the moment you´ve all been waiting for!

i finally have my entries about my trip up! i´m excited to finally have them done. anyway, i entered them a bit differently this time. first of all, you don´t have to scroll down to start. i´ve put them in order, from top to bottom....so basically all you have to do is read the entry following this one and keep on reading. the entries go from first visited to last visited. secondly, each stage of the trip is a separate entry, instead of each day like i did it before. there are seven entries in all:

1) off we go...
2) esquipulas, guatemala
3) quiriguá, guatemala
4) río dulce, gatemala and belize
5) lívingston, guatemala
6) copán ruinas, honduras
7) and back on to the savior...

so i hope you enjoy the reading. it might take you some time because there is a lot of writing and a lot of pictures. but i think it´s worth it!

so for now, adios. i´ll get back to you in a week or so with an update on starting up with the school again.

happy reading....

OFF WE GO....

my first idea about writing about this trip we took was to cut down on the narratives about bus trips and things like that. i figured they’d make the writing seem less like a james michener-length novel and more like an informative short story. my plan was to stick to what was really important – the places we visited. but i’ve come to realize that those narratives are such a necessary link to the whole experience. they are sometimes even more colorful than the stories about the destinations. isn’t there some cheesy saying out there that says something like it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey? well, as cliché as that saying is, it’s true. often times the funniest and most interesting, eye-opening things have happened on the bus rides on the way to the main attractions. so, while it may seem like these parts of the stories are boring or you find a hard time picturing why in god’s name i’ve found it worth re-telling, i offer two pieces of my mind. first, i will admit that for most all of these stories, you really had to be there....there is nothing that can compare to how hysterical something can be when you’re actually there and in the moment. and secondly, this is what central america is REALLY like. central america isn’t what you find at tourist destinations. it’s what you find at bus stops, or in small comedores and tiendas. it’s what you find on a long walk through the woods on your way to the spot where other tourists get bussed in. so hopefully, you can enjoy the stories about what central america is really like, because anybody can read about the tourist destinations in traveler magazines. those places have all been written about before, and my intention isn’t just to re-hash what’s already been written, you know?! so with that being said......here is a little map of our entire trip.

just click on the photo if you want to see a bigger view of it...to see where the actual towns are.
the RED LINE is the trip from courtney’s house in el salvador all the way up to the río dulce in guatemala

the BLUE LINE is the boat trip from the río dulce, to lívingston and into the caribbean and back down to lívingston

the GREEN LINE is the return trip from puerto barrios, guatemala and down to copán, honduras and back to courtney’s house

we left courtney’s house at 4:00 in the morning and by like 7:30, we were the border town, el poy, between el salvador and honduras. we ate some breakfast at this comedor (and watched part of some movie with jane seymour in it about horses....which courtney thought was “medicine woman,” but i said no, it wasn’t that...and courtney said she thought that jane quinn was in that show about the old west. and i was like – no her name is jane seymour, and she was in a show about the west called “dr. quinn, medicine woman,” but that wasn’t what this movie was. oh my god, it was so hysterical!!). anyway, we made it across the border and to nueva ocotopeque and then had to run after this bus that was going to agua caliente, the border between honduras and guatemala. it was so dreary! the ride wasn’t that long, as we were just cutting through the lower southwest corner of honduras, so before we knew it we were in agua caliente.

ewwww, agua caliente! it was gross! we got our passports stamped and exchanged our money and tried to beat it out of there as fast as we could. we crossed the border and asked some woman if the other part of the border crossing was close. she said “yeah” and pointed up the road and so we continued on. see, most border crossings have the first station – which is the station of the country you’re leaving. then there’s another station up the road that’s the station of the country you’re entering. so there’s this stretch of road that doesn’t belong to either country....it’s just “the border.” all the borders we’d been over before had a relatively small “no man’s land” between the stations, so we just continued walking down this road. well, this road was lined – on both sides – with 18-wheelers, for what seemed like miles and miles. it was kind of scary and courtney and i were not feeling too safe, walking in-between these semi trucks. after a while we flagged down a microbus and while it took us up the road, we saw we would have had a lot of walking to do! anyway, we stopped at the guatemalan border station and the guy told us we had to get out to get our passport stamped and that the bus would wait for us. then he was like “just leave your backpacks in here.” and courtney was going to do it, but i was like “no way am i leaving my backpack in here.” the driver and the other passengers kept saying “no, it’s ok” but i just didn’t think it was a good idea. i mean, lots of other things other than the passengers and driver robbing us could have happened....like what if the police told the van to move or something. i don’t know, i didn’t trust that whole thing so i lugged my backpack in with me and courtney did the same. we came back and i told the people in the van that it wasn’t because i didn’t trust them, i just felt better having my stuff with me. and they all were like “no, it’s ok....no problem!” so with our passports checked and our asses back in the micro, we began the short trip to esquipulas.

