A journal of our travels.
December 20, 2001
Xpu-Ha Beach (actually X-3), Quintana Roo, Mexico
The
Yucatan peninsula is wet from rain, the dew, humidity. Storm clouds
surround us bringing a deluge at unpredictable intervals. The dewpoint is
low and in the morning whether it rained or not, everything is dripping with
moisture. This morning we are invading Paamul's laundromat in a futile
effort to stay ahead of the inevitable mildew that creeps into your clothes and
leaves that telltale smell of must and eventual decay.
On the coast, in the jungle, iron rusts to a scabrous clot of sharp-edged flakes. Fabric rots and shreds like shredded wheat. And your skin sheds for various reasons such as biting insects, being pickled while playing in the ocean or flesh-eating bacteria consuming the soft tissue of your feet.
But X-3, though hemmed in by manicured, monstrous resorts sporting titles like Copacabana and Xcaret, is a wonderful white beach consisting of crushed fossils that reflects the sun's heat and never gets too hot. Being protected by an outer reef, its waves are gently moderated. It is a pleasant stop and not nearly as over run as it could be if the world's economy were still humming and terrorism were not still the buzz-topic of the day.
An older gentleman, a 'snowbird' from colder climes, at the Paamul RV campground suggested X-3. He probably figured he was doing himself and the trailer park a favor by redirecting the 'party bus' south. But, he didn't lead us astray. The quasi-official campground, which apparently had been slated for purchase and development for yet another mammoth, meticulously groomed resort, with its lack of decorum and mirror-busting, potholed road, suited us fine. Twenty-five pesos per person per night worked for us as well.
Hell, it had freshwater, a couple of
skanky showers, a couple of rickety, lidless commodes and its usual share of
miscellaneous trash strewn hither and yon. The access road ran right
beside the boundary of the Copacabana. The road had puddles of water the
size of small ponds, so we sent Mace ahead of Greg, commando-style, to pre-check
their depth. Come to think of it, maybe he could have used a lifejacket. .
.or a belay. Of course, darkness had fallen by now. When we
finally emerged onto the parking area near the beach, we discovered a mobile
home with Alaska plates driven by a friendly Coloradan named Errol and his wife,
Nancy.
Talk about the hoi polloi rubbing shoulders with the well-to-do! There we were bedded down a half-dozen to a school bus paying under $3 American a night while less than 25 yards away folks were forking over more than a hundred dollars a night and paying extra for their laundry! In fact, seven pesos per pantie --- whether they were thongs or Fruit-of-the-Looms.
After I nursed Greg into a suitable resting space, the 'Ringtails' and Kyle followed their mischievous instincts into the Copacabana's luxurious swimming pool while the rest of us erected tents on the beach.
The 'californication' of the Yucatan is --- to put it mildly --- disgusting. Hardly an unsullied beach remains. As I drove south toward Belize, I noted, at least a half dozen times, a green highway sign reporting on the distance to the Tulum Mayan Ruins which are magnificently perched on a bluff overlooking the sea. Each time, the highway sign included a blatant advertissement for a Subway franchise.
The coastline where X-3 is located is called the 'Riviera Maya'. In a way, it is like Las Vegas with all of the over-developed enclaves, but instead of being concentrated in a desert it is spread along 300 miles of jungle coastline.
Mace: We did manage to find a nice cafe amidst all of the mess. A nice little place called 'Cafe del Mar' which was run by a pleasant fellow named Leon. The food was great, drinks were delicious, and the service top notch. That's all I can really say for a review of it, I was just certain that little cafe deserved a mention here for Leon.
James: Leon was --- well, you can see it in his posture, his body language --- supercool. His seaside cafe was a godsend. A touch of sanity on a beach of resort madness. Leon left home at the age of fourteen and traveled extensively. He bought the Cafe del Mar within the last year but he seemed to be an 'old hand' at the entrepreneurial thing and knew the Playa del Carmen stretch of the Yucatan very well. You can't quite tell from the picture, but he is wearing a symbol of 'ankh' and he is seriously 'into' yoga. Immediately after this photo was taken, he went for his morning yoga practice.
