Belize Day 5

We woke up at 8:30 a.m. after a long night of trash tv and playing cribbage in the room to escape the rain. We got our stuff together and called for a taxi to take us to the water taxi, which after n hour on the boat would get us back to Belize City. We get to the water taxi terminal and there are a ton of people on the dock and we are all thinking there is no way we are going to make the boat. I run up to the window and we luckily are able to get on board. Here's the catch, it's raining. Who wants to ride in a boat in the rain and have all of their stuff get wet? We do. We want to hurry up and get to the terminal in Belize City to get to the bus terminal to catch a bus to San Ignacio so we will not have wasted a full day traveling. Needless to say we managed to scrape by on each of the legs of the journey to San Ignacio and here I am typing away at a cafe in town.

I must say that the journey here was quite the adventure. Imagine being packed in on a boat like sardines for an hour then moving on to a school bus and experiencing the same thing for another 2 hours. That's what we did. It was fun though because we got to see the country side of Belize and made a stop in Belomopan to pick people up and I hopped out of the bus and walked around for a few minutes. I even had to pay 50 cents to use the bathroom!

The bus was hot and there were tons of people on it and we all ended up sitting seperately for the first 45 minutes or so. Eventually people got off on various stops so we sat together again. Tom had met Ian, a young guy about my age from Los Angeles, who was out here visiting his family. It turns out he was born in LA but his mom is from Belize so he has dual citizenship and comes back every year to visit his family who lives here. Anyway, we ended up chatting with him and got Tom to whip out his cards so the four of us could play a friendly game of Go-Fish. It ended up being quite enjoyable for everyone around us as they watched and laughed at the trash talking we did amongst each other. It was fun to say the least.

As for the country side - many people are poor and live in shacks that most likely have no electricity or running water though I am sure some do. There were remenants of buildings that had begun to be built but were stopped because of lack of funds, weather, who knows. There were people with cows and horses, some of which looked ematiated and distrubed me but Melody assures me that many of them breed and don't belong to anyone they just wanted around and end up in peoples yards sometimes. She went to college in Mexico for a semester and got to experience some of it first hand. Either way I found it slightly unsettling.

We checked into our cabana at Cahal Pech. We have a 3 room thatched roof dwelling with tile floors and a beautiful view overlooking the city of San Ignacio, Belize. We had lunch and sat out by the pool for a while before heading into town to find an internet cafe and explorer what the town has to offer.

Final note:

I appreciate my life and I love my family and friends. I am thankful that my parents were able to raise me the way they did and give me the opportunities I have had in my life. Driving through the country of Belize drove that point home once again. It seems all too often that we take for granted the things we have in life and the liberties we are given. This was a nice reminder.