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 1st 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$71.752 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$121.681 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!
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