December 21, 2001
Corozal, Belize
James
(I am sure I am going to enjoy Belize and its people, but while at the crossing
near Chetumal this afternoon I had a few choice words that I spoke beneath my
breath. 'Piss-ant little puddle of urine of a country', you know, stuff
like that. 'America ought to annex this backwater and at least straighten
out the border paperwork.' That sort of rant. 
But it is already getting better. We've found a nice pull off quasi-trailer park known as the Caribbean Resort owned by Henry and his wife who run the restaurant across the highway. We are on the south end of Corozal.)
Nine miles from the chaos of the border. Nine miles into our main objective --- reaching the Central American hot vacation destination formerly known as British Honduras. I have now shepherded a vehicle into every country between Colombia and the U.S. (on the mainland) and I can report unequivocally that Belize has the least organized, most exasperating border crossing I have ever experienced.
All the vehicular information is recorded by hand. They still use carbon paper for their forms. Information is written with a ballpoint pen in a 8 1/2 by 11 notebook. Papers are filed anywhere handy by anyone happening by the auto customs desk --- the drawer, the floor, a random manila folder, inbetween the random manila folder.
No one
particular person appeared to be in charge of any particular task. It was
organized very much like my business. Organic, free-form, use your best
judgment, que sera, sera. . . It was in stark contrast to our efficient,
high-tech entry in Ciudad Juarez. The young, black woman who handled my
vehicle's paperwork was friendly and polite, but she slung my passport about as
if it were as worthless as the tissue thin visa slips they have you fill out
before you cross. 
A Canadian joined me in my impatient wait as our customs officer dealt with the hordes of shoppers with plastic grocery bags who were returning after shopping for the day in Chetumal or the Free Zone immediately to the Mexican side of the border. While she dealt with the bargain hunters, she also rubberstamped vehicles being herded through the process by the border lizards who make their living greasing the bureaucracy's wheels. She bandied his passport about just as nonchalantly and chided us about our paranoia about keeping an eagle eye on them.
She was doing some serious multi-tasking.
But it could have been worse. We could have been stuck with the little Hispanic guy who was painfully writing everything out in triplicate. A three-toed sloth would have looked intensely perturbed compared to this guy. He wrote as slowly as a monk transcribing all of mankind's written records prior to the invention of the Guttenberg press. The line had come to a standstill behind him, but nothing was going to spur him to proceed any faster.
Borders and customs are aggravating places under the
best of circumstances. They are unique entities unto themselves able to
enforce any custom, rule, regulation or whim that comes to mind. They can
be infuriating, but your only hope of successfully clearing their hurdles is by
biting your tongue. They are the 'house'. And they hold all the cards.
When she finally got around to inspecting the bus, she poked through a drybox, Mace's Action Packer and a duffle bag and then, after declaring that she had the right to confiscate all of our fruit and vegetables and beer, as well as the 30 pound bags of rice and beans we carried all this way as a CARE package gesture to hurricane victims, she walked away only with the beer. Effectively she was saying --- Here are the rules. And here are my whims.
In this case, and in my experience with most Customs agents, whims rule.
December 22, 2001
Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary
James Crooked Tree is, in reality, a town. In all honesty, the town and its people are part and parcel of the wildlife scene. They live amongst the wildlife, and the wildlife lives amongst them.
A barber shop with the barber
pissing in the field. Alligator-sized, orange iguanas lounging in the
ceiba trees. A police station that was also the sheriff's home, and in the
second floor window there was a little boy with a Superman t-shirt. Wood
storks and cattle egrets poking about the grasses. The best transmission
mechanic in all of Belize, and he has the car carcasses sprinkled throughout his
yard to prove it. Frogs the diameter of a thumbnail hot-footing it out of
your path. Makeshift bars right out of someone's home --- no signs, no
shoes, no big deal. . . 
