From SF, you can fly to Belize through either Dallas or Miami. So, I routed myself through Miami, for one simple reason:
Ed.
Ed's family lives in Miami, and I knew he'd spend the holidays at home, so I thought it would be fun to spend a night on the town with Ed. I figured the odds of survival were high, and that if I focused hard, I could probably make the flight on time, maybe even with a couple hours of sleep.
So I landed in Miami on 12/29 and Ed picked me up at Miami-Dade. We went straight to Calle Ocho, the Cuban sector of town, and wandered around before stopping in a favorite cafe of his, where we had delicious Cuban snacks, and Ed failed to convert me into a lover of cafe con leche, which he would describe as "delicious", and I would describe as "disgustingly milky sweet lukewarm coffee". Some cultural differences cannot be bridged.
From there, we headed to Ed's apartment in Miami, which Ed's brother Javy currently inhabits. It's in a high-rise building with a view of the ocean. After chilling out there and meeting up with Javy, we went by their parents' house, on the way to meet a bunch of Ed's friends. Ed's parents are hilarious, but it's hard to describe them in words. They are plump, happy, voluble, irreverent Cubans. Everyone should have the pleasure of meeting them.
As it happens, that night was the night of the University of Miami's bowl game, so the entire city was out on the town. We met a bunch of Ed's HS friends at a bar/restaurant, and proceeded to watch the game. Sadly, the mighty Badgers of Wiscahnsin defeated the 'Canes of Miami, 20-14.
The most interesting part of the football-watching experience for me (not being either a 'Canes or Badgers fan) was meeting Ed's friend Mike Bowen. They had been very close friends in grade/high school, and Mike, it turns out, was the son of Sir Barry Bowen, the 2nd-wealthiest person in Belize. The Bowen family owns the national beer, Bellikan, as well as organic shrimp farming operations, most of the country's long-haul trucking operations, all of its Ford dealerships, and a 300,000 acre private reserve in the difficult-to-get-to tropical northwest of the country. On that land sits Chan Chich resort, where Jill and Alison and I were currently scheduled to spend our first 2 nights.
Chan Chich had been recommended to me by Alix, who stayed there while going out on wildcat observation trips with a pair of researchers who are based there, and who got a lot of their research funding from the Wildlife Conservation Society, which Alix's family is very involved with. Alix said the resort was amazing, so we were excited to go there. So it was intriguing to accidentally meet Mike, since his father owned the whole place.
It turned out that Mike was living in Belize, running the shrimping operation, and had been scheduled to go back that morning, but his flight had been canceled, and so he wound up out with us that night. He had been rebooked on the same flight that Alison and I were taking the next morning, so when the evening was finally done, I said I looked forward to hearing more about the country on the flight the next morning.
Ed and Javy and I rolled into the apartment around 2am, and were asleep by 3am, so I was actually able to get about 4 hours of sleep, which was nice (and probably a sign that we're starting to slow down in our old age). When I arrived to the airport the next morning, totally on time (which was a first for any flight involving Gus and Ed), I nested at the gate and soon enough, Mike showed up.
We spent a lot of time talking about Belize, and his experience coming back to the country after largely growing up in America. His mom and dad had split up when he was young, and now he had followed a similar path. He'd been in the States visiting his wife and kids, from whom he was separated. But we had a good time talking, and he promised to call up Chan Chich and tell them that we were friends of his, and to take extra special care of us.
Not long before boarding, Alison arrived at the gate. She'd left DC that morning. I hadn't seen her since the night in DC that I wrote about in Episode 3, which at this point had been almost exactly 3 years ago. But I recognized her right away, introduced her to Mike, and we got comfortable with each other pretty quickly, I think.
The flight to Belize was mercifully short, and we passed through customs without a problem, and then began to look for Jill. She had brought her own family to the airport that morning and sent them back to the States, and was just waiting for us. Thus, after walking through customs, I saw Jill for the first time since Chris and John's wedding, 2.5 years prior.
It was an odd moment; we were at once awkward around each other, and yet totally comfortable. It's very hard to explain. But there wasn't much time to dwell on it all, since we had to go find Vernon.
Vernon is an old Canadian dude who came down to Belize some 30 years ago, and, in his words, "just decided not to go back." He flies his little plane around the country, schlepping folks like us to places like Chan Chich. You charter his plane for around $500, and doing so saves you a 4 hour trip through the jungle on muddy, unmarked roads. The flight takes about 20 min, at 9000 feet..
