not achieved in one day, nor in one fleeting moment of inspiration. Goals are achieved through a relentless striving, effort on the days you feel you have none to give, and accumulated hours of training and making the right choices.

Dragging my feet, I got dressed and stared down at my pre-run routine. Core stability exercises followed by dynamic stretching. I was in very much the opposite state of wanting to do any of it. There probably aren't words for how much I didn't want to start the workout, much less go out into the cold and run 8 miles. I started with planks and ended with leg swings. I filled my water bottle and placed my Garmin on the windowsill while I pulled on arm warmers, a head wrap, and gloves. The Garmin beeped once to tell me it hard turned on, and too soon as always, beeped again to tell me it was ready to go. I glanced down at my bare legs and at least felt some pride, regardless of not wanting to go out. I am proud of these legs, these lean, strong, runner's legs. I would prefer if they had a little more muscle mass, but they're beautiful and take me places- sometimes swiftly, sometimes far.

As I wrapped the Garmin around my wrist, it beeped again to tell me if I didn't do something in 30 seconds, it was going into power save mode. "Okay, okay, I'm going", I replied as I headed out the door.

The good thing about my long runs is that I can pretty much do them at whatever pace I want. The bad thing is that my legs would prefer to do it fast, regardless of the drain that would put on the rest of me. I'm blessed that these legs have developed something of an auto-pilot. My mind drifts off to some other place and time, and minutes later when I come to, I'm still running. Usually too fast, but I take what I can get. I check myself and slow my pace and drift back off again. As hard as I try, I usually cannot remember where I was in my day dream so I'm disappointed to not be able to continue the dream. My brain moves on to something else.

I spot a few new people on the bike path, no doubt beginning their New Year's resolutions. The regulars at first don't recognize me, bundled up in all the pink I got for Christmas. Pink shirt, pink arm warmers, pink head wrap. My gloves are black and pink. My shorts black. Gray and blue shoes for today. I smile and say good-morning and recognition crosses their faces and they respond back. The other day, a woman complimented me on my new capris: an eclectic explosion of what looks like technicolor lava.

I watched ducks and geese paddle around the creek, people out walking their dogs. Most people looked happy, some were suffering under the weight of their new goals. I felt excited and relieved at the relative ease in which my legs moved. I'm between training seasons, and this will be one of the few times I will not lose my fitness in the transition.

I made it home, did a short stretch and took a hot bath. I plopped two eggs over easy on top of a bed of arugula and spinach, with tomatoes and avocado, a little salt and pepper, and red wine vinegar. After gobbling that down, I had a few pieces of chocolate almond toffee. As a matter of fact, I think I'll go have another right now.

Anger

What is anger?

I suppose it could be argued that anger comes from the same place that all our other emotions come from and is just as valid. But I wonder if anger is something different, in a class all its own. These days when I feel anger, I try to pause and figure out where it's coming from. I try to be compassionate towards myself and allow myself to feel emotions, but anger might be an exception.

I recently experienced a break-up from a man I thought I was going to marry. We had visions of our future together, and while we were complete opposites, we melded together perfectly. When the relationship ended, I was shocked at his complete lack of emotional response. Then again, his emotional response had been absent for some time. Today he came and picked up his things from my apartment, without as much as a "hello" or "how have you been?". While I have already mostly moved on, I found his coldness stirred me to anger.

What is there to be angry about?

Even if he did show some sort of feeling, the relationship is over. We're past the point of mending it. There was nothing to talk about, really no words to be said. But I felt angry just the same.

I'm angry that such an amazing relationship just collapsed before my eyes. I'm angry that he could not find it within himself to bridge a long distance relationship with something other than an occasional text message. I'm angry that someone who used to be so incredibly gentle and supportive and caring towards me has turned completely cold and can't even look at me, much less talk to me.

But am I really? Is it really anger I feel?

A few years ago, I strained a muscle in my neck doing pull-ups. There was a strange popping sound and I dropped from the bar. I waited a second, moved my head around a little bit, and thought maybe I was okay. Within a few minutes, the muscles in my neck had spasmed so badly that I could no longer move my head and the pain was unbearable. The doctor gave me muscle relaxers, vicodin, and ibuprofen. He said it wasn't the injured muscle that was the problem, it was the spasming muscles around it that were attempting to protect the injured area.

It's so much easier to feel anger rather than hurt, disappointment, or unloved. It hurts to go from meaning so much to someone, to meaning nothing at all. When someone you love no longer finds you worth their time, it's painful. And perhaps anger is the protective spasm around our emotions, protecting us from the hurt.

I've known some pretty angry people in my life and it has been my experience that they have a history of deep hurts and betrayals. It is far easier to feel anger than to accept the hurt.

Anger comes so quick, in a flash. It lashes out before we can even stop it. It's an instinctive response to emotional injury, and one I think, that can be unconditioned. When we feel anger rise up in us, I think it's important to stop and ask where it's coming from. Why are we feeling it? Chances are there's something else. And that something else is a valid emotion that deserves attention. Otherwise anger becomes our go-to technique, and that is less "okay" than feeling the emotions it's trying to cover up.