ESQUIPULAS, GUATEMALA

esquipulas wasn’t really on our agenda, apart from going through it to catch a bus to our first destination – quiriguá. but we had made such good time that by the time we got to esquipulas we figured we might as well check it out. esquipulas is the granddaddy of religious attractions in central america. remember when i told you about how juayúa is home to la iglesia del cristo negro (church of the black jesus) in el salvador? well, esquipulas is the home of la iglesia del cristo negro to all of central america. located in guatemala, just over the border from honduras (and el salvador), it’s bigger and definitely more touristed. both the statue in juayúa and the one in esquipulas were carved by the same guy, quiro cataño. however, the church in esquipulas, in addition to having the statue, is also known to be a church of miracles, so hundreds of central americans make the pilgrimage to esquipulas every day. it’s quite something, actually. the town is kind of run down, but the church grounds are amazingly manicured and the church is just beautiful.

me being a fool (and sadly, one of the last pictures of me with my favorite red sweatshirt that is now somewhere in honduras....see the entry about copán)

la iglesia




at one point, we were walking around the plaza in front of the church, near a statue, and on the other side was this old, old man laying on the ground on some flattened out cardboard boxes. he had a rainbow umbrella propped up next to him, sheltering him from the light rain that was falling. there was a basket in front of him and it had a greeting in spanish along with what his name was and that he needed help and couldn’t speak. i don’t know what it was about that whole situation but i just about broke down in tears. it was just so emotional. he was looking up at passersby and i gave him some quetzales and said buenos dias to him, and he just looked at me with these sad eyes and it was like he was trying to reach up and shake my hand but couldn’t. god, it was awful, i’m telling you. i mean, you see that kind of stuff every day here – so it’s not like it was anything new. but the way he was just laying there, virtually helpless, at the mercy of strangers – both to help him out with a few quetzales and to not steal what he did have in his rickety basket.

not that there’s not poverty and homelessness in the states, but it seems like down here it’s just so much more amplified because conditions are already bad. there aren’t shelters or homes for homeless or disabled people. poverty and homelessness is such a heartbreaking thing, no matter where. and it just makes me so mad when i see some article about some hollywood star spending $15,000 on a dress or $8,000 on a purse. it’s just so ridiculous that $1,000 could help someone out for the rest of their life and to someone else, it’s just pocket change. anyway, i seriously just about went into emotional turmoil seeing that old man. i lingered around that little area where he was for a while, feeling that if i just went on my way to see the church i would be abandoning him or something. but i finally made it up to the front of the church. inside was really pretty simple, aside from the huge, straight out of phantom of the opera crystal chandelier that hung in the back of the church. outside the church, on the right side, was a nativity scene that was kind of weird....i really don’t know how to explain why i thought it was weird. first off, it reminded me of a hole at a putt-putt golf course because it had some of that green carpet stuff in a long strip in front of the manger area. like if it actually were a hole, you’d make a putt down that aisle of green carpet into the manger or something. i’m probably going to hell just for equating a nativity scene to a putt-putt golf course. it also had all these different pieces. i know, it’s like the nativity scene that is in most latin american homes. they have the normal scene, but then add weird things to it like plastic toys and five baby jesus figurines. like at mama rosa’s house, back in molineros, she had a nativity scene that had a pokemon figurine in it, and like three virgin marys and the baby jesus was HUGE and he was sleeping on a neon green pillow. there was also this decoration that had a baby with some lace around a big number – like it was a present for a baby’s birthday. all these dolls and figurines were placed amongst the normal shepherds and three wisemen, turning to look at the huge baby jesus.

the nativity scene

anyway, that’s what this nativity scene reminded me of, and i guess since it was in latin america, i shouldn’t have been surprised or anything. but i just figured churches were a little different than everyday people’s homes, and this is a pretty big church that receives LOTS of donations, so you’d think they’d have the complete set and leave it at that. but i suppose latin americans like to mix-n-match...at least my dad thought so when he was here for his visit. he kept noticing that when we went to people’s houses and they gave us coffee or food, nobody had matching dishes. and my dad said that there was nothing wrong with it at all, that people here just have other things on their mind and they don’t think it’s important whether or not they have matching dishes. which is totally right. so we walked around this nativity scene and then there were these guardrails that led back to this other area of the church so courtney and i followed it. there was a long line of people and we figured it was to see the big, carved statue of jesus that was at the front of the church. now, keep in mind, we had our backpacks and everything with us, so we really stood out as we waited in line. we were also the only non-latin americans, so of course, everyone kept staring at us. nothing new.

as we waited in line there were these interesting pictures on the wall to look at. people leave these little trinkets at the statue of jesus, these tiny gold and silver plaques that say a person’s name and a date. remember how i was telling you all before about the church in sonsonate called “san antonio del monte,” where people had prayers answered so they came to the church and left a drawing or some sort of recuerdo saying “thanks?” well, it was kind of like that – only most all of these “thank you’s” were on these little plaques – they reminded me of military dog tags. there were also little arms or legs – which i have no idea what they were. my only guess is they were things to say “thanks for helping me walk,” or “my arm was broken and it was healed.” but honestly, i don’t have a clue. so anyway, these pictures would be like in the shape of jesus’ head or of a cross, but they were made out of all these little recuerdos. they also had some that were just all placed in a frame. so it was like people’s thank you’s weren’t just tossed into some bin in the church. they were actually hanging up for everyone to see. and these went back too, some 60 or 70 years. i think the oldest one i saw was from like 1935 or something.