Alison is praying she survives..
Shotgun!
Vernon.
It turns out you really feel it when your tiny Cessna is flying through a rainstorm.
We survived!
When we landed on the "airstrip", which is just a lane of grass next to a barn, the lodge sent some of their minions in a van to get us, and we headed into the jungle to find the lodge.
The lodge is made up of several private cabanas and a main house, with an outdoor pool/hot tub (inside a mesh cage, to keep out the howler monkeys), and a gazillion miles of jungle trails.
Our cabana.
We arrived mid-afternoon, just in time for lunch. You pay about $75 per person per day for food on top of the cabana cost (Me, on phone with Chan person, "Do we *have* to buy into the meal plan?" Chan: "Well, no... you don't *have* to. But the only other way to get food is to forage in the jungle." Me: "Uh, ok then, I guess we'll take the meal plan.") But I have to say, the food at Chan is outstanding, and we had a wonderful lunch out on the patio, watching the rain come down.
Side note: It's possible you have never thought to wonder why they call it a "rain" forest. The answer is: it rains. It rains *a lot*. And when it rains, it doesn't rain in a kind of light, misty/feathery way. To pick an analogy at random, it's like when you were a kid, and it was summertime, and your little sister was being really annoying, and you took the garden hose and sprayed her full in the face with it, and ran around the yard still spraying her with it, until she finally ran into the house, soaking wet to the bone. Rain forest rain is like that.
First on the agenda that afternoon was napping in the cabana while listening to the rain, and that was quite enjoyable.
Sleepytime in the cabana.
When the rain finally let up a bit, we went on a walkabout around the lodge, ultimately wandering into the jungle and finding small archaeological digs into small mounds, some of which will likely turn out to be tombs, I think.
Rain forest = lots of big trees and mud.
After a couple hours of wandering in the damp jungle, which actually is a lot more interesting than it sounds as I sit here typing this sentence, we came back and had a lovely dinner before retiring to our cabana to drink, talk, and read our books late into the night.
Another thing you should know about rainforests is that they are surprisingly loud. There are always birds chirping, insects buzzing, and, during rainy season, rain that is FUCKING LOUD AS SHIT. I awoke several times during the night when the rain got particularly loud.
The only thing that is louder than the rain is the howler monkeys. And howler monkeys, I must inform you, are on old people schedule. They wake up at about 5am, and by 515am you have a deep, visceral understanding of why they are called "howler" monkeys. Fortunately, I grew up across the street from a firehouse in a house with a loud cuckoo clock and a father who snored in a way similar to what I imagine it sounds like when 2 tractor trailers loaded with china collide head-on, spent a lot of time at my grandma's house, which was right next to freight train tracks, and lived for a couple years at the corner of 2nd ave and 86th street, which treated me every night to that godforsaken M15 bus whose wheel bearings were so shot that it sounded like sheet metal was being lathed in my apartment every time the damned thing passed by on 2nd ave. In short, I've developed the skill of being able to wake up, identify any noise as part of the ambient environment, and then fall back asleep immediately. It's a useful skill to have, especially in a rainforest, and I don't think the girls were quite as lucky in that regard.
The next day, 12/31, we left after breakfast to take a much longer walk through the jungle. The lodge was planning an afternoon celebration of the new year down by the lake, so we decided that we'd fit in about 4-5 hours of hiking before getting ready for the NYE celebration.
The hike was good- alternating between little bursts of sunshine and long periods of cloudiness.
Somewhere along the way, we were walking alongside a river, and Jill said: "That looks like a crocodile out there!" I looked at it and said, "Nah- it's a log. See!" And I started throwing these large seed pods that were lying around at it. Although I never hit it directly, I plunked several extremely close to it, and it didn't move, just like you would expect a log not to do. So, I teased Jill for her inability to see the obvious, and also stated for the record that were we not in the middle of a long hike, I would swim out there just to prove my point. Anyway, sometime in early January, Jill send me this picture:
Hmm. In retrospect, I guess it's a good thing I didn't swim out there.
That was the only wildlife we saw (or didn't see, in my case), for quite some time. Then, while I was clambering out on a tree hanging over the river, Alison started squealing, and Jill ran off with the camera.
Who can resist climbing out on something like this? Not me.
By the time I got myself back onto land, they were standing hushed under a tree, pointing at moving furry creatures- white-nosed coatis. A whole group of them. They're cute and furry, and fun to watch. They goof around like monkeys.
White-nosed coati.
