Well, I got to Belize last Thursday. It was raining when my plane landed and didn’t stop for days after. I was so exhausted from the last few weeks of school, packing up my place, and then helping Rachel with the wedding stuff that I decided to spend the night in Belize City before heading to the islands. I guess I’m glad I did this, because I was pretty tired. Anna kept looking at me funny and telling me that I should just go to the islands immediately, because Belize City was a hole. She was not wrong. Calling it a “city” is very optimistic; it’s sprawling, ramshackle town that I can’t believe has survived any sort of storm. Actually, it used to be the capital of Belize until it was destroyed in the ‘60s by a hurricane, and they moved the capital inland to Belmopan. So anyways, Belize City is sketchy. I didn’t walk around much. I caught a water taxi in the rain and headed to Ambergris Caye the next morning. I was going to island hop, but with the weather I didn’t want to be re-packing and carrying seven months of crap around with me through the rain. (For the record, I packed incredibly lightly – only one medium sized backpack and a suitcase, plus my computer bag. It’s still a lot to lug around though).
I got to Ambergris, had a lovely lunch, a long nap, and finished my book. Then it started to rain harder. I forgot to mention that Rachel and Sam were taking their honeymoon in Belize. They happened to be on Ambergris at the same time as me. This was sort of on purpose – they had originally invited me to go to Tikal with them, but the schedules didn’t match up. I wanted to see the Cayes anyways so we decided to hang out a bit. Though I didn’t exactly crash their honeymoon, it ended up being a really good thing that we were all on the same island.
We hung out at their fancy resort on Saturday, even though it was pouring rain and windy. The water taxi ride was nauseating. But they had a hot tub so we bought some beer and made the best of it. After a really nice dinner, we went out in town. They were getting more and more fed up with their resort – turns out they like traveling more than vacationing. It’s a long story, but my 20 bucks a night budget hotel looked better to them than their pricey resort! Certainly safer than their glorified palapa on the beach once the storm really got started.
Sunday was dead in town, no one was around, the rain was coming down in sheets, so I was surprised to see Sam and Rachel show up at my door around dinner time. Even terrifying water taxi rides were preferable to being forced to eat overpriced food at the resort. So we had dinner, though Rachel could barely stomach it because she was so nervous for their ride back. I told them they could stay in my hotel probably, but they went back. That night the storm woke me up around 2:30 am. It’s sort of hard to describe how loud it was; it was like standing under a waterfall with constant lightning flashes and deafening thunder. That really doesn’t do it justice though. The scariest part was that the power kept going off and on, which I could tell by the flashing light on the patio outside my room. Well, the powerline was right outside my window – I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on at the time (I decided to stop trying to look out my window) but every 10 minutes or so the power would fade and then there would be this horrible crack and flash of bright green light from the powerline. Though there is no pole there, there is a place where two lines seem to have been attached together with some sort of plastic fastener (sorry, I have no idea how else to describe it). As far as I know this is where the flash was coming from.
Then my roof started to leak, so I packed my bags as well as I could and decided if my room started to flood I could put everything on my bed. I kept my computer next to me the whole night, as well as my swiss army knife, since I couldn’t see anything and was kind of freaked out. Needless to say I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I was seriously wishing that Sam and Rachel had stayed with me! That’s how freaked I was – wanting my sister and her new husband to come stay with me on their honeymoon! As it turns out, they were thinking the same thing up at the fancy resort as their palm frond roof shook and almost blew off – so that made me feel better. J
Anyways, the next day the weather was blustery but better. I hung out with Rachel and Sam at their new, air conditioned hotel for most of the day, had a nice dinner and went to bed early. The next day they left, the first sunny day since they’d arrived in Belize. They deserve a second honeymoon, I think. I got some sun on the beach, which was nice but really I wish I’d been able to leave yesterday. I didn’t really have anywhere to go though, so I stuck it out. The island just seems very small to me now.
Today I go to meet Shoshi (my field director) at the International airport in Belize City. We’re flying to PG this afternoon, and were supposed to visit some of the villages. Some of the old ex-pat locals who have coffee at my hotel every morning told me that the southern highway is flooded, and the villages are only accessible by canoe. We’re flying so that’s fine, but I bet PG is sort of a mess right now. I doubt we’ll be going to the villages today. I don’t much care what we do, I just seriously need a change of scene. Hope you’re all well!
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