Am I doing the right thing?

As you all know I am planning on making a move from Belize to Ecuador in the coming months.  What you don’t know is that I’ve spent many long days and many sleepless nights since returning from my exploratory trip to the coast of Ecuador.  My dilemma is whether I am making the move for the right reasons or am I just making a change that will just be that, a change that solves nothing?  Most if you know the reasons that I made what appeared to be a sudden departure from the U.S. and I won’t go into them here.  Needless to say many of you thought I was crazy for giving up a lucrative and personally rewarding job and the relative comforts of  the U.S. for the unknowns of a 3^rd world country. Some of you thought I was just escaping temporarily and would soon be back home and normal.  That really has nothing to do with my restlessness though.  My unease is whether moving to a new country will end the pain that I suffer every day of my life and let me get on with my life.

I’ve loved every minute of my life in Hopkins.  I’ve met and become close friends with some wonderful people.  Some, who like me, escaped to Belize to deal with their own personal issues.  Some whom I’ve met at Kismet, who came as guests and left as family. (By the way there is a sign above the kitchen door that says just that and it is so true.) Many who return year after year and sometimes more often than that who, while they are here, change my outlook on life for those brief moments.  I’ve built a life here that to some may see boring.  Most days all I do is fish and lay in my hammock.  Other days I take the occasional trip to the reef to fish and snorkel with friends and guests, and from time to time I do some traveling around Central America.  But for the most part I fully embrace retirement and do nothing.  And while it’s been paradise I still suffer from the reminders of what once was.  Reminders that invade my thoughts in quiet moments and others that smack me right in the face when I least expect it. Sometimes it’s a song, sometimes a smell, sometimes a sound, sometimes it’s something I see, and sometimes there just is no reason at all.  Feelings that just slam into my head and heart and are so hard to deal with that sometimes cause me to sink into a depression that may last for days.  There are times when I don’t open my door until Trish comes knocking after not seeing me for a week or more to make sure that I’m still alive. I'm tired of feeling this way and hurting so much.  In the past few months its becoming harder to deal with all of this so I thought that maybe a change of venue might be what I need in order to change my outlook, seeing a different landscape, meeting new people, fishing different waters.  Sometimes change can be a good thing.  So I began my search for a new home.

But will moving really help me or will being somewhere with no memories and no friends make it worse?  Will leaving the comfort of the known for the uncertainty of somewhere unknown make a difference?  Will leaving friends who understand me and what I’m going through make matters worse?  Or will making new friends, who have no idea of what I suffer from and am going through, and not speaking of the past, help to change my thinking and help settle my soul?  Will that really solve anything or will it make it worse?  That is my conundrum.  I’m not asking for advice and not looking for sympathy.  I’m just using you all as a sounding board and hoping that expressing my feelings out loud (actually in writing) that maybe it will make me look at all this differently, from a different perspective or whatever.  And don’t worry about my state of mind because I am definitely not one of those who would solve his problem through drugs, or alcohol, or drastic measures.  It’s not in my nature to do anything like that.  I’m just hoping that I’ll figure it all out one day, finding the peace that I am searching so hard for.

The end of Spanish School and back to my home...

Day 8:
Today was the first day that I truly enjoyed learning Spanish.  I got a new teacher today who speaks better English than Corina so it was easier for me to understand what I was being taught.  I actually feel like I accomplished something today. In the 4 hours on Monday I learned more than the 16 hours the previous week.   So I’m counting this as day 1.

Day 2 of Spanish School:

Another good day at school plus we had a student luncheon cooked by the staff.  Chicken breast stuffed with fresh spinach, cheese, and garlic; and mashed potatoes and a salsa.  They plied us with Cuba Libres too (coke, lime, and white rum) and I had 2.

Later Tuesday afternoon I did not feel right.  I couldn’t put my finger on what’s bothering me at 1st.  I feel weak and a bit disoriented. I was up on the rooftop reading my book and felt feint so I went down to my room and took a nap.  I thought maybe it was my blood pressure.  If I was home I would break out my cuff and check it.  But here I have no easy way to do that and I don’t want to say anything to my host family yet because they are already worried about the problem my knee is causing.  I’m still in quite a bit of pain from my knee too and often feel sick to my stomach because of it.  I decided to skip dinner that night. Then it hit!  I couldn’t keep anything in me and it reminded me of when I had dysentery in Hong Kong.  This is not nearly as bad though. That time I lost 25lbs in a week and I only weighed 155 at that time. After talking to some people it may have been the ice cubes in the Cuba Libres at the school luncheon earlier that day or possibly the semi-cooked chicken.  I did try to cut around it.  Wednesday and ½ of Thursday were spent in bed and I only had toast, small amounts of rice, and tea to eat/drink.  I finally felt good enough Thursday afternoon to eat lunch at the house with the other 3 students but that didn’t stay with me too long.  I also get my BP taken on Thursday morning and it was 188/120.  Not too good!  Maybe Guatemala should be taken off my “where to live next” list.  I haven’t been sick a day in Belize since I arrived there on February 4, 2010.  I’ve been here almost 2 weeks and am wearing a leg brace and been sick 3 days already.

Back to school on Friday but I only made it 2 hours before I had to rush home to bed.  It seems that every time I eat it goes right through me.  Can we say Montezuma’s Revenge?  I sure hope not.  I ate only bread and tea on Saturday and Sunday and even that wasn’t appreciated by my body.  Monday a trip to the doctor and after a test (I won’t tell you what kind) I was told that I had Cyclospria and given Bactrim to take for 5 days.  So it’s supposed to kill the little buggers that I picked up as well as the ear infection I got too.  I also decided to drop out of school for a week so I can kick this darn thing.  Sometimes antibiotics affect me the way this has so I don’t want to be away from a bathroom or have to use a shared one and not have immediate access to it.  Ok enough grossing you out with my complaining.

Tuesday I woke up feeling pretty darn good.  Actually had an uninterrupted night’s sleep!  I even felt well enough to venture out and have a meal of spaghetti with eggplant ragu and bread and it had no effect on my.  So I guess the Bactrim is working.  Wednesday I ate light because I’d caught a cold and was back to feeling a bit off.