one of the frames holding some of the recuerdos left at the church

so we made it into this one room and we saw that people are backing up, and i was like “huh?” thinking there was some problem. but then we figured out that it was the line of people who had already seen the statue. they were backing away from the statue because you shouldn’t turn your back on jesus, or god. i’m surprised this is the first time i’ve ever seen anything like this in all of the churches i have seen in central america already. i understand the reasoning behind it, but i couldn’t help but think it was a little funny. not that not turning your back on jesus is funny, but just the action of having to walk backwards, while everyone who is waiting in line to see the statue is staring at you walking backwards. i kept thinking “well this is gonna be interesting.” because not only were we already being stared at with our huge backpacks and chele skin, but then we were going to be stared at for simply walking backwards. great! bring it on!

we finally made it to the statue...it was in a glass case, with a bunch of flowers and other decorations around it. i’m not gonna lie to you, it is super emotional seeing something like this. i’ve never been a die-hard religious person, and could argue all day about the inconsistencies in the bible and the thousand questions i have about religion. but stripping all that away and just seeing how some people are brought to tears being in a place like that...it is totally emotional. you start thinking about where you’re at in life, how did all this come to happen, what DO you have to be thankful for, are you even thankful, who’s to thank/blame for all this? i don’t know....if anything, it opens your mind...religious or not.

so we got up to the front of the statue and said our little prayers (while everyone else stood and watched us...i honestly have felt less pressure getting up and giving a presentation in college. i felt like i had to come up with some suave way to do the sign of the cross or something. for crying out loud, the people that had gone before us – mostly little old ladies – had these elaborate signs of the cross they made that i’m not kidding you, rivaled all these fancy schmancy professional baseball players that get up to the plate thinking they’ve got THE signature sign of the cross. no way, these little old central american women have it totally down!) so with that done we started the whole walking backwards thing, which i did for maybe 10 steps before i nearly lost it. i just kept thinking of how stupid i must look, backing down this aisle, my huge backpack on, trying to walk backwards in a straight line. courtney was in front of me and she looked hilarious walking backwards like that and it was all i could do to get out of the whole area without busting out laughing. i tell you again – i was in no way laughing at jesus or his holiness or anything. i guess you just have to know me, and since most of you who are reading this DO know me, you’ll understand why it was so funny. geez...the whole making fun of the nativity scene and then on top of that, laughing at having to walk backwards from jesus......i really hope i’m not gonna have problems later on just for making this stop in esquipulas.

so that was it. we did nothing more than see the church and then hop back into a microbus and head on up to chiquimula, where we would pick up a bus to quiriguá and finally be done traveling for the day.

QUIRIGUÁ, GUATEMALA

so after a long and grueling bus ride from chiquimula, we finally found ourselves in quiriguá. it was really overcast when we arrived at the entrance of town so all we wanted to do was find a place to crash. we had been traveling since 4:00 a.m. and had already been on seven buses so we were just excited to be laying our bags down and chilling out for a second.

quiriguá is located on what’s called “la ruta maya,” (a route that spans throughout mexico, guatemala, honduras and el salvador and weaves its way through some of the most important mayan archaeological sites). quiriguá was once a home to a mayan empire that at one point was more powerful than the one in copán (in honduras). for us, quiriguá was in a perfect location as it was only a couple hours or so away from the río dulce and the place we were supposed to meet the sailboat. so we would have one whole day to see quiriguá, and then leave the next day for the río dulce and our sailing trip.

the town of quiriguá is a quiet place....just one long road that leads through town making it easy to let the whole place know that you are there. we found one of the only hotels in town and finally were able to rest. the next day we slept in and woke up to rain. i was so seriously sick of rain at this point. it was just hovering around wherever we were and the thought that it would follow us on our sailing trip was just making us depressed. we ate at this really good comedor and then hopped on the local bus as far as it would take us. during the slow ride through the back woods, the bus kept stopping to pick up people, like a bus normally would, but it would also stop to pick up rocks. it wasn’t until we got to this big uphill climb that we figured out that the rocks did serve a purpose, as the cobredor unloaded them and put them by the tires so the bus could make it up the muddy hill. the bus continued through this back road until we came to the highway and we continued on that for a couple minutes. then the bus turned into this road off the highway and the cobredor told us that this was the road to quiriguá and the bus wasn’t going that way so “adios!” he had said that we could wait for another bus or a pickup but we didn’t feel like waiting around so we just started walking.