In time, we returned to the lodge and got ready for the lakeside NYE celebration.
The drinking starts at 2pm.
They took us out to the lake in vans, and they had a drinks table and a BBQ going. The sky looked totally clear, and so I headed down to the lake shore.
A beautiful day for canoeing, no?
After a while, Jill and Alison joined me, and I pointed out that a couple groups had gone out onto the lake in canoes. There was one canoe left, with only one paddle, but no way was I going to pass up a chance to go canoeing, so the 3 of us climbed into the canoe, and I paddled/steered us from the back.
In retrospect, probably should have paid more attention to those oncoming clouds...
I wanted to explore the entire perimeter of the lake, so we struck out along the edge, eventually getting deep into reedy side areas and such, which were tricky to get out of with only one paddle. We were in the canoe for quite some time, and finally Jill pointed out that a large cloud system was rapidly approaching form behind. In turning to look, it became pretty clear that that cloud system would be carrying rainforest rain of the type I described before.
Naturally, we noticed this right around the point where we'd gotten to the far side of the lake, at the point farthest from the dock. I began to spin us around, and started rowing as fast as I could toward the dock. At this point, it became like one of those problems they give you in 7th grade math: a storm moves due east at 40mph, while a canoe moves due west at 1mph. If the canoe is 1/5 of a mile from the dock, and the storm is 4 miles from the dock, does the canoe make it to the dock without getting soaked?
(I'll wait a moment while you do the calculations.)
Answer: No. The canoe makes it halfway back to the dock when the skies open up.
Alas, too late to avoid getting soaked..
By the time we were back, we were soaked to a degree normally achieved only by being physically dunked in a large body of water. There was a small table with a large table-umbrella there on the dock, and so we huddled under there for a while. While there, we met Jackie, who was Mike Bowen's sister-in-law. Jackie was on the dock helping her daughter fish, in the pouring rain, in what Jill identified as $500+ designer heels. Jackie, it turns out, was from Texas, and I have to say- she's exactly what Sarah Palin is trying hard to be, but isn't actually.
We had a lot of fun talking with Jackie under the umbrella, until the rain finally let up. Then we all tramped up the hill to rejoin the rest of the celebration, which had been hastily removed to under a small canopy. Just as quickly as the rain came, it was gone, and in not much time the drinks and food were flowing again. We met Jackie's husband Zander, who was Mike Bowen's half-brother, and then we met Mike's father, Sir Barry Bowen, and his wife, Dixie.
I took an immediate liking to Dixie for a couple of reasons- first, she's from St. Louis, so she's naturally pretty awesome. And like so many St. Louisans, she's both friendly and direct. We talked for quite some time, and finally, as they began loading up the stuff and the guests to head back to the lodge, Dixie invited the 3 of us to come with her and her family to the next party, rather than go back to the lodge with the rest of the guests.
The thing is, they have a 300,000 acre ranch with organic coffee growing, sustainable logging operations, cattle ranching, exotic produce growing, the lodge itself, and who knows what else. It turns out that it quite literally takes a village to staff all that stuff. Basically, the Bowens have a factory town, populated by the workers and their families, and they were off to go throw the factory town a NYE party. As Dixie pointed out, "There will be free food, free beer, and dancing late into the night. You can party 'til dawn with the actual locals."
Who can resist an invite like that?
So, we joined the Bowen family and went to a good old fashioned company town bbq. It was fun. As promised, there was free food, free beer, and dancing. However, the local folks did kind of keep to themselves. After a couple hours of being there, we decided we'd catch a ride with Jackie back to the Lodge, so that we could go on a night hike with the grizzled night hike dude.
The night hike was a lot of fun. The highlight was finding tarantula holes in the ground, and poking sticks in there to get them to come out. These tarantulas were BIG. I'm not scared of spiders per se, but there is something pretty creepy about giant hairy spiders near your feet.
That's a big spider. I'd've put my foot right next to it to show you the perspective better, except that it's a GIANT HAIRY SPIDER, and frankly, I don't love you that much.
We hoped to have some other wildlife sightings on the hike, but all was quiet in the jungle, except for the constant sound of water falling from the upper parts of the jungle canopy to the lower parts. That's another thing I noticed- even when it's not raining, it sort of is, because a lot of water gets caught up top, and then over the next several hours slowly drips down onto everything below. It's remarkably loud.
When we got back to the Lodge, it was about 10pm, and lo and behold, Barry and Dixie drove up. I use the word "drove" somewhat loosely; Barry was clearly 395 sheets to the wind. They joined us on the steps of the Lodge, and immediately Barry went into the bar to get out some bottles of champagne.
