loungin'

(if you haven't read this post about san ignacio, read it now)

back in belize city and once again, waiting at the water taxi station for our boat to leave. unfortunately, there was no random encounter with a group of girls this time. now we're on our way to caye caulker, which is another island, and for the most part, exactly the same as ambergris caye ... but less. less people, smaller island, less tourists, much more chill. there did seem to be a lot of belizean tourists though, and i'm not sure if that was because it was easter weekend or if belizeans regularly came here on weekends. ambergris caye had few cars; this place had none. the only transportation consisted of golf carts (once again, where's sidney when you need him ... probably at the block). most people walked from place to place. our hotel here was much more ghetto than the other places we stayed at (but cheaper). there's no real fresh water on caye caulker, aside from bottled water. water coming out of the taps is desalinated water, and you could definitely still smell/test the salt in it (we learned our lesson the first time we tried brushing our teeth). by this time, shawn and i had pretty much done all we had wanted to do in terms of tours and activities (plus we were running low on funds). we had planned our time on caye caulker to be really chill ... and that's exactly what it was. we didn't do much the first day. we swam a bit for the first time (not counting snorkeling and in the cave). actually, you don't see people swimming much in belize in general. that probably stems from the fact that belizean beaches aren't san diego/miami/hawaii type of beaches. the majority of belize is protected by a barrier reef (i believe the largest living barrier reef in the world), and because of the reef, there aren't any waves on the shore. it's really odd looking out to the horizon and seeing waves crashing off in the distance in what appears to be an arbitrary line in the water. the lack of waves allow for sea grass to grow underwater on the shore, and the grass makes swimming not very pleasant. however, caye caulker got hit hard by some hurricane in the mid90s, which split the island in two. this area is now appropriately called 'The Split.' at the split, there's a decent current running from one side to the other, getting rid of most of the sea grass. here, there was a good amount of people swimming, hanging out, and laying out on the shore. the hurricane also destroyed the dock in this area, and it was strange to see people hanging out on the remains of this broken dock. locals would dive and do flips. tourists would lay out and tan. some book or website described it best, calling it post-apocalyptic looking.

we didn't do much that night. we actually spent a lot of time (here and at ambergris caye) on the beach at nights with my ipod and portable speakers (which were key) and just hanging out and talking. of course, it helped that we still had our bottle of 1 barrel that we picked up in san pedro. 1 barrel is belizean rum that the guy at the liquor store recommended. really good ... has a hint of chocolate to it. i brought a bottle home with me, and you can have some if you come over to my place.

the next day, once again with nothing to do, shawn and i decided to rent bikes for the day. our first quest: bike around the island. imagine our dismay when we accomplished this feat in around 30 minutes. we had fun following two young local boys in hopes that they would lead us to something exciting. i think the younger one was terrified of us. we head to the split for another swim, and this time, shawn and i swim across the split (the other side doesn't have any building or housing and is pretty much all mangroves and plants). once there, we decide to follow some dirt path into the forestation. big mistake. next thing you know, we can feel ourselves being eaten alive. we had been getting mosquito bites off and on throughout our trip, but we never actually felt them biting us. we'd simply feel the bites itching the next day. different story here, we felt them biting. we quickly decide it's time to get back in the water. as we turn around and i see shawn back, he has like five of em on him. we had to deal with those annoying mosquito bites for the next few days.

caye caulker didn't have much of a nightlife ... or at least, we didn't know about it. shawn and i found some outside patio during happy hour and grabbed some drinks. by this time, shawn and i have nothing to say to each other. any conversation that there was to be had between the two of us had already been had in the past week ... and we've been with each other 24/7 since, which means there was nothing new to talk about. a deck of cards and pasoi (sp?) came in handy. so here we are at this outdoor bar, playing cards when a group of girls walk in. i didn't really pay much attention, but one of em comes up to us and is like, "one of you is brian, right?" hey, it's maryland girl (now find out her name is brittany) with four friends (emily1, emily2, lauren, and sarah). we teach sarah and lauren how to play pasoi, which is good because i needed better competition than shawn. all of them besides lauren are studying abroad; although, apparently there is little studying involved. lauren, brittany's friend from college, teaches in honduras and is in town for the weekend. brittany wants to shoot some pool (what can i say she likes playing), and we go with them to some ghetto place with a couple tables. the girls are all pretty nice, and when they've had their fill of pool, they invite us back to their place 'to hang out and drink some rum' .... which is exactly what we did. we sat on their porch, passing around a bottle of 1 barrel, and talking about random stuff from movies to music to traveling (these girls didn't go as deep as the sd girls did). eventually, it got late and we parted ways.