we walked for what seemed like forever, and the road was this sloshy, muddy mess because it had been raining. my pants were covered in dirt and gravel – i looked terrible! the road was really interesting, but kind of creepy too. it went smack dab down the middle of the rainforest and these big banana plantations – owned by del monte. i’m sure you’ve all heard of the whole “banana republic” thing and how these companies came down here and completely exploited this country, as well as other central american countries. well, the companies are still here under different policies, of course. but it was the weirdest thing because there seemed to be endless amounts of banana trees and all the bananas were covered by these blue plastic bags. then there’d be these signs that said “¡PELIGRO!” (danger) and we were like “huh?” at first we thought it was dangerous because it was so isolated and huge – like you could get lost, or worse, attacked by someone way out there. but then we figured it was because they probably sprayed some kind of pesticides or something on the trees and so it was dangerous because of the low flying aircraft used to do that, as well as the danger of the pesticides. anyway, then all of a sudden we were looking in the banana forest and we saw these conveyor belts....like these long, thin steel beams that had a tracking system on them and these big bunches of bananas were being carried through the forest and to the main area to be loaded onto trucks and hauled out for exporting. i guess you had to have been there to understand how weird this all was. people would pass us every once in a while on bikes or a motorcycle. and there were a few trucks that passed us, but for the most part it was silent and eerie. just all these banana trees around us accompanied by silence and the occasional sound of the banana conveyor belt. i suppose it wasn’t the safest thing to be doing – walking down that road. but it was peaceful and we did get to just take everything in, as opposed to passing everything by in a bus. at one point, we saw a huge tourist bus coming behind us and we were like “great,” but then it got held up because the conveyor belt of bananas had to cross the road we were on – like waiting for a train. we got a leg up and made it to the entrance of the ruins just as the bus was pulling up and were able to get into the park before the bus of tourists did. this obnoxious french woman tried to cut in front of us, but the guy handing out the tickets was having none of her rudeness and gave us our tickets first.

banana road...if you look closely, you can see the banana conveyor belt in front of the big bus.

banana forest

the sign at the entrance of the site

me and my pants

the site had a small museum at the front which courtney and i visited first. i was baffled at how the tourists that had come in on the tourist bus were shuffled to the actual ruins right away, skipping the museum entirely. i would hate to be part of a tour group. they just cart you around to different places without any real time to actually see and hear and feel what it is you’re there to see (i have a better story about this when you get to the part about our visit to livingston). they breezed in and out of that park according to the tour schedule and they didn’t even see the entire ruins. it was weird. anyway, we headed as far away as we could from that group. there were very few other people there so it was nice to be able to just walk around and take pictures without having a bunch of people around.

plaza where all of the stelae were located.

by far, the stelae in quiriquá are the attraction. they are the biggest and most intricate in the mayan world. stela E is 26 feet high!!! archaeologists can tell the exact date of when a stela was built because the exact dates are inscribed as part of the design. these are done with dots and bars, which at first are easy to understand. i went to a workshop once on the maya and we learned how to count. up to twenty or so is fairly easy. but after that, it gets confusing. for instance: 1 dot = 1 and 1 bar = 5. so like the number “15” would be three bars. the number “18” would be three dots and three bars. but then they also had the up and down bar which i can’t remember what that represents. so anyway, archaeologists can read the exact date of when a stela was created according to these bars and dots that were etched into a specific square on each stela.

the stelae also tell stories about who was in power at the time and what happened during that ruler’s time in power. there are also dates accompanied with the stories, so it takes a lot of studying to get the entire stela deciphered. i just think they are so amazing! as for a little history on the place, here you go:

quiriguá was inhabited around 250 BC – 300 AD from drifters from northern guatemala. during this time it was under copán’s (another mayan site in honduras) rule, and was pretty much copán’s only other mayan connection. probably the most well-known ruler in quiriguá’s history was cauac sky, who was able to challenge copán and eventually had copáns ruler at the time, eighteen rabbit, captured and killed. the reason he was better known (aside from his triumphant execution of eighteen rabbit) is because most of the stelae in quiriguá were constructed at the time of his rule, therefore, his time of power was put into words, so to speak. also powerful in quiriguá’s history was jade sky. while jade sky didn’t construct the stelae that cauac sky did, he made renovations to quiriguá’s acropolis. the history of quiriguá drops after jade sky, but it’s clear that quiriguá’s power fell into decline around 790 AD, which isn’t that many years before the fall of copán.

there are also lots of altars, as well as zoomorphs. zoomorphs are smaller rocks that represent images of both humans and animals. they have the same type of inscriptions with the date and stories. all of the stelae, altars and zoomorphs in quiriguá are protected from rain and such with thatched roof shelters.