And so, for the next couple of hours, we drank 3 bottles of champagne with Barry and Dixie, and all told stories, until Barry got sufficiently drunk that he started telling us stories about his daughter, who was up in Boston, and whipped out his phone to show us pictures of her. By "pictures", I mean "half naked pictures of her and her friend in the hot tub." I am not making that up. Barry was a riot, but I can guarantee you that if I ever have a teenage daughter, I will pray to god that no one, including me, EVER has half naked pictures of her on their cell phone. I don't think Dixie was so thrilled that Barry whipped out the half-naked daughter pics, but she looked like she'd seen this kind of thing before, and seemed pretty stoic about it.
When the champagne was all gone, Barry went inside and brought out a bottle of homemade cognac, and we started into that. I don't recommend going to cognac after a couple hours of champagne (and a several hours of mixed drinks before that). By the time Barry and Dixie said goodnight, and went to drive back down to the company town (I can't believe Barry was off to go drive through the dark jungle when he was now at least 795 sheets to the wind), Jill and Alison and I were beyond wasted. The last thing Barry said to us was that we "had" to go sit in the hot tub. "My hot tub is spectacular.. you *must* try it."
Not wanting to be rude, we staggered back to the cabana and got into our swimsuits, and proceeded down to the hot tub area. We could barely walk, but we did make it. After about an hour of hanging out talking about nothing, Alison cried uncle and went off to bed, leaving Jill and I alone in the hot tub, a volatile situation indeed.
Not for the reasons you might be thinking, you with your gutter mind. Have I not mentioned that I'd consumed enough alcohol to sedate an ox? No, it was volatile because 2 drunk people with complicated emotions who haven't seen each other in 3.5 years end up having their own personal Hot Tub Time Machine moment:
Jill: "I always loved you, you know."
Me: "Riiiight. Easy to say now."
Jill: "No, really, I did. It's just that I don't deserve someone like you."
Me: "Well, there you go. And that's why, all these years later, we find ourselves here. On opposite sides of a hot tub in the middle of the jungle. Because *you* don't think you deserve something better."
And... scene.
The scene of the scene.
Many more things were said that night, but I don't remember enough of them to make it worth the retelling. I know at some point we were actually yelling at each other about who did/didn't/had/hadn't/love/loved whom. Anyway, you can see from this snippet what the basic idea was.
The next morning, there was a whole new layer of awkwardness, as neither Jill nor I was willing to bring up the discussion from the night before. Anyway, we had to leave fairly early to go meet Vernon, who was flying us to a spot relatively close to the Guatemalan border. Our next stop was Tikal, where some of the most spectacular Mayan ruins can be found.
As we pulled up to the "airstrip" and saw Vernon and the plane, we also discovered... Barry and Dixie! They were waiting for us with a bottle of champagne, to toast us as we headed out. Still wearing what they'd been wearing the night before, I might add. We put away a glass of champagne each, and then hopped aboard Vernon's plane, promising to come back and see them again.
In a sad postscript, on February 26th, the small plane that Barry Bowen was piloting crashed while landing in high winds, killing himself and his 4 passengers. He was certainly a complex man, but I am glad to have met him, if only briefly. He had quite a colorful and influential life in Belize, which you can read about here:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1883050
But that day, we were convinced we'd come back to see Barry and Dixie. So, we bid them farewell and got on Vernon's plane. Our flight was even shorter this time; only about 10 minutes, which saved us several hours of travel if we'd stayed on the ground. And, Vernon was even kind enough to drive us from the little airstrip into the border town, where we could get a taxi to the actual border crossing. Otherwise, we were looking at hitchhiking our way into town along the main Belizean highway.
In the border town of San Ignacio, we stopped and got food at Happy Burger, which was pretty much the only place open- it's a somewhat dingy, dirt floor cafe, apparently owned by an American, which promises the best burgers in Belize. My guess: he's operating a burger joint in Belize because if he tried to do so in the U.S., he'd go out of business in half an hour. Still, it was food.