On Thursday I decided I was going to head for home so I booked my Collectivo (van) to Guatemala City and 1^st class bus to Puerto Barrios for Sunday 8/11.  Included in the price was a pickup at the house to get me to the van.  The van was scheduled for 4am and the bus at 6:30.  The reason for the early times was that the water taxi from Puerto Barrios to Punta Gorda BZ leaves in the afternoon at 2pm and I needed to clear immigration before the boat.  Anyway I was told to come back to the office on Friday to pick up my tickets, which I did.  No tickets were delivered to the office.  So I was told to come in on Saturday. Hey didn’t have the tickets when I got there at 1pm but they promised to deliver them to the house as soon as they came.  That was 4:30.

I spent Friday night on the town with Pekka and we found a really good restaurant in the Hotel Posada right near the Santa Catalina Arch.  I had an awesome Fillet Mignon with mushroom gravy, veggie rice, and steamed veggies and a Cesar Salad.  Pek had avocado with chicken salad, fettuccini pasta with a creamy 3 cheese sauce and chicken and garlic bread. The sauce was really great and  thought that it had a touch of sherry in it too.  After a taste of mine he was sorry he didn’t order it too.  Then we headed to the Loco Monkey Sports Bar for a couple of beers and to watch a bit of American Football until we were too tired to see straight.  It was quite a nice night. Saturday was a shopping day for delicacies that I wanted to bring back with me like handmade triple dark chocolate cups with nuts and dried fruit and a semisweet cookie that Rene had in the house that went great with a coffee.   I had ordered 30 of them to bring back and they had them ready but I bought the last 3 that they had just because. I bought that many figuring I’d share some with Trish, who is a chocolate lover too.  I bought 2 dozen of the cookies.  I packed everything safely in my backpack so they wouldn’t arrive as crumbs or melted.

Sunday morning arrived and I was out on the street 10 minutes before the agreed upon time for my ride to the van.  You guessed it…no ride and by the time I got to Central Park the Collectivo had left.  So it was a taxi to Guatemala City so I could make the 6:30 bus.  If I didn’t make it then I would miss the water taxi and have to spend the night in Barrios.  While the taxi was on US$35 it was more than the collectivo and 1^st class bus.  Thankfully I had enough.  I keep a stash of US dollars, MX pesos, and GT quetzales in hand at all time so I can escape in any direction and have enough local currency to operate for a couple of days.  The bus was delayed for a little over an hour on the trip to Barrios because of an over turned tractor trailer in the opposite lane.  Not sure what happened but it looked like the cab rolled at least once.  I got to Barrios with plenty of time to spare though and cleared Immigration.  The water taxi trip to Punta Gorda was uneventful but very bumpy.  We at least stayed dry.  I called Trish as the chicken bus passed the Placencia turn off so she knew about when to meet me at the Southern Hwy/Hopkins Rd junction.  She was a welcome sight when I got off the bus! I was safely home by 8pm, after stopping for dinner, and glad of it.  She was glad that I was home too but I wasn’t sure if it was that she missed me or for the chocolates that I brought her…

So that’s the story of my adventure to Antigua Guatemala to try and learn some Spanish.

Now that I’m back home we’re getting warnings of a possible Tropical Depression here Thursday or Friday.

As always practice peace.  Fatboy In Belize back in Belize…out!!!

The trials and tribulations of learning Spanish and other things

This pic is the view from my host home of the Volcán de Agua (also known as Hunahpú by Mayans).

Sunday 7/21, my 1st full day in Antigua:

Well the other night (in my last posting), when I said I was looking for an international restaurant, I ended up at a REALLY good steak joint not far from where I was staying.  Got me an 18 ounce porterhouse with a baked potato and salad followed by a cappuccino and Crème Brule with fresh strawberries for about US$20.  That was the last meal I had to buy during the week because my host family provides me with all 3 daily meals.

Day 1:

I’m enrolled at the Don Pedro de Alvarado Spanish School in Antigua GT.  My instructors are Corina (4 hours in the morning) and Bette (2 hours in the afternoon) I like them.  I originally thought I would do 4 hours of study a day but decided to change it to 6 hours, 8am to noon and 2pm to 4pm.

In the morning sessions of day 1 Corina was already trying to teach me masculine/feminine/neuter genders of words and sentence construction, without me learning that the words meant, so it was more that I was being a parrot and repeating the sentence.  Not good!  The afternoon session was pronunciation of the alphabet and numbers, which was ok.   I AM a little frustrated that I don’t feel that I’m learning as easily as I used to. I was always a very quick study and found learning easy.  Not so much now it seems.  I don’t know if it’s my sedentary lifestyle or just old age setting in.  I won’t let it discourage me though and will continue plodding along.  Maybe at some point it will all just start to click.  I told them both that it wasn’t what I expected to learn but I guess I wasn’t forceful enough to get the curriculum changed. My host, Rene told me that if I need help he is always available so that’s a bit of a boost. 

I am living with a local family, Rene and Sysse Darce-Pineda and they have a really nice house a 5 minute walk from the school.  He is a musician (percussion mainly) and in several bands here in GT.  She is a stay at home mom (11 year old daughter and 1-1/2 year old son…a surprise…) and she sings in one of his bands occasionally.  Three other students are staying there as well and I like them too.  Two of the have been here almost a month and are leaving at the end of the week.  All three are from CA.  We all have nice private rooms with bath.  We eat our 3 daily meals with the family and Sysse is a marvelous cook!

Day 2 & 3:

I got more frustrated as days 2 and 3 went on and I was not a happy camper!  They are teaching me as if I’ve learned Spanish somewhere and want to get better at conversational Spanish.  When I first arrived at the school I told the office that I could as for a beer (cerveza) and the bathroom (baño) and that was about it.  I do understand some common phrases like “how are you”, “my name is”, etc.  I also told them I just wanted to learn the basics for the time being so I could travel.  When I sat individually with my 2 instructors what I wanted to learn as well.  But most of the instructors here, and I’ve learned it’s the same in the other dozen or so Spanish schools here in Antigua, are not fluent in English.  They are not even proficient.  I was teaching them more English than I was learning Spanish!  I reiterated on both days what it was that I wanted to learn, and that I wasn’t getting what I wanted.  Finally at the end of the morning session of day 3 I sat them both down and told them again exactly what I wanted to learn.  After that conversation I was sure that they were now completely sure of what my goals were and I was ready to get to work.  I'm looking for very basic “How do I…?”, “How much..?”, “Where is…?”, “I want a (bus/train/plane/boat) ticket for…”, etc. so I can travel and ask and look for things.  I told them I’m not looking for conversational Spanish right now.  I just want to be able to put a few words together and be understood.  I don’t need all the “middle words for example I’d like to ask where a particular hotel is and just say “Dónde hotel (hotel name)”.  In conversational Spanish they would say “Dónde está el Hotel (hotel name)”.  I just want to be understood and while it may be broken Spanish the person that I speaking to will know what I’m talking about.  Later, as I move around the Spanish speaking countries, I’ll pick up the verbs and pronouns and all that.  But for now it’s just emergency and traveling Spanish.  At least I’ll be able to operate.  Starting me off with conversation Spanish at an intermediate level was not what I wanted because it’s too much for me to try and learn in a short amount of time.  They both said that they had some beginning Spanish books and would bring them on Thursday.

