Finally after the almost-disastrious flight from Asia back to this of the globe, I made it back to Guadalajara. As I already wrote (in Finnish) during the first chapter of "Sweet Rice and Sticky Rice", I a) arrived to the wrong airport in Kuala lumpur and b) was taken off from the passenger list from my flight to Los Angeles and because of that, I was 5 minutes off from missing my 13-hour flight back over the pacific ocean. Well nevertheless I made it and here I was coughing my lungs out while watching the sunrise at 6am without a blink of sleep in my old room. Good times. That continued for 3-days, which I had reserved for arranging my internship that was supposed to start in early February..
I had planned in doing another trip for January after arranging my job here. After 4 days I hadn't even contacted any companies, let alone had any interviews. I got frustrated and bought tickets to Cancun 3 days in advance. Immediatly felt better! After that I was able to even arrange some stuff and it all looked promising until the last morning. I woke up and calculated my money, which I checked last time yesterday morning. Somehow, 1000-1400 pesos had gone somewhere! This kind of shocked me, while I just had calculated my money and was sure that I put them in my not-so-well-hided place inside my luggage. It was still around 4 hours to my flight and we vigorously tried to find them with Diego during the morning but without any positive outcome. This lead me thinking of the different possibilities, but then again, my trust for the family was really big and there really wasn't an option to suspect any one of them for taking my money. Susana took it really seriosly and the time of occurence was probably one of the worst, while these were my last days living in their house and I was leaving for a trip for almost three weeks. I had to leave to the airport in the middle of the hassle and it left a really bad taste into my mouth. Later on they had concluded that the previous cleaning lady (who before stole 220 dollars from me from the same wallet) could have made a copy of the key and came to the house in the previous afternoon. Of course it could have been my mistake too with my calculations, but I felt really certain about my memory at the time. Well, that's that. Now our relation has gone back to where it was and we're still good friends with Susana.
I was already feeling good and slowly starting to forget the whole subject while listening to my favourite song - Ratatat - Wildcats - in the airport. This would be my very first trip alone and I was really exited partly because of that! Somehow I was sure that it would all end up good and that the upcoming time would be one that I would both enjoy and remember for a long time. My gut-feeling proved to be correct, still three months afterwards while writing this text I'm still missing all the good memories like they happened yesterday. Let's get to the actual trip.
The trip started on the 13th of January. First I flied - this time unharmed - to Cancun. I had planned everything until this point.
Time to peak first time to the Central American version of Lonely Planet - the holy book of backpackers worldwide. Just before I continue the story I would like to mention a few things about this book. The series has really detailed and usually accurate information on almost every destination of its area and offers a good overall guide for alternative trips with low budjets; sadly the original purpose of offering an unique traveling experience in the local culture is already vanished due to its massive popularity - yearly sales reaching up to 6 million pieces. This basically means that this "local" culture of its destinations has been adapted to fulfill the needs of the so called LP-travellers (read: western culture) with fruits shakes, banana pancakes, hamburgers and so on. However, there is still existing a good tool for low-budget traveling with a cultural experience: Word of mouth. Asking around from fellow travellers will bring you invaluable tips for cool destinations. The authors of LP did it, so why shouldn't we too?
Despite the little criticism, the book worked just fine for me during my trip. It gave me the possibility to link easier together with other travellers when needed and easy access on information on various locations. Now off with the story!
I drank a beer in a restaurant in Cancun while ruffling my guide book on a local restaurant. By the end of the second beer I hadn't only decided my next destination but also helped a local bartender to translate a letter in english to his american girlfriend who is supposed to pay his rent.
Belize it!
Border check in Chetumal -MexicoBelize it is! I took the nightbus to the border of Mexico and Belize and continued all the way to Belize City in the morning. From there I took a boat to Caye Caulker - the beloved backpacker island near Belize City.
The first day I took a bicycle tour all the way around the city, met a Jamaican guy who taught me how to hunt lobsters, played drinking games with people from every continent and went to a local rhasta -bar. Here's some pics from the island to give you guys some expressions of the culture and the local vibe.
Street shops in Caye Caulker
Local fisherman
No shirt - no shoes - no shit - no problem!
First day sunset
School kidThe second day we took a snorkel tour called Full Chan to the caribbean reef break. This included dozens of nurse sharks, turtles and eagle rays and sailing with an all-included buffet of rom until sunset. The famously belizean aspect of the absence of time really hit us during the dinner when we had to wait 2 hours for our lobsters. Well, the pringles and beer did the job and eventually it turned out pretty good.
The next morning I went fishing with an australian buddy Joe to the split of Caye Caulker. The split was caused caused by hurricane Hattie in 1961 which basically split the island into two parts. It's the best place of the island to snorkel and fish due to the large sea population and shallow, sandy bottom with the beautiful turquise water. Joe was a professional fisherman for two years so the expectations were really high. In the end of the day we had caught one small yellow snapper; i guess fishing wasn't really the main thing at anytime. We almost woke up to a paradise when rowing back with our small kayak to our hostel since we saw ourselves surrounded by a huge swarm of kingfishes ranging up to 2 meters in length. Just when we were throwing our baits to the water some local kids started to shout to us to stop is since a) the fishes were protected by law, b) it wasn't anywhere humanly possible to get those monsters up with our tiny little fishing pole and c) this idiot pelican landed to our kayak and stole almost all our bate any way. In the night we didn't eat fish, but a big lobster tail and a cheesburger - oh boy. Here's a few pics of the day.