We caught a taxi to the border, and fortunately had a painless trip through Guatemalan customs. A van was waiting for us from the Tikal Hotel, and we began a 3 hour ride to the park. Sadly, only a fraction of that ride was paved, so it was *very* rough in places. The driver had to weave back and forth across the road in an effort to avoid (a) oncoming traffic, and (b) giant craters in the road. The smoothest place is dead center, but obviously both directions of traffic cannot use the center simultaneously, so a certain kind of unspoken negotiation takes place to determine who gets the choice piece of road. By "unspoken negotiation", I mean a negotiation which consists of equal parts "vigorous pounding on the horn" and "cojones". Negotiations, win or lose, are inevitably concluded with muttering curses in Spanish under your breath.
I rode in the front passenger seat, so I had a nice view of all this. When our driver was not engaged in negotiating, he was a very cheerful fellow. We had a painfully slow conversation, because my Spanish could generously be described as "minimal", and his English could generously be described as "nonexistent." However, he was quite chatty and wasn't about to let a mere language barrier stop us from having conversation on the long drive to the park.
At one point, we passed a dude standing on the side of the road with a bunch of stuff, and our driver looked at him as we passed by, and then hit the brake, stopping us a couple hundred feet ahead. Our driver then looked at me excitedly and began chattering at me in Spanish, the gist of which was that this guy was a "friend", and would it be OK if his "friend" rode with us.
Giving a glance in the mirror at the dude on the road, I decided to just play along with that, and said OK. So we put it in reverse and went back to the dude. Our driver got out, said to wait a minute, and in the mirror I watched what appeared to be another negotiation. Not, I might add, the kind of negotiation one might expect between 2 "friends".
Nevertheless, in short order negotiations were concluded, and the dude's stuff was unceremoniously lashed to the top of the van. At that point, I figured, "Well, he probably significantly increases his day's compensation by running a private taxi service in parallel to this, and who am I to stand in the way of 3rd-world capitalism?" So the dude climbed in, and off we went.
About halfway to the park, the driver's second form of compensation-increasing secondary activity became apparent. I'd seen this before in Egypt and in Kenya. We passed several sets of shops along the way, but the driver had a particular set of shops we stopped at, so that we could "take a break". The driver presumably gets a small commission on anything we buy at the shops. So we dutifully poked around, but it was a fairly sad set of shops, and I don't think any of us bought anything.
About another half hour down the road, we again came to a screeching halt for people waiting along the side. This time it was a pair of Guatemalan police. Again there was some vigorous negotiating, and then the police climbed in. I doubt our driver got paid for that, but I imagine in a place like Guatemala it helps to have done some favors for some of the local police.
We dropped the police off about 10 miles down the road, at what appeared to be a municipal dump. It's not clear why the police would want to go there, but they crossed the road in front of us and headed through the gate.
Thankfully, that was the last diversion on the road to Tikal. We arrived at the park just before dark, and checked into the hotel Tikal and took a nap. After napping, we went to explore the local eateries. You basically wander into the dark from the hotel, but if you follow the road you quickly come to an area with some cabana-like structures that house local mom-and-pop eateries. We picked one at random, and I ordered some nachos, since I hadn't had salsa in days, and thought this would be a good place to get some.
Wrong.
I want you to imagine the worst sporting-event nachos you have ever had in your life. Those nachos were like eating at French Laundry compared to this. If you put stale chips on a plate, sprayed them with Cheeze Whiz, and then nuked the plate, and served it with ketchup, you'd have something along the lines of what came out, except that what I had was worse. I could only eat a few before giving up and ordering the spaghetti bolognese, which was blissfully almost mediocre. Fortunately, every entree on the menu equates to like $3, so the cost of mis-ordering is pretty low.
We eventually made our way back to the hotel and turned in for the night. Jill and I were still pretending like we hadn't had the discussion of the previous night, and we were also still pretending that we didn't notice that we were pretending. It made every interaction between us a multi-layered experience.
The next day, we got up early and headed into the main park. The Tikal complex is spread out over a very large area, and quite a bit of it remains to be excavated, so we budgeted for an entire day of wandering around looking at temples. That, it turned out, was a good call. You really can spend the entire day wandering around Mayan temples, and some of them are truly spectacular.
The temples are *steep*, btw.
More temples.
If you like to climb all over stuff, Tikal is *awesome*.
Intrepid explorers.
The signage in the park is very helpful.
Temple V, from the top of Temple IV.
The climb up to the top of Temple V is not for the faint of heart; you climb up several vertical ladders that are made of creaky, rotting wood.
Temple V. The top looks so close, and so easy to get to. But it's not, and it isn't. You can see the wooden ladder in the upper left of the pic.
I don't recommend either looking down, or contemplating the probable engineering expertise of the folks who built the ladder system.
Here's a better sense of how steep these temples are.