Day 4:

Well they still didn't completely understand what I was looking for Thursday morning but were closer to what I wanted in the way of learning Spanish.  I explained it one more time to Corina and she finally understood.  So the day because productive.  I told Corina that on Friday I would have the days of the weeks, months of the year, and numbers through 1000 down pat and she could quiz me. Now…onward and upward!!!

Thursday July 25^th was Antigua Day so there was a parade down the streets and passed in front of the school so we all went out and spent an hour enjoying it.

Day 5 (Friday 7/27)

I haven’t really mentioned it but I’ve had a real problem with my knees, especially the left one, walking the very uneven streets and sidewalks and climbing the tons of steep stairways since I got here.  My knee problems are a double Navy injury (1st injured in ’70 and reinjured in ’71) that I’ve lived with all these years and have worn braces of several types over the years when I needed them. 

Anyway I woke up Friday morning and couldn’t bend my left knee.  Had a lemon sized cyst behind it.  Went to a local Ortho Doc and had it x-rayed, drained with a syringe, and was fitted with a knee brace with side stays so my knee to keep it from moving laterally (sideways).  I was ordered to bed until Monday with ice and elevation so my host mom has been taking care of me, brining my meals to my room.  Depending on how I do on Monday the school has offered to send my instructors to the house until I can handle walking the streets again.  We’ll see.  I hope it doesn’t come to that!  So I’ve been watching lots of movies and TV episodes on my laptop to pass the time.  I’m almost finished with all 6 years of the Soprano’s.  If I need more my daughter Carrie gave me all 11 years of Frazier, all 6 years of Oz, and all of Nurse Jackie too when I was in Orlando for Christmas.  Plus I have about 150 movies on my 1terabyte external hard drive.  It’s like I’m falling apart now.  A couple days in the hospital in Orlando with BP problems and the flu after New Years and now this. Up until now I’ve never had any health problems since moving to Belize.  I guess I have to stay there from now on and let everyone come to visit me!  So it’s Sunday and I’ve been here a week and haven’t really had the opportunity to go exploring yet.

As always practice peace.  Fatboy In Belize in Antigua GT out!!!

Spanish language school in Antigua Guatemala

The fishing in the lagoon in Hopkins has died over the past 6 months and gotten worse in the Cayes too. I've been suffering severe fishing withdrawals lately as I haven't fished in almost 2 months! So I may be looking for bluer seas.  Actually I’ve been getting “itchy feet” for some time now.  I’m investigating Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and even Ecuador in South America as places to live.  That wouldn’t happen, if it even does, until later next year. As with moving here I'll take my time and learn what I can over the web and then go and spend a month or more in the areas I'm most interested in to see if I like it there. Last thing you want to do is move somewhere and find out you don't like it.  I’ve been emailing with American expats in the various countries and reading their blogs to get a feel for what it’s like to live in the country they’ve chosen to take residence.  I’m getting pro’s and con’s from them and trading what it’s like to live in Belize.

My moving anywhere away from Kismet though will probably require someone coming and rescuing me because Trish will chain me up so I can't go anywhere. Leaving here would be very hard. I've loved the place and love Trish for the 3+ years I've been here.  Another problem is that I’ll have to change my moniker too.  I won’t be able to call myself “Fatboy In Belize” anymore and that will impact my email accounts (fatboy_in_belize@yahoo.com and Fatboy.in.belize@gmail.com).  I guess it’s kind of like being a new bride, having to change everything that is connected to her old name.  So who will I be???  Fatboy In Guatemala, Fatboy In Nicaragua, Fatboy In Costa Rica, or Fatboy In Ecuador???  I don’t know they just don’t have the same ring to them as Fatboy In Belize.

So I left my home in Hopkins on Friday July 19th to head for Antigua Guatemala and a Spanish language school. My feet are beginning to itch so it may be time to look for a new country to live in later next year. I still love where I am but I need a change of scenery. Anyway, moving anywhere else in Central America, it would behoove me to be able to speak a bit more Spanish than asking for a beer and a bathroom. There are quite a few Spanish schools throughout C.A. but I've heard the best reviews about those in Antigua. And it's a really cool city too. So I'm planning a trip south with no return date so that I can jump into my studies. All of the schools offer home stays with local families so you can practice what you learn outside of your structured studies. That way I'll get to learn all the appropriate swear words and how to use them in context too. So I may be gone a week, I may be gone a month. It all depends on how much and how easily my tired old brain retains Spanish...

My travel day started on the 2pm Hopkins bus to the Hopkins/Southern Hwy junction to pick up another chicken bus to Punta Gorda.  Actually today the Hopkins bus was a “duck bus” because the young Mayan girl sitting across from me had 2 ducklings in a box that kept trying to escape.  Anyway PG is 3 hours away from Hopkins and I had to wait an hour and change until the PG bus came so I got here later than I planned and got the very last room in the St. Charles Inn.  I planned to spend the night there because the water taxi to Puerto Barrios Guatemala leaves at 9am and there isn’t a bus on Saturday, or any day for that matter, that leaves early enough to make the 9am departure.  I hadn’t been in PG for quite a while, not since I went down to stay with my friend Sheila who was retiring there, and as I passed places we’d been together I really started missing here more than I usually do.  Dinner was fried chicken and fries, a Belizean staple in almost every restaurant in the country.  In bed by 9 because I knew Saturday was going to be a long one and I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.  One thing I found at the hotel was a coffee pot in the room with free coffee.  I’ve never seen that in any other hotel I’ve stayed at in this country.  So at least my Saturday morning will start off right.

