¡Bienvenidos a Guatemala!

With my Belizean master plan in ruins and what feels like a cold coming on,* I have decided to flee the country for [Guatemala’s] greener pastures. The plan is as follows: two weeks of ¨immersion therapy¨ by way of puddle jumping through Guatemala’s greatest lakes. After three months in the desert and a bathing suit that is simply crying out to be used, I have to say the idea sounds wonderful to me.

First stop: Flores and Lago Petén Itzá!

* How bizarre that, the kindness of its people not withstanding, three days in Belize seems to set to do what four months in Mexico could not: get me sick.

A Better Side of Belize

Forget the beaches, the jungles, and the ruins: Belize’s people are its star attraction. A bizarre conglomeration of indigenous Maya, Caribbean Africans, British settlers, and Chinese grocers* in my limited experience each and every one of them is a friendly as the day us long. So here´s my way of thanking (and remembering):

• Melva, who walked with my from the bus stop to the hostel because she was sure I wouldn’t be able to find my way [in the end she was right: I wouldn’t]
• Daniel the ferryman who ferried me, alone, across the Mopan river so I wouldn’t have to walk the extra mile and a half to the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich
• Philip, Michael, and Jan, a couple of locales I met at the swimming hole in Guanacaste Park near Roaring Creek
• The unnamed man who gave me a free lift in the back of his truck to the Belize-Guatemala Border. [Consider that my first and hopefully only experience with what was inadvertent hitchhiking].
I can honestly say that these are some of the nicest people on earth and I´ll be sorry to see them go. Still, their country, beautiful though it may be, is much to expensive for little ol´ me so Guatemala here we come!


*If you think the United States in the midst of a linguistic identity crisis, you should come on down to Belize, where everyone tries to speak the official English when necessary but normally uses some combination of it, Creole, Spanish, and Chinese!

Moving on, again...

What a difference a day makes! My first impression of Belize was like so many of my ¨Mexican¨ impressions: ¨God loves this country. Verdant and bountiful, it’s a far cry from the deserts of Monterrey. Still, even if God loves Belize, I I found its City wanting. No, wanting isn’t the right word: a farce is more like it. Things were never so complicated in Mexico, even when (especially when?) I didn’t speak the language. Still, even if the people in Belize City were in equal parts friendly and unsavoury* the limitations of my budget forced me to move on this morning. Which brings me to Hillview, in the Cayo district, simultaneously on the other side of the country and only three hours away. A little internet searching found the only hostel in the region – the ¨Falconview Back Pack Adventure Hostel¨ - which I later showed up to unannounced and am the only guest. What a difference a day makes. The owners, Ray (an American expat who first came to Belize when it was still British Honduras in 1959 and Silvia (who us actually Colombian and when to the University of South Florida of all places), are as charming as their hostel – which is saying something. So a miserably night in Belize City notwithstanding, things are looking up.

* Which, while normally a winning combination, was of unwieldy portions in Belize.

In Belize

So Chetumal has resolved itself of its own accord, and with it Mexico. How strange it is to say, but I feel like I’m leaving home all over again (even if I did leave what passes for my home in Mexico weeks ago). Still, after all my [incredibly fortunate] travels, Mexico is the country I was, uninterruptedly, in the longest. So, again, it’s strange to be going through another border cross and also bittersweet because I truly loved it there. I miss it already.
Still, the open road is calling my name and – surprisingly – its in English. I’m on the road now, halfway between Chetumal and Belize City, near Orange Walk Town – and it just feels strange to see so much English. To speak it, too, as the chicken bus I’m riding in has more English-speakers than not. A bizarre welcome to Belize, but a welcome nonetheless.