On a day like we were there, you also have strong winds blowing at you. All you can do is focus on one rung at a time, and not ever look at anything until you're all the way up. We had a snack on the top of Temple 5, while we listened to monkeys in the treetops, observed the other temple tops poking out of the jungle canopy, and watched hot Australian girls trying to take their picture at the edge of the ledge.
Well, anyway, *I* watched the hot Australian girls trying to take their picture at the edge of the ledge. I was, you know, concerned that they might fall over.
Chilling out at the top of Temple V.
Of course, then you have to climb *down* the creaky rotting wooden ladders with the wind blowing. That's way worse, because it's harder to ignore just how high up you are when you start. But, happily, we made it up and down without incident.
Here's the view from the top of a temple that it turns out you're not supposed to climb.
Oops.
It's just that... well, from behind, it just looks like a hill, because it hasn't been fully excavated. I hypothesized that a temple was underneath the hill, and climbed it. Turns out I was right! There is a temple underneath. Something you can easily see from the front, where there are numerous signs, ropes, etc, saying that this is an active archaeological dig and that under no circumstances should you attempt to climb this temple.
Oops.
Some people- and I'm not naming names here- are the kind of people that see a hole in a rotting 1000-year-old wall in the middle of the jungle and think: "I just have to stick my hand in that. I just *have* to."
Here we see a temple entrance guarded by the Mayan Moon goddess Ix Jill and the Mayan street god 50 Quetzal.
Another temple you're not supposed to climb. OK, fine, this one I *knew* we weren't supposed to climb. But still...
By the time we exited the main park, we'd been hiking around for almost 7 hours, but it was only 3 o'clock, and there was rumored to be a lake with crocodiles nearby along one of the trails, so Alison and I bullied Jill into hiking on one of the trails that was labeled on our little map.
That hike ended up taking a little bit of a Gilligan's island theme to it.
We did, after quite some time, find the lake, but there were no crocodiles to be found. So, we kept going, since it was supposed to be a loop trail, but it ended up just taking us deeper and deeper into the jungle. Meanwhile, the rains started again, and it started getting dark rapidly. At that point, we'd been walking long enough that it seemed like a better bet to keep going and gamble that the trail really did loop in some fashion, versus trying to backtrack the entire way we'd already come. Jill in particular was not happy at this point; we'd bullied her into going on the hike in the first place, and now she was openly worrying that we'd end up sleeping in the jungle.
I assured her that if we did end up sleeping in the jungle, nothing bad would happen, but, just to try to avoid that, we should keep walking. Quickly. Soon we were all walking in silence as fast as we could go, since we were almost out of daylight and had no real idea where we were anymore. The trail, meanwhile, just continued to continue.
Lost on the trail? Here's some more helpful signage, as long as you define "helpful" as "telling you random facts about trees that aren't marked."
At some random point we came across a really nifty observation deck up in the top of a tree. I climbed up to the top via a ladder/wooden step system that made the Temple V ladder/wooden step system seem like a mall escalator.
The observation deck is up in there.
That looks pretty sturdy, right?
I say: "Yea!"
Jill says: "Fuck this- no way am I going up there."
Wuss.
It led to a platform that had a 20% grade on it, so you really had to watch yourself, but the view was spectacular. At the time, I kept to myself that the spectacular view was of jungle to the horizon in pretty much every direction; i.e., it was not obvious that we were anywhere close to anything approximating civilization. But that seemed like a piece of information that could probably wait to be shared later.
After climbing down, we resumed our worried walking. Fortunately, we did finally emerge from the jungle just after dark, so we got to have another dinner at one of the local eateries- a different one this time, that served food that was probably quite mediocre, but seemed pretty awesome relative to the grubs we were thinking we would have to forage for if we'd spent the night in the jungle.
We all passed out early that night, and the next day we had to catch the long ride back to the border. Fortunately, this time our driver, who was a different dude, did not stop to pick up anyone. He did stop at a set of shops, nicer ones this time, so we all picked up a few things to bring home.
We did eventually make it back to the border, and once again made it through customs without much problem. I'm convinced that the secret to expedited travel if you're brown is to be traveling with white women. It just makes everything go faster. No one sees you as a threat if you have a white woman with you. It's pretty remarkable.
Once back on the Belize side of the border, we got picked up by the Black Rock Lodge, which was where we would be spending the last two days of our trip.