I arrived at the pier and Immigration at 8:30am to check out of the country and book my taxi seat.  I was told that the boat left at 9am but in truth it leaves at 9:30 so I had to stand around awhile.  There wasn’t a sea breeze so it was a pretty hot hour. I got friendly with 3 Brits who were headed there too and we decided to travel together all the way to Antigua.

The 45 minute boat trip was nice and smooth.  We walked 2 blocks to Immigration and got stamped and got directions to the bus terminal, which was 5 blocks away.  We all stopped at an ATM to get Quetzales, which is their currency, at a rate of 7.5 to 1 US dollar.  Unlike Trish’s and my trip last year, using the chicken buses, we were sent to a different terminal where we found 1^st class buses, air-conditioned and they showed 3 movies, for the 6 hour trip to Guatemala City.  The bus left at 11am and stopped at 2pm at a roadside food court for 30 minutes so we could stretch out legs and get a quick meal.  In Guatemala City we transferred to a van for the hour trip to Antigua where we arrived at around 7.  I had a bit of a problem finding my hotel, called “A Place To Stay”, and ended up taking a tuk tuk (enclosed 3 wheel motorcycle cab).  Even he had problems finding it and had to make 3 calls for directions.  But eventually we did though.  The hotel didn’t have a private room available so they gave me a multi-bed room (4 sets of bunk beds) that was empty and only charged me US$7 instead of the US$10 for the private room.  I was only staying 2 nights so it didn’t matter.  I did get a private room on Sunday though for $10.  Much nicer than the other room.  It also had a private bath.

My 1st full day in Antigua (7/21) was spent trying to orient myself with the city streets.  My primary objective was to find the Spanish school I will be attending starting tomorrow in relation to the hotel I’m in.  What makes it hard is that, while the streets are named and numbered, none of them are marked so you have to look for landmarks on the map and ask directions often.  I successfully found my way from my hotel to the school and back again so I feel a bit more comfortable.  But tomorrow I’ll have to do it all over again because I’ll be living with a host family somewhere else in the city.

My ankles are pretty sore now because the streets are paved with different sized rocks that are very uneven.  And the curbs are 12 to 18 inches high so it’s kind of like hiking on a trail rather than walking on a street.  Most of you know I never where shoes at home (hey I live on the beach!) and here I have to wear shoes so that’s another problem.  Someone in Orlando said I stagger around like a baby with its 1st pair of shoes when I have to wear them.

Tonight I’ll be wandering the streets looking for a good European restaurant for dinner. One of the reasons I chose Antigua is because it’s loaded with great restaurants, coffee house and bakeries.  I enjoyed my 1^st 6 shot espresso on my walkabout today! 

So that’s how my trip is going so far.  More to come as school starts and I settle in.

As always practice peace.  Fatboy In Belize In Antigua GT out!!!

El Remate, Tikal, and possibly headed home to a flooded trailer...

Day 2 – Part 2 – El Remate
It rained on and off the rest of the day so no more exploring than my brief foray in the morning.  

I spent quite a few restful hours in the hammock resting up for my Tikal tour on Monday. Dinner at 6pm at the hamburger stand and it was 100% better than the 1^st time because there was a different cook this time.  Now that I have the electrical adapter I can watch movies in my room during rainy periods so that’s what I did this night.

Day 3 – The Tikal Mayan ruin tour

 

The Tikal Mayan ruin tour was a bargain at US$40!  What a magnificent place!  I’m so glad I came and I’m sure that I’ll be back.  Tom and I were picked up at the hotel at 5:30am and we were the only ones on the collectivo (mini-bus).  When we got to Tikal we joined a group of about 25.  The only bad thing was that I had to wear shoes and you all know how I’m always bare foot so you know how unhappy I was about that.  The day was warm but overcast with scattered drizzle but we enjoyed the day none the less. But again it was so worth it.  It's a really interesting and beautiful place.  We visited temples 1-5, built during  while hiking about 5 miles.  Saw spider monkeys, turkeys, gibnut, kudamundi, and tons of parrots, plus lots of other birds.  The place is magnificent and I can not image how beautiful the temples were when they were still covered with different colored plasters! I took lots of pictures and also have my friend Tom's as well and I will post more of them after I go through them.

When I got back to the hotel and the internet café I had an email from Trish and several others that a tropical depression had formed over Belize with heavy rains and  winds. There is a bus direct to Belize City at 5:30am from where I’m staying (El Remate GT) and it gets into Belize City around 10am and I’ll be on it.  I’ll probably fly from Belize City to Dangriga and take a taxi home. Trish said there was already 2 feet of water covering the property so that means I probably have water inside my trailer.  Thankfully I have nothing sitting on the floor that will be ruined.  Even my fridge is about 18 inches off the floor.  But not sure what kind of damage it will do to my floor since it’s wood.  I’m sure the water will be coming up through the bottom.  There are no big drying fans in Belize like there are in the states so that’s out.  Trish said her kitchen windows were blown out by the storm.  Thankfully the Inn blocks my trailer from the onshore winds and that I closed and locked my big back window so I should be ok there too.  But now my vacation is over…

My expenses so far have been:

Sub-total: US$71.75
2 Dinners:  US$6.40
Snacks/Drink Tikal: US$3.33
Tikal tour:  US$40.00
Total:  US$121.68

Day 4 – Home to Belize and a flooded trailer???