Fishing in caribbean 20 meters away from a bar - what else can you ask?
The fish! In the backround the other side of the split
The infamous pelican and JoeThis was my last day of Caye Caulker. I really enjoyed my time being there, even though the whole island is already quite touristy. The saviour was the nice hippie atmosphere that predominate all the Belizean islands with the addition to all the really cool people that I met.
On the 17th of January I left early in the morning to my next destination: Tobacco Key. After a sweaty 7 hours of traveling I finally arrived there. Unlike Caye Caulker, this wasn't mentioned in LP with a big magnitude and it surely did show. The whole island was approximately 500 squaremeters big with a population of around 30. I had arrived virtually in a small nice comun, where every member had his/her own duty and the warm atmosphere and hospitality made me somehow feel part of it immediatly when I arrived. Already in the first evening I went fishing barracudas to the nearby islands with a local fisherman. We both got one, wihhiiee! Few pics of paradise, por favor:
The island was located right before the reef break --> no waves
My guide and the fisherman
My hammockNext morning I was offered to go with a local guy to hunt lobsters! All we had was sticks of around 2 meters made of plastic with a big fishing hook in the other end. The place to hunt lobsters was these previously made traps of wooden shelters that the lobsters were hiding under. The technique was simple and hilarious: You dive down there in the bottom and lift the shelter a bit. If you see a lot of long antennas (tentacles of the lobsters, bigger ones had bigger tentacles) while lifting the shelter you will lift it as much as u can so that the lobsters will go into panic and start crawling along the sea bottom. Then you chased them one by one, placed the hook under their tail and make a fast pull to get the hook stuck into the lobster. The whole episode was indescribably hilarious when you see 20 panicous lobsters crawling under the sea bottom at different directions with their antennas pointing straight to you. They even let me to keep a few lobsters which the lady of the house prepared for me. Awesome.
The biggest catch of the day
Future lobsterhunter by professionIn the afternoon I went a little diving to the reef break which was located 20 meters from the island. I saw plenty of spotted eagly rays and lion fishes among others. In the afternoon I had a 1 beer at and fell asleep at 7.30pm.
On the next morning I was invited to come island hopping to the nearby paradise islands with two locals, Munch and Delilah, who I met during the previous day. The whole day was really cool since we went to various little islands and even got the opportunity to snorkel with a manatee! It was really one of the kuddliest animals you can imagine and still being over 3 meters in length. Still I couldn't stop thinking how these animals are only now becoming threatened. They are slow, fat, big defenseless meatballs that flow in the water a.k.a the perfect meal for any predator. I guess they have chosen their territory carefully or sharks just take them too adorable (or easy) to attack. Few pics from the island tour included:
Little protected island full of birds in their mating season. The males had an odd way to attract females by turning the throat bright red!
Jamming
My foto of the manatee - yeah, I need an underwater camera..In the afternoon I went snorkling again with some barracudas and eagly rays and even saw one eagle ray getting tackled into the bait of some unlucky fisherman. It was both sad and hilarious to watch to say the least. Eventually they managed to get the hook out and it flapped itself to freedom.
Later in the afternoon we had a garifuna - night in the bar of the island. If was really fun to watch these big - and I mean BIG caribbean girls shake their body to the local drums made out of turtle shells while the guys were going crazy while moaring some odd sounds and dancing in a freakishly funny way. This went on until 11pm, when the island went to sleep.
The next day I was going to Guatemala and my time in Tobacco Key had sadly come to its end. Some personal experience of Belize in general: Belize is somewhat different to other Central American Countries and it varies a lot depending on the area. This is shown for example in food: In the coastline and in the islands people eat naturally a lot of seafood. In the south-western part the population consists mainly of mayan people who eat traditional mayan dishes (tortillas with black bean etc.) in the cities chicken and rice and/or frijolles is the basic combo you meet. There are also many different type of people in Belize. One part - that lives mostly on the seaside in the eastern part are blacks that have mostly come out of Jamaica. The overall culture of the sealine reflects a lot to the Jamaican culture in other ways, too. When going more inlands, the people change to more Mexican (when going UP) or Mayan (when going DOWN). I really don't have too much experience from those areas but I would guess that a similar reflection with the origin of people and the local culture can be made.
Next morning I left this paradise island and headed through the capital of Belize - Belmopan - all the way to the eastern port of Guatemala. On the way in the bus I met two girls from the U.S. that were also heading to the ruins of Tikal. I'll tell about this and much more on the second chapter. I hope you guys made it all the way to the end, these texts don't come too often!