The ride from the border to Black Rock took us up into the central highlands of Belize, which are beautiful. Again, we had to take some sketchy roads to get there, but we arrived in one piece in the middle of the afternoon. The Black Rock Lodge is up on a hillside in a river canyon, and after checking in, we were led to our cabin, which overlooks the river and the small waterfall below. We were told, upon checking in, that the Lodge would supply a free beer to anyone who could go over the falls on a tube and not get thrown off.
Doesn't look so bad, right? Except that you're seeing it from 100 yards away and from 150ft up. It's worse than it looks.
Hello, irresistible challenge.
As soon as we'd dropped our bags off and lounged around the cabin a bit, I suggested that we get the inner tubes and float down the river. I was determined to get a free beer (which, of course, I would give to the girls. Beer = gross. Going over a waterfall, free beer or otherwise, = HELLS YEAH!)
So, we rented tubes (which came with helmets- jesus, who needs a helmet to float down a frickin' river??) and hiked upriver about a mile and a half, to the main put-in. And, we spent the next couple hours leisurely floating down the river, watching the tropical highland forest. It was quite lovely.
As we came around the bend and saw the lodge, I was in the lead and could see the path straight down the middle for the falls. I started paddling with my hands to build up speed, and then executed a spin just before entering the falls, thus setting myself up perfectly to ride forward and through. In a moment, I went over the falls and airborne for the 8 foot drop into a tiny gorge. I pulled back on the front of the tube so that I could hit close to flat, and pulled that off successfully. However, I didn't lean forward again quickly enough, and in the swirling water at the bottom of the falls, the slight lean backward caused me to flip, submerging me completely and washing me downstream. When I surfaced, several guests of the lodge were up on the deck watching, and gave me a cheer.
Alas, no free beer.
Next, Alison came through the falls. She made a nice go of it, but flipped pretty much immediately.
Alas, no free beer.
Last came Jill. She didn't really have an organized approach; she just went over kind of sideways. Amazingly, she hit bottom and didn't flip. However, the water shoved her sideways, and we saw her crack her head on the side of the small gorge, which then caused her to jerk to the other side, and flip. From where I was on the riverbank, I could hear the crowd up on the deck audibly wince at the crack her helmet made against the rock.
For the record, that explains why they include helmets with the tube rental. I now strongly suggest wearing them.
When we finally dragged ourselves out of the water and climbed up the hill, the folks at Black Rock came out to meet us, and they judged that since Jill had made it over the initial falls without flipping, she won the free beer, a point which Jill has not let us forget.
Here is the result of another bet which Jill won, and which she has not let me forget.
Our cabin at Black Rock.
We headed back to the cabin to change for dinner, which at Black Rock is a communal dinner with everyone at one long table out on the deck. It was a lovely meal, with a lot of nice wine flowing, plus we discovered a scrabble board that allowed me to beat up on Jill and Alison while we waited for food. We had a great evening, but we decided to turn in early, because the next day was ATM, and departure from the lodge was at 730am.
ATM stands for Actun Tunichil Muknal, a Mayan cave that was discovered only in 1989, and which is an active archaeological site with all kinds of artifacts, plus human remains. To get there from Black Rock, you ride in the van for an hour to a random place on the edge of the jungle, then you hike for an hour through the jungle, fording the river 3 times. When we were there, it was technically "dry" season, but since it had been raining so much the fording the river part involved getting wet up past waist level.
On the trail to ATM
After the hour hike, you climb down into a little valley, and you come upon the mouth of the river that flows through the cave. The river is flowing out of the cave, and the water is super cold, and it turns out that to get into the cave, you have to swim upstream into it.
You have to swim in against the current, like salmon. If salmon swam into cold dark caves.
Once inside, there's a ledge that everyone gets out onto, and while the guide explains what's going to happen from there, you put on your helmets and caving shoes.
And, let me tell you- you do need the helmets.
Helmets on and ready to go.
From that initial point, you walk forward single file in the dark, with only your headlamp, and the path is occasionally out of the water, but is mostly in it. A lot of the time, the water is chest high, and sometimes you have to start swimming again. The whole cave system is about 3 miles long, but you hike back for only about 2 miles, which takes a couple hours. Along the way are sites where the Mayans performed ritual sacrifices. The progression of these sites is fascinating.