Left on the 5:30am van to Belize City and got there around 9:30am.  No rain until we got close to the city then it rained all the way to Dangriga and for a few hours while I was there.  I tried to fly to Dangriga from Belize Municipal Air Port but when we got there I saw a truck on the runway hosing it down.  It was closed for the day.  The runway is 6 feet from the water and not more than a foot above water level.  So I had the taxi take me to the bus terminal and I immediately caught a chicken bus to Dangriga.  On the way I called Trish to see I anyone could pick me up at the Hopkins junction but the flooding was too bad.  So on to Dangriga and I got the about 1pm.  There was more water on the Hummingbird Hwy east of the Southern Hwy junction and in Dangriga itself than I’ve seen in the 3 years I’ve lived here. The entire southwestern part of the town looked like one big lake.   At one point in the journey  Hummingbird was covered with 2 feet of water for a couple of miles and the police were only letting pickups, trucks, and buses through so I was able to get into Dangriga.  Now I wasn’t sure that the 2pm Hopkins bus was going to come because I was sure that Hopkins Road would have the same or worse flooding and I’d be stuck in Dangriga for the night.   I had to sit there until 5:15pm to take the Hopkins bus.  So I ate dinner and sat in the restaurant reading until the bus came.  I talked to Trish several times during the day and she said that the flood water was draining away pretty quickly.  At one point it was hip deep.  All of her downstairs guest rooms were flooded.  She said that at one point the water level was an inch from my door sill.  I figured by that point that the water would seep in through the flooring.  Hopkins road was covered with about 2 feet or more of water too but the bus made it.  When I got to the Kismet driveway it had about a foot of water on it so I took off my flip flops and waded to my trailer.  When I got the I found about 6 inches around the trailer and my wood pallet door stop floating.  Trish pointed out the water mark just below the door sill so I was sure I’d find flooded carpet when I opened the door.  But the god’s had smiled on me and I had no water on the floor and no roof leaks!  Boy way I relieved!   I didn’t know how I was going to dry the floor out because, like I said earlier, there are no big drying fans available anywhere in Belize that I know of so I’d have to do it with my 3 stand fans and not very efficiently either.  Or pull up the carpet, what little there is of it.  So I was saved from all that.  But had I chose to continue on with my trip those same gods probably would have went the other way and I’d have come home to a real mess.  So now I’m thinking about heading directly to the Honduras Bay Islands on either Friday or Saturday, depending on the weather, to finish what I started.  We’ll see…

My expenses so far have been:

Sub-total: US$121.68
1 Dinners: US$7.50
Van to Belize: US$21.00
2 chicken buses in Belize:  US$7.50
Total: US$157.68 for 5 days (US$39.42 per day avg)

(A couple people have asked me how cheap it is to travel down here.  That's why I've been posting a running total.  Hope it helps!)  
As always practice peace.  Fatboy In Belize out!

My new traveling adventure to Guatemala and Honduras - Part 1

Day 1 – Traveling to El Remate and the Sun Breeze Hotel in Guatemala

I’ve always wanted to travel the other Central American countries since I moved to Belize.  So far I´ve been to Guatemala and Costa Rica but there is so much more to see.   Living on the Kismet Inn property I’ve met literally hundreds of people who regale me with tales of Mayan ruins, Spanish colonial cities, and spectacular land and seascapes which only fueled the fire.  But there was always more fishing to do and hammock naps to take.  Basically I was just too lazy.to get my butt in gear.  I did have one journey this past December with my cousin Kevin Drews to Costa Rica for 2 weeks,  He was going down to look for retirement property and I went along for the ride.  We had a great time traveling from the southern Caribbean coast, up to the north, then cutting across to the Pacific side.  We also spent a night in Managua Nicaragua so Kevin could meet the Compassionate Child that he’s been sponsoring.  You’ll find that story further down in the post listings.  That trip added fuel to my traveling fire.  I also visited Livingston and Frontera on the Rio Dulce and Antigua in Guatemala for a week.

Lately I’d been feeling a need for a holiday and, since I now have that I have a monthly income the wanderlust has really taken hold.   In the past couple of months I’d spent a couple of days on Tobacco Caye with friends Matt, Angie, and Bev, a week on Caye Caulker with Elizabeth,  and 2 weeks on Playa Del Carmen MX, with Liz for a few days, until her Cancun flight back to the states, and the rest by myself.  But those are familiar places to me and do nothing to slake the need to see new and exciting places.  One of my drawbacks though is that I don’t speak Spanish and here I am, planning to visit multiple Spanish speaking countries, without speaking the language.  I can ask for a beer and the bathroom and a few other useful things but I’m not worried.  I know I’ll get by and it will all be part of the adventure.  I’m sure by the end of this trip I’ll have 3 or 4 more Spanish words in my vocabulary.   I sort of kick myself for not joining my friends who took Spanish in high school.  I took German and can sort of get along with the German speaking guests but that’s not much help here in C.A.

So anyway back to my story.  I got serious and initially planned a trip to the barrier islands of Honduras, Roatan and Utila being the most well-known.   I planned to take the ferry from Belize City to Puerto Cortez and then out to the islands and spend 3 to 4 weeks fishing, snorkeling, and seeing the sights on a few Islands.  Then Liz said she wanted to get away so I added a week in Caye Caulker to wait for her to arrive in Belize City.  Due to responsibilities at home she couldn’t make it so I cancelled the Caulker trip and decided to revise my entire itinerary.  Tikal Maya ruins in Guatemala, one of the most excavated and researched ruin in all of Central America (so the guide books say) has always been on my list.  So I changed my direction of travel from a southern sea trip in the Caribbean to a western chicken bus trip.  I still wanted to go to the islands so I researched how to get there from the Tikal area.  I found that there is a daily bus from just across the Belize border in Santa Elana that goes direct to San Pedro Sula Honduras in 9 hours for US$42.  Perfect!  So I added El Remate Guatemala as my 1^st stop.  I planned to stay at least 4 days because the town sits right on on a lake.   I was bringing my fishing gear anyway!   So anyway we’ll see where I ultimately end up going and for how long I stay on the road.  Being retired I really don’t have anything driving where I have to be and when so this will be my 1^st foreign unplanned (destination wise) and unscheduled (time wise) trip of my life. 

Now, thinking about the way back home from Honduras I could always take the ferry but as I thunk about it I thunk that I might want to see Antigua and the Rio Dulce area in Guatemala again.  I’d been there in April of last year on a sailboat voyage with our friend Gaston, who uses an anchorage along the river when he travels back to Holland.  Trish and I went along with him and then took a bus trip to Antigua which we really enjoyed.  But that trip was cut short when we heard that Elvis has stolen and demolished the car I’d bought not 3 weeks before.  So that is stuck in the back of my head as a possibility.  It will all depend on how long I stay in Honduras and the hurricane season.

I started my sojourn on Saturday June 16^th with 3 chicken bus rides to the western border of Belize and Guatemala.  I hopped on the 7am out of the village and at the Southern Hwy/Hummingbird Hwy (on the way to Dangriga) the bus sat for 3 minutes and along came the express bus to Belize City.  Everyone heading west transferred to it and I was the unlucky person with no seat.  The conductor dug out a 5 gallon bucket and put it in the aisle right next to all the luggage and other cargo and that was my seat for the hour and a half race through the mountains to Belmopan where I was to change buses for the border.  Now I know many of you have sat on 5 gallon buckets and a few of you maybe in the back of a pickup truck for a short ride.  Well you’ve never experienced life until you do it at 60 miles per hour on a winding and not very smooth road through the mountains!  Needless to say I was happy to give up that seat! 