STELAE

stela C

stela D

stela D

stela D

stela E

stela F

stela F

stela H

stela I

stela I

stela J

stela J

stela J


ZOOMORPHS

zoomorph P

zoomorph P

zoomorph P

there is also a beautiful ballcourt just beyond the ruins of the acropolis. but the stelae, altars and zoomorphs are the real highlight. whereas tikal (in northern guatemala....next on my list!) is known for its grand pyramids, quiriguá is the grand-daddy of the intricately carved and enormous stelae. it is really something to see and i was surprised that not more people were there. although i think that maybe the difficulty in getting there (unless you are part of a tour group and have a huge bus to travel in) may be part of the reason.

courtney and me in front of the ballcourt

ballcourt

ruins near the ballcourt

view from the highest point in the ruins, overlooking the plaza where all the stelae and zoomorphs are located

we spent nearly four and a half hours there and by the end of the day we were tired. we did NOT want to walk back down that road because for one, it was getting close to sunset and we really didn’t want to be on that road when the sun went down. secondly, it was just a really long walk and we had been standing all afternoon looking at the ruins. so we hopped a ride in the back of a pickup of a couple guys who were workers at the site and they dropped us off at the entrance to the highway.

quiriguá was so incredible! i was definitely happy – even though it was STILL raining – by the time we left for the río dulce the next day.

RÍO DULCE, GUATEMALA and BELIZE

so we got on this bus which we thought was headed for la ruidosa, but we found out from the cobredor that it was going into a town called morales. we didn’t really know what we were doing, but we just decided.....whatever. that sums up how i travel, and since courtney’s the same way, we travel pretty well together. i mean, we have an idea of where we need to go and all that, but when we get to a bus stop or whatever, we just tell a cobredor or bus driver or local where we want to go and they pretty much point us in the right direction. people are usually really helpful so there’s no need to freak out when the route gets a little changed, or the buses are different than what we had read in our travel books. sure, we’ve had our share of people telling us buses are coming at a certain time when it’s not exactly the correct time. but for the most part, things work themselves out and when you’re on vacation, it’s not worth it to get all revved up about it.

anyway, so we got into morales, which looked like this big agricultural pueblo....agroservicios and agropecuarios were all over the place. we circled our way around town, then ended up in the terminal and the cobredor walked us over to this microbus that was going to the río dulce. so we got on this thing and finally left morales and make our way back towards la ruidosa and onto the río. this was one of the most packed micros i’ve ever been on. there must have been 25 people in this thing....they just kept piling in. it was pretty claustrophobic. when we finally arrived i was not impressed. talk about a run down place. we were dumped off on the main drag in town and quickly saw that it was full of gringo backpackers and dirty roadside stands. we had arrived fairly early so we decided to find somewhere to eat breakfast and stopped in this restaurant which turned out to be one of the worst place i’ve ever eaten food in my life. i can’t even explain the ridiculousness of it. we just wanted normal breakfast – beans, eggs, tortillas, cheese and this slow girl was totally confused by our request. in fact, i’d rather not remember it! anyway, so we found where we needed to be to meet the sailboat – a restaurant called the río bravo. we waited around in the restaurant and kept seeing people and wondering if they were going on the boat with us. finally, an hour after we were supposed to meet the boat, some guy came and told us he would be taking us over to the sailboat on a smaller motor boat. so we went over in groups and were finally deposited on las sirenas – our sailboat for the next six days.

me on the deck of the boat, as we were sailing up the río dulce

well, you guessed it. it was raining and when everyone finally got on board, it was not looking good. it was cold and drizzling and we were wearing raincoats and sweatshirts and wondering how the hell this could be a caribbean trip with this crappy-assed weather. we all introduced ourselves and here were our ship mates for the rest of the trip: the crew – raúl (the captain), carlos (the captain’s assistant...what is that, first mate?) and zacharias (the cook); nate, kellen, pablo, jackie and ashley (this group of college-aged kids who apparently had formed their group of five in antigua); adam and kate (a boyfriend/girlfriend couple from england); alex (really funny guy from the states); and mary and luisa (a young lesbian couple from sweden...they were exact opposites....luisa was tall, white-blond haired, typical nordic looking girl. mary was really short, dark skinned, dark haired. in fact, before we met them on the boat, we saw them in the bathroom at the restaurant and courtney thought that mary was luisa’s adopted CHILD from guatemala....she was that little! hee hee).

so after that the sailboat got moving, we headed up the river and it just kept raining and raining. it was soooo depressing! after a couple hours or so we docked at some area along the river and had our first meal. the rain stopped so we were all kind of hopeful that we were gonna get lucky the next day and the sun would come out. so at some point i crawled into our cabin (which was really just a double bed with shelves on the side...we couldn’t stand up or anything.....i could barely sit up straight without hitting my head on the wooden beams across the top) and zonked out.

the next morning it was looking kind of promising. there was no rain, but it was overcast and there were clouds enveloping all the mountains around us. the boat set sail pretty early (well, we didn’t actually use the sail until we got out onto the open water) so i went up on deck and had some coffee and just watched the amazing rainforest-filled canyon of the río dulce pass by. we ate our breakfast and then finally pulled into the waters around lívingston. lívingston is a guatemalan town that is only accessible by boat and it was here that the captain had to take our passports to the immigration office and do the paperwork that would allow us to go into belizean waters. because we weren’t actually going to be going onto land in belize, we didn’t need visas or anything – but the captain still needed to officially let the guatemalan/belizean officials know what we were doing and who was doing it. so while the captain took care of that, carlos took us over in groups to lívingston in the motor boat. there, we were given a couple hours to check out the town and get whatever things we thought we might need for the sailing trip.