The Mayans believed that the gods lived inside the cave, at the place where the river emerges from underground. You can trace the progression of Mayan history by how deep the artifacts are, and by how serious the sacrifices were. For instance, in the earlier years of the main Mayan civilization, rains were plentiful and crops were good, so the Mayans were apparently feeling good about life and decided the gods would be fine with sacrifices of small amounts of crops, relatively close to the mouth of the cave. However, the Mayans went into a period of prolonged drought, and as the drought got worse, they moved deeper into the cave, and started sacrificing animals. Finally, as they approached the collapse of their civilization, the Mayans apparently decided that the gods would not be satisfied with anything short of human sacrifice, and in the deepest parts of the cave, there are human sacrificial remains. In many cases, the remains have been calcified by the flow of calcium carbonate enriched water from the cave, which have crystallized the remains and made them essentially part of the surrounding rock.
This is one Skull & Bones society you probably don't want to be a part of.
After seeing several of the early sites, and then winding/swimming/crawling deeper and deeper into the cave, you eventually come to a larger cavern, and the guide directs you to start climbing the wall of the cavern. It's a somewhat treacherous climb; there are no ropes or safety devices of any kind, everything is slick with cold cavewater, and it's quite dark. But about 20 feet up, you end up in a hidden cavern that is littered with sacrificial pots, and in several places, the bones of sacrificial victims. There are multiple skulls, and several other bones. It's pretty awesome, in a pretty creepy way. Meanwhile, you have to be really careful where you step, because if you're not paying attention you could step on a 1000 year old pot and destroy it.
In the Cave of the Crystal Skull.
After looking around the main chamber for a while, the guide takes you deeper into the hidden cavern. After climbing down and through some skinny crevices, you come to a last, deep chamber. In the chamber is the ricketiest ladder you have ever seen in your life (more rickety than the ladders at Temple 5 in Tikal), and one at a time you climb into this final ledge area. In the back of this last, hidden ledge, lies the Crystal Maiden. Her entire skeleton is perfectly preserved, still in the place where she probably bled to death after having her back broken in ritual sacrifice. She is the only thing in the entire cave complex that you can't actually touch.
The Crystal Maiden.
It's pretty awesome to be able to see her. The whole experience up until that point feels like being on your own Indian Jones adventure (I mean, there really *is* a crystal skull at the end). It's incredible to think that the Mayans got that deep into the cave, and discovered all these nooks and crannies, using only torches, and no helmets. Because believe me, everyone on the trip hit their head on a rock at least 3 times. It's totally black, and you really do have to wiggle through a bunch of tight crevices. And you're totally in contact with everything in the cave (except the Crystal Maiden herself); it hasn't been all safety-ized, or sanitized, or Disney-fied like such a place would be in the United States.
Once we'd all had some time to ponder the Crystal Maiden, we began the long hike out of the cave. A few hours later, we were out of the cave, across the river, and back at the van for the long drive home. The drive was mostly in silence, since we were all exhausted.
We got back to the Lodge shortly before dinner, so there wasn't time to really rest before getting ready for dinner. So we joined the rest of the guests at the Lodge and had a wonderful dinner.
For a while, Alison and Jill and I just sat at the table and talked. Eventually, all the other guests were gone. And after a while longer, Alison decided to head off to bed, leaving Jill and I alone at the big table. After some brief small talk, the real conversation began.
And wow, what a conversation it was. It was a conversation about what had happened in Gus and Jill 1.0, it was a conversation about what each of us had gone through over the last 3 years, it was a conversation about our families and our personal experiences, and how those experiences have shaped us in relationships.
And, eventually, it was a conversation about the possibility of us.
In a million years, I never would have thought we would have had such a conversation. What was most amazing was how open and honest it was. We had never had such an open, honest, and sober conversation ever. We sat alone at the table talking for over 3 hours. But finally, it was time to get some sleep. We were scheduled to leave the following morning and head back to the U.S.
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we headed back to the airport. Our afternoon flight to Miami went smoothly, as did customs. The 3 of us had dinner in Miami airport, and then Alison left to catch her flight to DC. Jill's flight did not leave for another 2 hours, so we sat on the floor in Miami airport and, like a couple of sappy lovesick teenagers, played songs for each other on each other's iPods until Jill had to go.
Sadly, my flight to SFO did not leave until the morning, and Ed had already gone back to NYC, so I spent the night in Miami airport. Which, I must say, was frickin' freezing. I basically shivered all night. Jill, it turned out, had to spend the night in Atlanta's airport because her flight to Harrisburg didn't leave until morning, so we texted each other all night and I tried not to freeze to death.
Finally, the next day, I made it back to CA. When I landed, there was a message from Jill saying that she felt like everything had changed.
And, it had.