I waited 20 minutes in Belmopan for the bus to Benque Viejo at the border and again got the very last seat..  This time it was a real seat though and my butt was happy for it.  At Benque I took a US$2.50 cab ride to the border and cleared immigrations and customs in both in about 20 minutes, walking across the border while being “mosh pitted” (the only words I can think of to describe it) by money changers.  After clearing Guatemala Immigration I took the short walk up into the town and bought my ticket on a collectivo, a 15 passenger van that is a popular way to travel in Mexico and Guatemala instead of a chicken bus.  They don’t run on any kind of schedule and only depart when the van is over full.  So we waited in 2 spots for about 30 minutes until there were 20 passengers, one being a lady with a shopping bag…and a live chicken riding in it.  So now do we call collectivos “chicken collectivos”?  My US$7 fare took me on a 2 hour drive through country that looked much the same as Belize only with lots more Mayan villages. Their homes are usually made up of 2 palmetto thatched buildings, one the kitchen and gathering area and the other strictly for sleeping.    The kitchen building has no walls, only the roof, and the sleeping area is normally one big enclosed room.  There were some really nice homes along the route as well and those were most likely Mennonite or foreigners based on signage and other identifiers.  Anyway I was dropped off for a 2^nd collectivo into the town of El Ramate.  I’d already decided to stay at a small place called “Hotel Sun Breeze” which charges US$10 a night for a room with private bath and a stand fan (nope no a/c.  That’s for Gringos!).  I immediately liked the look of it and am glad that I chose it.  Renaldo, the owner is a really pleasant guy and got me settled in quickly. I booked the room for 4 nights.  One disappointing feature of my room is that the electric outlets only take 2 prongs and my laptop is 3.  He looked for an adapter but all he could come up with was a European one for their style of plugs.  Thankfully the common area has a 3 prong outlet so I can see I’ll be spending timeout there when I need to and until I can buy and adapter.  I’ve never had that problem before so never thought about getting one.  So by 2pm, after a pretty uneventful trip, I was in Guatemala and into my 1^st hotel getting ready to take a short combat nap.  Twenty minutes later I was up on the porch with Renaldo asking about tours, fishing, good places to eat, and having my 1^st Guatemalan beer of the trip.  The one misfortune I had was when I went to pay for my hotel I gave him 2 bills that I thought were Guatemala quetzales but turned out to be Costa Rican colones that were in the same pack, and not worth very much. I thought I had US$275 in GTQ but failed to take a closer look at the bills I was adding up.  So far on my trip I’d had enough Q’s to pay my way.  Now I was stuck on a Saturday without any GT cash and no ATM in the town.  Renaldo was able to give me US$100 in Q’s later that night.  That should be enough for the rest of my stay here. 

With check-in and my nap complete I headed to a food stand for my 1^st meal of the day, a quesoburqeusa and papas fritos.  The fries were great but the hamburger was typical for anywhere in Central America.  Next was a lay in a hammock with my new read “World Without End” by Ken Follett, all 1014 pages of it.  I read his “Pillars Of The Earth” last month and really enjoyed it and even downloaded an 8 part mini-series starring Donald Southerland, which I have yet to watch.  This book picks up in the town of Knightsbridge England 200 years later in 1337.  But I digress a bit.  While reading and swinging and smoking a cigar one of the guests walked up and introduced himself to me and that was the end of my reading for a while.  Tom is mid-30’s and from Cork City Ireland and a new college student (Archeology) and a Publican (Pub bartender).  He’s been on the road for  weeks and plans on going home when the new school year starts in September.  Of course being Irish the 1^st purchase he made was a case of beer, which he gladly shared.  Beer #2.  I’m on holiday so I’m allowed another.  We talked for a couple of hours about this and that.  He’s getting a free college education courtesy of the Irish government because he was laid off and because of his age.  Too cool!  I wish the U.S. did that.   I invited him to diner around 7 but he had dinner in the common fridge so I headed out for what turned out to be a pretty disappointing meal right up the street of steak and veggies.  I did have a pretty darn good cup of coffee though.  Back to the hotel and back to sitting with Tom and a woman who’s name I forget who was leaving in the morning.  Turns out she is an on staff doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.  As always we asked why she was leaving and she said she couldn’t trust leaving her resident doctors for too long.  They’d pick up bad habits said she laughing.  Ten thirty was all the longer I could stay up after my 2 hours of sleep the night before and travel weariness put me right to sleep and 8am seemed to roll around pretty darn quickly.  So now the plans for my 2nd day will be to wander the town to see what there is to see.  Being Sunday I thought that most of it may be closed. So now it’s time to get in gear and try not to cause too much trouble here my 1^st full day.

Day 2 – Visiting the town of El Remate (or so I thought)

Up at 8am and out by 10am after spending some time starting my travel blog.  I like to get right at it because, while I’ve taken notes of the day's travel I don’t want to lose what I was thinking, feeling, or sensing when everything was going on.  And being old I tend to forget quickly.  A few minutes of writing, followed by moving stuff around in my bags, and I was out on the street.  First stop was the small store that Renaldo thought might have the electrical adapter.  Success!  I bought 2 for about US$1.50.  Next was breakfast at a small stand.  I ordered 3 chicken tacos for US$2.75 and 2 12oz bags of water for 18 cents.  It turned out to be 3 stacked tacos with veggies and potatoes and veggie rice.  Really good and I was stuffed.  I spent some time there watching the foot and vehicle traffic and looking at the lake wondering what the best time to fish is.  But then storm clouds started drifting across the sky so I headed back to the hotel.  I set up my computer I the common area to take advantage of the nice breeze but within 15 minutes I was back in the room.  The wind kicked up and was rattling the tin roof over the common room and then the thunder and gully wash rain started  Thankfully my room was but steps away.  My windows were open and I was glad to see that it wasn’t being flooded.  The 1^st storm lasted a good hour so I decided to head to the internet café next door to the hotel and then back to the common area hammocks with a cigar and my book to wait out the rain that´s falling now. 