We opted to camp at Crooked Tree in the hopes of viewing wildlife. Howler monkeys, perhaps. Often heard, rarely seen. Pecuaries, or wild pigs, would be a bonus. We read it was the home of the Jabiru stork, the largest bird in Belize and notable for its enormous twelve foot wingspan and vermilion feathers encompassing its neck. The Crooked Tree Lagoon looked like the ideal shallow water setting for a cornucopia of, at least, feathered creatures.
We paid our four United States dollars ($8 Belizean) to enter the 'Sanctuary' and then spent the next half-hour tooling about single-track clay and sand residential roads, or 'trails', seeking a camping spot for Greg. We came damn close to getting lost in the swamp, frame deep in mud and muck. A Belizean named Sam Tillet had erected some signs at the sanctuary's entrance promoting his campground, lodge and jungle tours. According to the locals, Sam Tillet is an outdoorsman extraordinaire.
Like many tourist businesses in Belize, Sam Tillet's was more
form than substance. He was 'all hat and no cattle'. As Molly Ivin's
would say, 'there wasn't much there, there', or something like that. Sam's
home doubled as his lodge and, if you didn't mind camping beneath his hanging
laundry and stepping around his chickens, Sam's would work just fine. For
some reason, and to our benefit, Sam didn't want our business. He
suggested the Bird's Eye View Inn on the other end of Crooked Tree and right
beside the lake.
We wished him well, and moved along, and, sure enough, found an exceptional locale right on the shoreline with a steady offshore breeze to keep the bugs at bay. It beat the hell out of dodging drying linens and restraining the dogs from chasing the farm fowl.
December 23, 2001
Caves Branch River, Belize
James
This is what I know.
Number One: You do not have to take a boat to get to Belize. And Number Two: Belize is very, very small.
If you sneeze, you find yourself partway across the country. A few of Texas' counties are much larger than Belize. Hell, Massachusetts might have counties bigger than Belize. If you really want to get a feel for the size of the place, read either of the national papers. They are written in a breezy, unpretentious style reminiscent of a large high school newspaper.
For instance, numerous fonts are utilized. The ink is inconsistent. The ads are unprofessional, or of poor quality, or typeset irregularly. The stories were predominantly of local interest, and many of them were written like National Enquirer material. The paper included birth announcements, wedding announcements and obituaries that took up several pages. The local sports scores reminded me of the newspaper clippings from my Richardson Sports Incorporated Little League days. "Griga whomps Azul." "Osos massacre Belmopan United."
We are talking tiny universe. 
In practical terms, you can drive from north to south --- easily --- in one day. Even in Greg, if we really, really wanted to do that. We are not that motivated, however. Nor are we in that kind of a hurry. We were told by everyone, and I mean, literally, everyone, to avoid Belize City. And we did.
We swooped down to shop in one of the larger grocery stores, Brodies, on the outskirts of town, and then drove to the international airport to scoop up Mollie and then forge on toward Hopkins which is on the southern coast, south of Dangriga and north of Placencia. A pen, phone, and e-mail-pal of Mace and Clark's --- someone they have never actually met, but who shares their interest in scuba diving --- drove from the Northwest and purchased a house outside Hopkins and has invited the 'whole gang' to visit for an indeterminate period. We shall see how that goes.
We are camped at an outfitter's
lodge and resort along the Caves Branch River. Tomorrow the majority of us
are going to innertube the river which includes seven limestone caverns the
river passes through. Sharon Lunz raved about this excursion, and I vowed
that I would experience it while in Belize. So, tomorrow morning at nine
o'clock or so, the outfitters become the outfittees.
My first question for my guide will be. . . you guessed it. . . how deep is the river?
The second?
Will we end up where we started?
