On Worms and More

Sunday 30th November - Saturday 6th December 2008

Well, I've spent a week in Belize, which certainly wasn't part of my plan. Partly because they speak English (or a funny creole/patois dialect thereof) and I want to immerse myself in Spanish, and partly because it's supposedly really expensive. We ended up here as a dogleg tour via Tulum to check out the white sandy Carribean coast (which was fukin lush as attested by the photos on the previous post); to pick up Tori, Damian's friend from home travelling for a month on a whistlestop tour of Central America; and to get some solo time away from my girlfriend, with whom I've shared the same 10 cubic feet since we left on the 1st August, all those 4 months ago.


The verdict is that it was well worth it, a couple of choice spots for camping (Gales Point and Barton Creek), lush nature and an immense ethnic diversity for a country with 300,000 peeps - altogether negating the negatives, when cooking for ourselves - rice and beans cooked in coconut oil mostly. I left Chetumal, in Mexico, with Damian, still on the same path after a month, Tori, Enzo and Mariposa, and am now sat on the deck of Barton Creek, about to leave for Flores, just over the border in Guatemala, with Damian, Tori, and Ayesha, aka Wishy, a lovely Ozzie girl who shares my love of good food. It's so much fun being inventive without a kitchen, made so much more pleasurable with Jay's Japanese knife he gave us a few weeks ago.


Leaving Chetumal, the Mexican border town, on Sunday and crossing into Belize was predicably fitful. It wasn't until we arrived and parked just before the border that I remembered my maxim to avoid bureaucracy at weekends... Signing the car in and out of countries needs a bureaucratic machine to process the paperwork and give us the certificate we needed to leave Mexico and avoid the $400 car import tax levied on my credit card. So we were then resigned to staying another night in Chetumal, a characterful town given its border location. It turned out we could actually cross, so I brought all the paperwork over, signed my passport out, found a closed customs window, went back and cursed at the passport man who told me it was open, went back, found the right window, got the certificate, went back to the passport man and apologised and got back in the car and drove across. All the above took about 2 hours.

Belizean immigration and customs was like a breath of fresh salty air. Smiles and 'alright sir' greetings made for an actually pleasurable experience. No costs to import the car. No immigration fee. Minimal paperwork all at the same desk. The only cost was having to buy car insurance, for £10 for a week. They give you a sticker you have to show inside the car. Although with hindsight, I can't see that not having bothered would have mattered, as the police were as equally chilled and friendly as the immigration lot. The one time we passed a checkpoint they pointed at a rolly in a way that suggested they didn't really care what it was.


The first nice spot we found was Gales Point. I guess the reason it was such a great spot was how we found it - by circumstances rather than planning to go there. We were headed down a long dirt road in the later hours of the afternoon and stopped to see if a broken down car needed help. They needed the wheelnut tool we had, and willingly obliged. Whilst one guy put the donut wheel on their car, we chatted to the others. In almost one breath he gave us a small bag of weed, and in the next he gave me his card; he worked for the Foreign Ministry. He also told me that he was best friends with the Chief Prosecutor and that if we ran into any problems at all, to give him a call. A get-out-of-gaol-free card, if ever I saw one.

So, this encounter made the rapidly approaching sunset trickle closer. I have been trying to avoid driving at dark, partly for security reasons, and partly because of the roads full of potholes, dogs, cows, pigs, kids, drunks, trucks, cars without rear lights or headlights or indicators, cyclists always without lights and cantering wild horses.


So after 5 minutes we passed a sign for Gales Point, with the magic word "Camping" (not the one above, for the eagleeyed amongst you will observe this one doesn't say camping). With my hammock I bought in Mexico, it's been the surefire budget accomodation winner, just needing 2 trees conveniently spaced. Most places seem happy to let us use the facilities for £1-2 for a night. Situated at the end of a 2 mile spit sandwiching 2 lagoons, Emmeth's Sugar Shack was one of my highlights so far. A postcard sunset and coconuts falling off the trees (not onto my head though!), with a garifuna host who looked 25 but was 39. Hmmm, must be something in the water. The next day we shelled out for a boat trip with ..., who took us fishing (Tori catching a 5ft tarpin), manatee watching and to a mad cave, clambering around the bat poo.



Tuesday we checked out coastal Dangriga, Belize's second biggest city, very briefly (not worth it), then made for Hopkins, a small Carribean coastal town to drop off Enzo and Mariposa, who were going to volunteer there for a bit. Just as I was beginning to think about looking for another passenger, Damian overheard Ayesha, who we hadn't met yet, saying she was thinking of heading for Guatemala soon. Perfect!


While I was chilling there, a man sitting behind me was singing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Oh god, it really is nearly Christmas. It was very weird wearing a vest and my lightweight fishing trousers I got on the beach in Mazunte. Back home I'd be wearing two pairs of trousers and have a Big Thick Winter Jumper on. I've decided to try to spend Chistmas in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras in the Carribean, when Damian is still there after going there with Tori, who will have gone home by then. It sounds pretty awesome, about as far removed from the usual as it gets.


Wow, this is a pretty newsworthy week. Wednesday we left Hopkins and hit up Cockscombe Nature Reserve. Belize is actually covered in nature reserves, totalling over 40% of land. This one was lush, with a perpetual drizzle, and famous for it's Jaguars (so they say).


Hammock under the palapa structure, nice. Met a guy from Yorkshire, who'd been volunteering there for the last 2 months, but plagued by illness. He'd had worms for 2 months, and tried every medication given to him. He didn't however think through that they reproduce by laying eggs around the outside of one's bumhole and so sleeping naked didn't help him stop spreading billions of eggs all over the place, considerably increasing his chances of re-ingestion. All the drugs in the world don't matter if you can't stop the cycle of reproduction. I should know, I've had them 4 times in the last 6 months now. None of the latter 3 times have been less pleasant than discovering little white things crawling in my poo while tripping at a teknival in France last Easter tho.


Well, I digress. Thursday, we arrived here in Barton Creek. We heard of it as it was mentioned as one the the Country Highlights in the Lonely Planet guidebook (I'll save my tirade against them for later). The hook was the free camping. No catch.


A gorgeous decked bar and owners' living area, overlooking a creek with a wide deep pool right in front. Behind it lies a sheer rock face and we're surrounded by jungle. Rope swinging into the creek kind of reminds me of being a kid, but I don't think I ever did much rope swinging into rivers. Made up for lost time though. And made use of the car too, driving through a foot and a half deep ford (see the video below!) And without it, it would have been a hell of a trek to get here, being about 12km off the main road.