My expenses so far have been:

Travel to GT: US$4

Collectivos in GT:  US$7.50

4 nites hotel:  US$40

1 beer: US$2.00

2 meals: US$13.00

5 12oz bags of water:  40 cents US

Taco lunch US$2.75

2 EL adapters:  US$1.50

Internet café:  US$2.00

Total: US$71.75

As always practice peace.  Fatboy In Belize out!

Christmas trip to Orlando

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and Happy New Year everyone!  I hope that this is the start of the best years of your life!

January 18^th marked the 1 year anniversary of our friend Conan’s passing.  We talk and laugh about him daily and miss him as much now as we did when he left us.

After the fun of Costa Rica with Kevin I headed home to Hopkins for 5 days to wash clothes and repack my suitcase for a slightly colder climate.  It was nice to get back to my normal routine of fishing and napping again because I’m not used to all the daily movement of traveling but I knew I only had a few days before my longer trip to Orlando and all the hub-bub there.  I was sure that I’d need a holiday from my holidays after I was finished.  Well I didn’t know how true that was to be.

 

I flew out of Belize City because I found a decent fare on Delta, unlike other trips.  The cost was not much more than if I’d traveled the chicken bus to Belize City (US$6) and the all night Mexican ADO bus to Cancun Airport (US$43).  So I saved myself about 14 hours of bus rides and an extra lost travel day on both sides of my trip.  My flights through Atlanta and on to Orlando uneventful. Clearing Immigration and Customs in Atlanta was equally uneventful.  I’d never done the Atlanta I/C so wasn’t sure how long it would take there.  I found it to be one of the easiest and quickest next to Orlando Airport.  I rented a car from Hertz and saw my name and car stall on the board at the Hertz counter.  I’d been assigned a Chevy Captiva which I thought was unusual because in previous Hertz #1 Club Gold you chose any car from the aisle with the car size you’d selected.  Plus I didn’t recognize the model so I looked it up on the web.  It turned out to be a full sized SUV and a pretty nice car.  I was afraid that the gas mileage would be low and I’d pay a fortune in fuel but that turned out not to be true.  Gas was around $3.25 a gallon when I 1^st got there and as time passed the prices rise.  By mid January the price had gone up to $3.49 then back down to $3.35.  I was guessing that the oil company executives had to pay off the expensive Christmas/Hanukkah gifts they’d given.  It was still cheaper than the $6 a gallon we pay in Belize though. 

I normally stay with my son Rich for my entire trip but on December 1^st he and a friend moved into a 2 bedroom apartment near downtown Orlando.  He loves the historic districts so he moved from historic Sanford to historic Orlando.  The new one was much roomier and nicer.  He still had the old place until December 31^st so I had an apartment to myself until then.  After that I moved in with my friend Elizabeth who lives alone in a 4 bedroom home not far from my kids. She is another old AT&T/Lucent/Avaya friend (well she’s not old just our friendship is…) for the remainder of my stay, which was to end on January 16^th when I was due to fly home. I’d stayed with her for 2 weeks when I was in Orlando in July and she’d told me that she would always have room for me on return trips.  So I took her up on her offer.  It turns out that it was going to be much longer than expected.  Hopefully the adage “Fish and guests have one thing in common.  After a while they both stink and you have to throw them out.” won’t come to fruition with Elizabeth… 

It was great as always to see my kids and Vinnie Orlando, and old time AT&T pal had arranged a small get-together of other AT&T friends too, and it was nice to see them.  Of course I had to meet up with Vicki and Dempsey at Vitorio’s for oysters as quickly as possible.  They are always on my “must eat” list and I had 7 dozen, with a promise of more on our next visit.  Christmas dinner at my cousin Ed and Deb’s is always so much fun (no REALLY!!!) and it’s always great to see their side of the family.  I got lots of surprise Christmas presents from them.  Mostly snacks but 2 new tee shirts (you can never have too many of those) and a gift card that I used to refill my gas tank at a slightly cheaper rate.  Of course I ate entirely too much there.  Deb is such a good cook and their daughter Kristina is too.  The kitchen island filled up with goodies several different times both before and after dinner.  I certainly lived up to my Fatboy moniker that day!   

As for my “must eat” list it’s comprised of all my favorite foods that I can’t get in Belize.  BBQ, Italian, pizza (as opposed to Italian food), Cajun, Tex-Mexican (it’s different than what I can get in Mexico and Central America), subs, and a few other things.  So, almost immediately, I started eating my way through the list with my kids.  

That came to a screeching halt on January 7^th.  As soon as I got off the plane in Orlando my sinuses filled and the coughing started.  Thank you long metal tube and sick fellow travelers thought I. I’d also developed a raging case of acid reflux right after the New Year because I was eating later than I normally do at home.  Home I eat around 4pm, before I go fishing, so that I don’t have a lot of food in my stomach when I go to bed.  Because of Rich and Matt’s working hours, and other reasons, I was eating later so I was suffering.  Antacids and acid reducers generally resolve the issue but for some reason it didn’t this time.  I attributed it to the extra stress that I was feeling this trip too.  So anyway, as I started to feel worse I took my blood pressure at my friend’s house with her monitor.  I do have high BP and take daily meds for it but even with my daily dose taken my BP was at an all time high for me.  So I said I’d like to visit the nearby firehouse for a check there.  It turned out that the house was empty so she suggested the grocery store.  When we got there the ambulance and fire truck were in the parking lot so I figured they were either eating or shopping or both.  Turns out they were shopping and I asked one of the EMTs to do me the favor.  We walked out to the truck and he set me up.  It was now 20 points higher than at home.  Maybe from the stress of seeing the higher reading on the home unit?  Not sure.  But the EMT said I might want to visit a local hospital.  That turned into an unexpected 3 day stay. Oh oh I don’t have medical insurance because none of what I was entitled to in my retirement was good outside the country.  I wasn’t going to worry about that though until the time came.  The ER nurses put me on the beeping machines and an IV as well as doing cuff tests and my BP was all over the chart. At one point in the ER it was 375/255 and I think they were waiting for me to stroke. One of the nurses wrote in my chart that I had chest pains too because I told him I felt a slight tightness so that added cardiac testing to everything else they did over the course of my stay.  Based on initial blood tests I was told I had the flu that was going around.  I wasn’t feeling the really adverse affects that had the hospitals over-flowing though.  So they started pumping me with antibiotics as well as potassium as that count was low too and a bunch of other stuff.  They dosed me with a BP med to see if they could get a handle on that but it didn’t work so on went the nitro patch, followed by 5 or 6 more over the next 2 days.  That finally started my BP headed down but gave me blinding headaches the rest of my stay. So, more drugs for that.  Anyway by ER hour number 4 I was told I’d be there over night. It was after 6 when they finally moved me to a room on the cardiac floor.  Because of the flu epidemic the hospital was already at 109% capacity and people were getting treated on gurneys in the hallways. The local news talked of hospitals erecting tents in the parking lot for the masses.  Thankfully Orlando never got that far and I counted myself lucky to have a room at the Inn.  On the 2^nd day I had a nuclear stress test that turned out to be relatively normal.  Because of my coughing and panting fits I was suffering they didn’t make me do the treadmill.  Instead they used drugs.  Well when I was finished, or rather they were finished with me, I wished I’d done the walk.  Whatever they gave me made me feel like I was having heart attack because the drugs put a strain on the heart so they could measure it.  At least I could go back home knowing my heart is ok.  The final outcome, the thought was, the combination flu and acid reflux put a strain on me and raised my BP.  Late day 3 I was released back into the wild with a bag full of meds to take over the next 7 days and I was a good boy and took them all to completion.  I want to thank my friends Joe and Alice for their visit to my room. I really enjoyed seeing them. Others called with plans to visit but I got kicked out before that could happen.  On release I was told that the 2 doctor’s offices would call to schedule follow up visits a month out but I never heard from either of them.  I figured if there was something to worry about they would have called so I never called them either.  I did call Delta and cancelled my return trip and the nice lady in Tampa said she was waiving the $150 change fee without my even asking.  So that was a relief as my travel budget was dwindling.  I was already almost 2/3rds through my budget when the hospital stay occurred and now I was looking at a month more with the bulk of my cash in the bank in Belize and no easy way to get to it. 