December 25, 2001
Headed for Hopkins, Belize
James Christmas Day. 'Santa Clark' arrived unexpectedly, but on schedule. All the bus dwellers were treated to a small, thoughtful Christmas gift. It feels nothing like Christmas here, of course. It is buggy, muggy and soggy. Nothing is white. Nothing, except for Belikin beers and the morning shower, is cold. Rod Stewart's Greatest Hits is a pale substitute to the crooning of Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Home For Christmas". (Thankfully, Mollie brought an Eddie Bauer Christmas CD. The first song, which I had never heard, was Louis Armstrong singing with exaggerated gusto about Santy Claus. . . Christmas music nostalgia crisis averted.)
We have departed Ian Anderson's Caves Branch Adventure Company in a cloud of blue diesel smoke and a chorus of barking dogs. I am confident Ian was relieved to see us go. His six dogs, half doberman, half rottweiler, were being driven to distraction by Benjamin and Scout. Between his bouts of coughing, he spent a good portion of his nights, while we were parked near his lodge, yelling 'Quiet!' at his backyard kennel. Had he been aware of the arrival of the dogs, he might have nixed our stay.
Yesterday eight of us tubed and caved the Caves Branch and Blue Hole Rivers. This was the second time in my life that I can recall hiring a guide service. But it was absolutely necessary. We had no idea what we were doing or where we were going in regards to Belize and its underground rivers and their limestone caverns.
Equipped with durable headlamps, but not-so-durable Hankook Caribbean inner tubes (which were endangered throughout our hike to the put-in and during one portage from being poked flaccid by numerous spiky rainforest plants), and dressed in hiking boots, shorts and lightweight shirts, we launched onto a dribble of a river called the Blue Hole. In just a few yards, we were clambering awkwardly over boulders that blocked the cave's entrance.
Initially, the river's pace flowed between stagnant and placid, and I had serious doubts about the possibility of floating seven miles through seven caves in twenty-four hours, much less the seven hours allowed. Seated 'beer float on the Yakima'-style on our black tubes, we dutifully followed our lone guide into the subterranean world. The limestone formations reminded me of Carlsbad Caverns, but nothing was backlit, roped off or named.
In one of the caves, we disturbed a colony of fruit bats with our head lamps and they fluttered back and forth like pigeons on a New York City rooftop. In another, the river picked up steam and sent us pell mell through a wall-banging S-turn with our only direction being to keep our feet in front of us. I found one of the guests who was not one of the bus dwellers spinning helplessly in an eddy frantically calling out for her husband. Of course, we had to extinguish our headlamps for one of the caves and drift disoriented as to upstream and downstream in the blackness of inner space.
We would emerge from a cave into an emerald splendor of vines longer than a climbing rope and gargantuan palm leaves and a curtain of rainfall and the forest canopy consuming the sky. It rained all day and despite being in the tropics most of us began feeling the edge of hypothermia. A hasty meal of luncheon meats and tortillas and cucumbers and carrots brought everyone back from the brink and a fifteen minute hike around an 'unrunnable' cave restored us for the stretch drive.
The trip concluded at Jaguar Paw Resort on the Caves Branch River. Our stop there was notable for the two baby howler monkeys (known as 'baboons' in Belize) that had taken up residence there having been abandoned or orphaned by their parents. Clark had wished to see a howler monkey while in Belize and now he had one using his body as its own personal jungle gym, swinging from arm to leg to neck using its lithe, spidery hands and incredibly useful prehensile tail which reminded us of an octopus tentacle or an elephant trunk.
Our adventures in Belize have just begun. . .
December 29, 2001
Sittee River Village
James Okay, the third thing I have learned about Belize: No matter how you cut it, it is going to cost you to recreate. In Chile, regardless of where you stopped, someone would appear out of thin air with a receipt book in hand and charge you for camping, parking, fishing or loitering. It wouldn't be all that much, however.