the beautiful río, surrounded by rainforest on both sides







well, by this point it was practically pouring – but we all went over and milled around. things were pretty dead just because of the rain but it still looked like lívingston was pretty cool. courtney and i were debating whether or not we wanted to get off the sailboat a day early on the return trip back and stay for a couple days. there is a pretty big garífuna community in lívingston and it seemed like it was a really interesting culture – different from the traditional latin culture we’d been living with in el salvador and had seen with the highland maya in lago atitlán. so we decided that we would cut our sailing trip a day short to check out lívingston. besides, all we would have been doing that last day is going back down the río dulce and back to that god-awful town. so after walking around town a bit, we stopped by lívingston’s alligator pool. you guys would not have believed this thing – it was a cement circular pool, split up into four separate pools. the walls were only about four feet high or so, maybe four and a half. anyway, inside each one of the pools was a huge alligator – i mean HUGE. this was the most dangerous thing i could even imagine. and there we were, leaning our heads over the wall to get a closer look. i know – stoooopid! but whatever.

so we headed back to the dock to wait for our return motor boat trip to the sailboat and shortly after boarding, we were off again. everyone slowly started to disappear into their cabins or into the sala (the communal room where everyone played cards....and when i say room, again, we’re not talking a den with a lazy-boy and coffee tables. we’re talking a 4 x 6 coffin where maybe only 6 people could be in at one time comfortably). courtney and i hung out up on the deck of the boat, under the tarp the crew had put up to shield us from the rain. the crew only spoke spanish and since courtney and i are pretty fluent now, we kind of chatted with them a bit about the boat and the trip and all that. we finally made it out to the open water – past the bahía de amataque and into the golfo de honduras. and yes, it was still raining. only now it was raining and we were moving up and down on this choppy water like a buoy. thank god i don’t get seasick or motion sickness or anything because we were really moving.

the dismal view of the bay surrounding lívingston

a boat filled with pelicans near lívingston

our sailboat, las sirenas

on the deck of our sailboat

despite the rain and all, it was really cool to be out there. it was really relaxing to just be out there on the sea and away from all the buses and people and craziness that you find on land. we sailed for the better part of the afternoon and towards the end of the day we arrived at the first place we dropped anchor. we were now officially in belize and in the sapodilla cayes area. we were anchored near an island that looked like it had nothing but a small house on one end of it. it was still raining so they put up the tarp again (they had to take it down when they put up the sail) and we ate dinner and crawled back under shelter.

courtney looking through the hatch (one of two entrances to our cabin)

the island we anchored near for the first part of the trip

everyone on the boat was pretty tranquilo except for the two swedish girls and ashley – from the group of college kids. they formed some kind of powerpuff girls group pretty early on. they just gave off way bad vibes and it kind of made the trip a little stressful at times. under normal circumstances it’d be something that you’d laugh at and then just ignore. but limited to the confines of a sailboat during bad weather kind of made things unbearable at times. the two swedish girls were just so loud and overwhelming that it was really hard to ignore. everywhere you turned, there they were shouting and being loud and making snarky comments about everyone. i don’t know, i guess at age 34 i see the world and people differently than these young girls did. it was like they were still living under junior high circumstances...”let’s sit around and judge everyone on the boat so we can make ourselves feel better about ourselves.” a couple other people on the boat made some comments to me and courtney about the ridiculousness of it which was funny. they were also being really shitty to the crew, like the crew were their servants or something. i felt really bad because during this rain and bad weather they kept complaining like it was the crew’s fault. when, in reality, the crew were working their asses off and doing a really good job of just getting us to where we needed to be, cooking awesome meals and doing the best they could to make us comfortable....putting up the tarp, giving us rain jackets, putting the tarp over the two hammocks where two people were sleeping. and those girls just continued to be rude and obnoxious. puhleeze!!!

anyway – so that second night was kind of crazy....just because of the aforementioned stress. also, our cabin was next to the sala, and the only thing separating the two “rooms” was a thin curtain. so it was still really hard to get away from the junior high antics and they just seemed more amplified because of the close confines. but i managed to fall asleep. you know what was really, really scary? having to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom. you had to hoist yourself out of your cabin and onto the deck which was only visible because of a tiny light near the center of the boat. you’d look out and seeing NOTHING but darkness. the boat would be rocking back and forth, which made for walking to the end of the boat (where the bathroom was) very, very creepy. then you’d have to open the bathroom hatch, slide on down and do your business while the boat was still rocking back and forth. has anybody ever tried this? have any of you lived on a sailboat before? (besides my uncle pete who is probably reading this and mumbling “god laura, you’re such a whiner!”). well, for those of you who haven’t had this experience before, let me explain it to you. it’s the equivalent of snowboarding or surfing, while trying to use the bathroom. seriously. not for the unbalanced or the uncoordinated. or the those of us who are tall. anyway, then you’d make the same trip back to your cabin and it was just an eerie, eerie thing to be out there in the middle of the sea at night like that.