I still wasn’t up to snuff when I left the hospital but it was time to get back to visiting and eating.  My daughter Carrie had signed me up for several restaurant birthday clubs and I received quite a few buy one/get one meals that helped my budget and I found that I could change the expiration dates in the emails on several of them and use them again and again.  Illegal you say?  Well 3 of the restaurants I had coupons for I was a VERY good customer of when I lived in the states so I didn’t feel bad about it.  IHOP go the most of my coupon reuse for breakfast and lunch.  I still had maybe ½ my “must eat” list left.  Cajun with Elizabeth.  She’d never had Cajun before so it was nice to introduce her to it.  BBQ at 4 Rivers with a different kid, or multiple kids so I had that 4 times.  Pizza twice, Sushi once, subs a number of times (always from Publix grocery store because I think they have the best.  Even better than the sub shops). German with Elizabeth because she lived in Germany for several years as a kid. I was crossing things off my eat list.  But as my money dwindled and with the possibility of an increase in flight costs I had to slow down.  Another reason for reusing coupons.  I had $950 Belize dollars ($425 US dollars) in hand and I tried changing them into US dollars at several banks but they wanted outrageous exchange fees so I kept the BZ dollars.  I sure was hoping I could tap that though and not have to worry so much about my dwindling funds… 

After my rental car expired, and I couldn’t afford to renew it, Elizabeth lent me her car whenever I needed it.  I spent 4 days in St. Pete visiting my sister Diana and her family, which left Elizabeth to bike to where ever she needed to go during that period.  Trips out with my kids and another planned trip to Vitorio’s for more oysters and more friends before I leave.  I am SO grateful for her putting up with me and lending me her car.  I invited her to either come back with me to Belize for a couple weeks or travel down whenever her schedule permits so I can try to repay her.  She admits that she REALLY needs the break so we’ll see.  We joke (maybe it’s not a joke though) of her never coming back once she experiences Hopkins and my easygoing lifestyle.  Hey look what happened with Conan a couple of years ago.  He came for a month long holiday and never left.  It happens more often than you think.  I am about to schedule my return flight for Tuesday February 5^th.  I’ve been gone far too long and am having fishing withdrawals and I’m freezing up here.  My New Years resolution this year is to catch more and bigger fish so I better get to it!

I did get 2 bits of great news today. The 1^st is that I called Delta to reschedule my return flight to Belize for Wednesday 2/6.  I talked to a Service Agent in Minnesota 1^st and she had problems determining the price of my ticket because the price kept coming up blank. I jokingly said that it must be free.  So she transferred me to an international service agent who had the same problem.  She got help and was told that there would be no increase in the return airfare.  When I spoke with an agent in Tampa a few days ago she told me that it would cost an additional $230 for my return but did verify that they were waiving the $150 international change fee.  I assume that once you cancel the return portion they book you at a one way fare when you reschedule.  These 2 ladies book my return as the 2^nd half of my trip, thus the same return fare that I paid when I bought the round trip ticket.  So that saved me $380!  I’m more comfortable with my bank statement now as I have that much more money until I leave.

The other good news was that I was contacted by Beatrice Mark who offered me a volunteer position as a U.S. Embassy Associate Warden for the Stann Creek District where I live. She emailed me on Saturday 1/26 and asked if I would be interested and I jumped at the opportunity. Her contact today was to officially offer me the position. The Wardens (American Traveler Advocates actually) assist American travelers who are having problems such as being robbed, lost their passport, gotten ill, etc and I help to resolving their issue(s).  We are their go-between to the Belize officials and the U.S. Embassy in Belmopan (the capital of Belize).  I have a luncheon to attend on Friday February 8^th at the Embassy where we will be sworn in and get initial training on our functions.  We will also have our picture taken with Ambassador Thummalapally as well.  I think that there is a follow up training at a later date too.  It’s not supposed to be too time consuming and I will be backing up Beatrice who is the primary Warden for Stann Creek.  Since my trailer has been robbed, I’ve been held in jail overnite until the Treasury Office at the border opened the next day (I never ended up paying the fine), had my car stolen, and handled the death of an American citizen (Conan) I think I have a leg up on helping others.  I’m really looking forward to it!  Funny though I don’t think I’ll be able to dress as I did when I visited the Embassy 3 times over the last 3 years.  Each time I wore a tank top, bathing suit, and was barefoot. I guess I’ll have to buy clothes and shoes before I leave Orlando…

Well, enough for now!  As always practice peace.  Fatboy In Belize out!