In Belize,
prices are tied to the U.S. dollar and, in order to get off the mainland to
appreciate the beauty of the cayes (pronounced 'keys' and the country's main
tourist draw) and escape the voracious no-see-ums, mosquitoes and gnats, you are
going to have to fork over some greenbacks. So far, other than paddling
the Sittee River on my sit-on-top kayak, I have paid significant funds to have
fun in Belize.
Were it not for the amazing hospitality and generosity of our new-found friend, Sharon, we would be doling out large sums of Belizean dollars for a place to stay every night, on top of the recreational funds. Sharon is a brand-spanking new expatriate from Sacramento who has relocated to Sittee River Village only two and a half miles from Hopkins Village. She is also a Dive Master. To include that she is an avid diver would be an understatement.
In any case, for the time being, Sharon has very generously opened her humble home to our invasion and has been our temporary saviour. For her sake, I hope there is some unseen and unknown reciprocation. Some advantage or benefit for her to have us invade. She has been a most gracious and tolerant hostess.
For the last two days, the 'ringtails', Kyle and Mollie (also affectionately referred to as Kyle's Posse) were staying on Tobacco Caye. They chartered a sloop to take two kayaks, the five of them and Scout, the quirky half-lobo, out to the island. Meanwhile, Ally, Marth, Sharon and I compensated Sharon's rental unit's caretaker, Levi, to take us up the Sittee River using a 20' heavily fiberglassed fishing boat. We spotted dozens of iguanas draped in branches, three turtles sunning themselves, a few parrots awkwardly flapping about, a toucan, several herons and --- sure enough --- crocodiles! Levi pointed them out as we lazily tooled upriver and, though each of them were obvious once noted, I suspect we would have missed them without his expert eye.
Today we hired Second Nature Divers for a dive off South Water and Carrie Bow Cayes. The day began pissy with a new cold front moving in from Florida, but ended with blistering sunshine. Divers have hand signals for sharks and eels and rays. They also have a hand signal for lobsters and, after a day in the tropical sun, it would be appropriate to use it to indicate all of us with our pink to red backs, breasts and brows.
It was my inaugural dive and, since you are reading these words, you already know that all ended well. No one kicked my regulator out of my mouth. I didn't inadvertently spit my regulator out of my mouth. I didn't panic while swimming around in the great wide expanses of the Caribbean. I tried to stay clear of everyone and everything. I made a point of not making any fast moves. I worried that the water pressure might be funky with my ear canals but, at 40 feet down or thereabouts, it really was never a concern.
We caught sight of a spotted eagle ray and a couple of barracudas the size of my arm. Of course, we also saw two dozen other species of fish I could not identify and all sorts of plant life and vividly colorful coral. It was a successful, exhilarating day, but, again, budget-tweaking expensive.
I imagine tomorrow we will lay low and consider, and consider again, and then consider once more, our infinite options.
December 30, 2001
Sittee River (still)
James & Ally's Most Excellent (& Free) Adventure
James We hung around Sharon's place in the morning after Marth, Clark, Mace and Sharon went with Second Nature for their second round of diving off Carrie Bow and South Water Cayes. Kyle's Posse never showed up from Tobacco Cay, so I am presuming they decided they may as well get their boat ride's worth and stay out an extra day or two or three, or who knows? Once you begin to live off credit cards, what does it matter anyway?
Ally and I considered our options for our remaining time in Belize for the quadrillion umpteenth time. It's extremely difficult when considering the possible needs of 11 people, the logistics involved, the time constraints and the aforementioned cost to do any damn thing or move any damn direction. (Please excuse my colorful and descriptive sailor talk.) Heather Bansmer arrives on the 3rd of January and we all agree that it would be nice to plan on doing something especially Belizean when she gets here.
After 15 minutes we suffered a mental vapor lock trying to extrapolate and correlate the myriad permutations of the next 3 weeks. We made a hasty decision to paddle our kayaks to Hopkins Village. It might have been closing in on noon when we launched onto the non-existent current of the Sittee River.