the next day was even worse than the previous one. it was raining, even harder, and there was nowhere to go. i mean, we were on a sailboat....that’s pretty much all there is. i was not feeling good that day – i had a horrible headache which could of developed as a result of a multitude of things: 1) being crouched in the cabin for hours on end, trying to read and/or sleep; 2) repeatedly hitting my head on the wooden beams on the “ceiling”; 3) listening to the three “we’re so cool” girls and their yakkity-yak bullshit about how cool they were for too long; 4) the thought that if the weather didn’t clear up, i’d have to live with the thought that i paid actual money to sit in a tiny, tiny cabin and listen to the three above-mentioned girls for hours on end; 5) having to listen to jack johnson repeatedly (courtesy of the college kids.....don’t get me wrong, i like jack johnson, i like his music even if it does all sound the same. but honestly, enough is enough. jack ain’t that cool. nobody’s that cool.); 6) all of the above. oh, and on top of all this i hadn’t showered in three days....nobody had.

regardless of all this, there were some good things going on as well. alex, adam and kate were really cool. the crew was super nice and i ate some of the best food i’d had in a long time on that boat. i don’t like fish, so i told them when i got on the boat – because it was basically fresh seafood every day for lunch and dinner. but even so, zacharias (the cook) made me fish-free lunches and dinners and it was excellent. and again, we were on a sailboat in the caribbean!

finally, the following day was sunny! not only was it sunny, but it was blazing sunny. things seemed to improve 150% that day. after just catching some warm rays from the sun for a couple hours, courtney and i decided it was time to go snorkeling. if anything, i just wanted to get in the water to clean off because i was feeling mighty gross after not bathing in three days. anyway, i’ve only ever been snorkeling in lake erie so i have to admit, i was a little weirded out about jumping into the middle of the caribbean and swimming away from the boat. a couple people had already seen a nurse shark in the area and while i know that usually sharks don’t give two shits about humans swimming in the water, i was still kind of uneasy about it. i love sharks, i really do! they are phenomenal creatures. however, swimming around in their territory is not something i’d put on my list of things i enjoy doing.

but when was i ever going to be able to check out one of the world’s largest barrier reefs again? so we got our masks and fins and jumped into the beautiful turquoise water and it was amazing. just so many fish with these stunning colors – bright blues and yellows and oranges. there were starfish and moray eels and just bunches and bunches of sea creatures that i had never seen in the wild before. the coral was beautiful too, but since it provides hiding places for all those creatures, it got kind of stressful swimming over big clusters of it. you’d never know what was going to be behind or under the coral and every once in a while a big fish would come out when we were swimming over it and it’d freak me out.

i didn’t see any sharks while we were snorkeling, thank god. you know, i just don’t think i’m underwater material. i like swimming and i’m not afraid of drowning or anything, but the deep sea weirds me out and i just don’t have the guts to be one with the sea. everyone keeps saying how you can get scuba diving certification for super cheap in the bay islands in honduras – it’s apparently the cheapest place to get certified in the world. and for a few minutes i was thinking that maybe that’d be something cool to do. but after those few minutes, i realized that no, i’m just not feeling it. i’m sure scuba diving is an amazing thing to experience, but it’s just not for me. i’m good sitting in front of a television watching other people scuba dive and make videos about all those cool underwater animals for the discovery channel and national geographic. i’ve said this before – we can go to the moon and farther into the darkness of space, but there are parts of the ocean that we just can’t manage to get to because it’s just so deep. that freaks me out. i know that the whole no gravity thing is easier to deal with than the pressure of the depths of the ocean and that alone is enough to keep me above water on a boat or on the shore. i don’t like messing around with the ocean. period.

later that day i went paddleboarding with alex, nate, kate and adam. we had a race from the boat to the nearby island in which alex and i kicked ass. when we were all on the island we started walking around and it was the strangest place. the island was so small that you could see pretty much everywhere. there was this huge abandoned building and another less deserted-looking wooden building. this, along with a huge wooden gazebo on the shore and the abandoned-looking house on the other end of the island were the only structures standing. there were signs scattered about that said that the island was a protected area for turtles and their nests. the combination of everything made me feel like we were in the middle of one of those creepy horror movies. anyway, so as i was coming up from the beach on one side of the island, this guy came out of one of the buildings and i asked him a couple questions in spanish and he only responded vaguely. then i realized that, duh, this is an island of belize and in belize they speak english. so after i realized that and said stuff in english, he had more to say. the rest of the group came up and the guy was saying how the bigger abandoned building used to be a disco back in the day, but the owner ran out of money and so the island became deserted. apparently there are only two people that stay on the island: the guy we were talking to and this other dude we saw later on the other end of the island. they take care of the island and make sure the turtle nesting areas are protected. despite talking to this guy, though, the island didn’t lose any of its creepiness. we finally left the island and headed back for the sailboat on the paddleboards. alex and i tried for at least a half an hour to both stand up on our paddleboard without having any success whatsoever. we got close a couple times, but were never able to both stand up. oh well.

some of the fish raúl and carlos caught

the first in a progression of pictures i took to capture the amazing sunset on that first day of total sun...

