the next day was our last full day in belize. shawn had a laundry list of things to bring back for friends and coworkers and we figured it was about time to do any souvenir shopping that needed to be done. i didn't buy much, though i did bring home a cuban cigar (which i was able to get home without a problem) and some spices to make belizean jerk chicken (which i think i may prepare and leave to marinade tonight and cook sometime in the next day or two ... if you ask nice enough, you can come over and experience my cooking expertise ... sorry veggies, you're outta luck). we ran into the girls again (considering the size of the island, it was inevitable) and hung out on the beach with them. i had my speakers and ipod with me and decided to play some music. now it may not be for most people, but this is a big deal for me. you have to take into consideration the crowd, atmosphere, time, etc in choosing the ideal music to play. i failed. they groaned 'more reggae' when i started playing some bob marley. i asked them what they liked to listen, to which they replied, "well what do you have?" brittany kinda groaned again when i said lotsa hip hop. she said she liked 80s stuff, and i broke out with some police (yes, i had police on my ipod). after playing some more cards with emily2 while the other girls tanned and read, shawn decided it was time for a switch in the music. he told me to play some j5. i'm thinking that's not the best idea judging from brittany's reaction to my hip hop comment. however, emily2 was like, "you got j5 ... yeah, play that." now you know me ... j5 isn't a hugely popular group, and anyone that has heard of em, and more so excited to hear their stuff, gets major brownie points in my book. so i put some j5 on. apparently one of the girls had commented on shawn's j5 shirt the day before and that's why he suggested it. brittany looks up from her book. i'm thinking, ohh no ... she's gunna complain. you can imagine my shock when she asks if i have any mos def. umm ... is this the same girl that winced at the idea of hip hop ... now i'm thinking (hoping) maybe she expected me to have the type of hip hop you hear on the radios nowadays and winced at the thought of that. i put on mos's new album, and everyone goes back to what they were doing before ... contently. after a few songs, brittany looks up again, "did i miss 'sex, love, and money'?" i like this girl. i put that song on and she's feeling it (can i take her home). we grabbed some lunch with the girls and then went our separate ways again.

shawn and i knew we wouldn't have time to go to easter mass tomorrow, which meant we had to go to easter vigil mass tonight. longest mass EVER! and seeing that it started at 9pm, we were getting antsy midway through. we managed to sit through the whole thing. we had seen a bunch of flyers for easter parties tonight, but shawn wants to head back to the room for a bit first. while he's changing, i decide to take a peek into the bar downstairs. the girls are all in there. after shawn's ready, we head down there and grab some drinks (we killed the bottle of 1 barrel in the room before). all five of the girls were there. there were also a group of the british army (belize used to be a british colony and although it's completely autonomous now, the british army still does jungle training exercises in the country) there too. enter peter (more like pee taaah). this was one big dude. he kept trying to tell us jokes, but we couldn't understand a word the guy was saying because of his accent. it was comedy. this guy was a character ... and that was with barely being able to understand what he could say. at one point someone asked where emily2 was ... "up against the back wall dancing with one of the british guys." hahah. we hung out with the rest of the girls and drank, danced, chatted. at the end of the night, emily2 was nowhere to be found. i offered to walk emily1 home. she was staying with emily2 but didn't have a key to the place. of course, when we get to the place, emily2 isn't there. we hang out on the porch steps for awhile talking. eventually emily2 shows up the british guy, and obviously not happy about the fact that we there. she came up, handed us the keys, then walked back down to the guy. they walked off a bit and started making out (they probably should have walked farther). not wanting to interrupt anything, i hung out with emily1 some more. sooner or later, emily2 came back in, mumbled something about something being ironic, empathically stated she needed to take a shower, and proceeded to do so. i said bye to emily1 and made my way home.

... and that pretty much ended our trip. my journey back was uneventful. shawn and i ended up being on different flights back because he couldn't get on my flight for some reason (even though it was only half full when we took off). shawn's return was more exciting. he has a knack for being interrogated by customs (... and it probably doesn't help that he started kinda mouthing back). by this time, he's glad he didn't buy a cuban too. eventually they let him go on his way. i got into lax around 1030, by the time i got my baggage, waited for my parents to show up, and got back to bp, it was 1130. i had work the next morning and didn't want to deal with traffic then, so i headed back to sd that night. here i am at midnight, thinking which of my friends will be awake ... and sadly, the only ones i could think of that would be awake at this time were jay and sueellen. and just my luck, neither pick up.



home again =)

all in all, the trip was great. like i said before, i would recommend to belize to anyone. in the words of shawn, "it's funny how we had a plan for what we wanted to do in each area, but we really didn't plan for that plan ... but still everything went as planned." my lonely planet book was a huge help (terence swears by these things ... and now i know why). great time all around ... from the jungle hikes to boat tours to mayan ruins to snorkeling to meeting fun random people.

where to next? ecuador?