By road it is no more than two and a half miles from Hopkins to Mark's Retreat, the place Sharon is renting by the month. However, by water, it may be closer to 6 miles. Perhaps eight. The mouth of the Sittee, and the spit of land it creates, juts into the Inner or Main Channel like a crone's bony index finger. To the north of Sittee Point, where the river meets the sea, is False Sittee Point. The Garifuna fishing village of Hopkins lies to the north of that pimple of land.
We paddled confidently down the Sittee under the burning noonday sun. It was hot enough to cause me to wonder how exactly sunscreen works since it is not opaque. It was one of those wonderings that wasn't going to get answered between Ally and I. You could place our scientific knowledge on the head of a pin and still have room for what we know about religion.
Anyway, we slid into the Sittee River Marina and I disembarked from my Ocean Kayak Cabo to purchase an ice cold bottle of water, a carton of ginger snap cookies and a Fanta orange soda. (As an aside, when was the last time anyone saw a Fanta state-side?) We were feeling good about our progress seeing as how the marina was situated pretty close to the river's mouth.
Sure enough, ten minutes downstream and we were rounding the mangrove-studded Sittee Point with the bows of our kayaks aimed at False Sittee Point which seemed so very far away. The ocean was warm and, relatively, shallow. The breezes were gentle and the waves were correspondingly mild and unremarkable. Off in the eastern distance the cayes lay tantalizingly nearby, however, after having boated by those cayes the day before, I knew that the closest islands were merely clusters of dense shrubbery. None of those cayes made it onto any of the Belize Tourism Board's brochures, I can assure you. To get sand beaches and swaying palm trees, you needed to venture further out toward the Barrier Reef.
We finally reached False Sittee Point and could make out the cluster of shacks and piers that made up Hopkins Village. All the beaches from False Sittee Point on into Hopkins were graced with low-key, but pricey resorts and private villas. Since the winds blew north-northwest toward Hopkins, we opted to stash our kayaks in the foliage just off a deserted beach and hoof it into town to the Jabiru Bar and Restaurant where we could check our e-mail and get online. We figured it would be easier to walk than to buck the wind on the return paddle.
Well, to make a long story only slightly shorter, Ally and I nearly had our second hair-raising night float. (The first was on the Colorado River between Havasu Canyon and Fern Glen Canyon. It was eerie, intense and exhilarating drifting on a river in the black of night. Hell, it was frightening, too. I did NOT want to repeat the experience.) On the return paddle, we reached the Marina, which I estimated to be the halfway point, very near dusk. The sunset was looking spectacular because of enormous thunderheads above the Maya Mountains to the west. The sky was alive with a large variety of clouds. White and fluffy. Dark and spread out. Cirrus wisps. Some moving fast to the north, others sliding beneath them fast to the south. Pockets of blue were also visible. A storm was not what we needed to worry about.
We discussed the possibility of exiting at the Marina and walking back to Sharon's. I was admittedly skittish about the idea of paddling UP a jungle river in pitch black lighting with Morelet's crocodiles lurking along the shore. Those I had seen were no bigger than a child's stuffed Barney, but Levi, the caretaker, swore there were a few near the river's mouth that were eight feet long.
We made a run for it because, to be honest, the idea of walking around in the Belizean jungle at night with jaguars loose and hungry does not sound very appealing either. Even if it is on a road! We pulled up to Sharon's dock just as the cloak of night was drawing in around us. The river was as flat and smooth as freshly made satin sheets, which is undoubtedly the reason we were able to make such good time on the return trip.
No crocodiles were sighted, although Ally kept me jumpy by noting all the bubbles that broke the river's pristine surface. So, there you have it. Our first free Belizean adventure.
Hopkins Village Boys:
Shane Davis Nunez
Cecil Martinez
Jael Garcia