....and gone

me and my qué horible sunburn i got that first sunny day

the rest of the day was spent doing pretty much nothing except eating and watching the spectacular sunset. the next day was filled with sun once again and the crew sailed the boat to another part of the caribbean. we passed a couple tiny islands and finally ended up at an isolated spot that was pretty shallow. the water was so beautiful and this time we saw a bunch of sand sharks swimming around the boat. raúl had told me that the sharks were really tranquilo so i wasn’t too scared when we went snorkeling that day. however, this time, the thing that was scary was that there were these huge drop-offs that were really dark. i felt weird swimming from the relatively shallow area into the great abyss. then at one point, i was swimming around some coral and i had just seen a stingray or manta ray (not sure which) and nate came up behind me and shook my shoulder. i about flipped out!

so the whole day was spent snorkeling and hanging out on the deck, eating papaya and watermelon and drinking gallos. it was the last night for courtney and i on the boat, as well as the last full day out on the caribbean so everyone busted out the booze and it was some night. courtney and i hung out with alex, kate and adam, and i drank a lot and sang reggaeton, but i slept like a rock and amazingly woke up the next day with no headache or nausea or anything. poor courtney didn’t have it so good. she was really, really sick and spent the whole trip back in the cabin, passed out. it was bright and sunny once again and we set sail for the return trip, just hanging about the deck, reading and eating more food.

sailing to our next destination...this is one of the small islands we passed on the way









the last of the fish caught....so do you know what they do when they catch a fish? well, first they pull it up on deck. then they club it with a wooden mallet. then they just leave it there to slowly die. it was horrible! i sat watching this fish die for like 15 minutes and felt awful about it. poor thing.

it was a long trip back and finally, around noon or so, we could see the mouth of the bahía de amataque. at one point i was walking to the other side of the boat to look for the dolphins that raúl had spotted off in the distance and raúl asked me if i liked lobster. i told him yeah, i liked all shellfish...it is just fish that i don’t like. so he says something like “great! you’re lucky!” so i’m like “cool, we’re having lobster for lunch!” every day on the trip carlos and raúl would go diving and bring up huge fish for the lunches and dinners so i was excited because it was gonna be fresh lobster. so later, carlos starts bringing up the lunch plates and i notice that everyone has fish, and i felt stupid because i had told alex that we were having lobster for lunch – based on what raúl had said to me. but then, i saw carlos carrying a plate with a whole, humongous grilled lobster on it and he brings it over to me and i’m like “what the hell?” you should have seen everyone’s faces. their mouths were all dropped open and everyone kept going “what???” there were actually a couple people that looked downright pissed off. hahahaha. i was dying laughing inside. and i think raúl was a little amused as well. courtney was sitting next to me and despite being horrendously sick, she was like “that is sooo funny.” so those two swedish girls were like “hey, how come you got the lobster?” and i answered, “i don’t know. i don’t like fish?” and the one is like “i don’t like fish either.” so i go on to tell her that, well, she should have said something to the crew before the trip started. then a couple people wanted to try a bit of it and i shared with whoever asked me. and during this whole thing i said, outloud, “oh, i guess everybody’s my friend now.” dudes, it was the most priceless thing EVER. i just kept going “this is GOOD!” the whole time i was eating it. i didn’t care. i was getting off that boat in less than an hour. i kept trying to reassure everyone that they’d probably get lobster later that night for their last dinner, but i knew they wouldn’t because that whole time on the boat, they only caught one lobster. and they gave it to me, bitches.

anyway, shortly after that hilarity, courtney and i hauled our stuff up, got our passports and hopped into the motorboat so carlos could take us over to lívingston. it was kind of raining again and i felt such a relief to be off the boat when we finally got to the dock. courtney was barely hanging on with her hangover/motion-sickness thing, but it didn’t matter because we were on to the next phase of the trip.

all in all i really enjoyed the sailing trip! i had been sailing before in san francisco bay with my friend kai and it was a much smaller boat, and everyone had to help sail the boat at some point....which was hard! this boat, being much bigger, gave you more time to relax. but with the couple days of bad weather it was almost too much time to relax. i guess what i realized about this trip was that i like hanging out and doing nothing for a day or so, but anything more than that and i start to get a little antsy. i like hiking. i like swimming. i like DOING something. and when you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean (and don’t want to get in the water, really) and it’s bad weather, you really don’t have any choice but to sit around and do nothing. and being forced to do nothing is even worse than choosing to do it.

but it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. there were some cool people we met on the trip, the sailboat was beautiful and the scenery was out of the this world. i got to see some of the most amazing animals and the coral reef there is gorgeous. i hope they can continue to protect it so that all that marine life survives and you guys can get a chance to see how awesome it is!