CHOCOLATE!!! and bus rides

It’s almost been a week since my last post and I apologize for the long gap. Time slipped away and after a long weekend and being busy with different projects I’ve found the time to update everyone on what’s been going on here in Belize. So strap in readers, cause this might be a long one. This past weekend was a 3-day weekend because Monday was Commonwealth day. So the group decided to head south for Belize’s annual Chocolate festival. Yes, a festival of chocolate.

We left Saturday morning at 5:50 to catch a bus to Belmopan (the capital) that left at 6:00. We got on the bus and got cozy for the long 6 hrs of Belizean bus rides in front of us. The hour to Belmopan went by quickly enough and after a brief wait in the terminal we boarded the next bus that would take us down to a place called Punta Gorda, or as Belizeans referred to it… PG. We made about 50 or so million stops along the way picking up all sorts of people making their way South.

Around 12:30 we finally caught view of the beautiful Caribbean beckoning us to leave our sweat-stained and indented seats to walk around in the sun with a warm tropical breeze on our faces. It felt pretty good to be off the bus sharing a seat with only God knows whom, and to be walking around stretching our legs. We found the festival in full swing and jumped right in to the festivities. Chocolate was everywhere. Chocolate milkshakes, chocolate fudge brownies, Belizean Kriol chocolate, Mayan dark chocolate, frozen hot chocolate, chocolate and banana smoothies, chocolate covered bananas, chocolate bbq sauce, Mayan cacao drink, chocolate cheesecake, the list goes on but needless to say I said “yes please” and enjoyed the chocolate. I also was reminded firmly of a Spongebob episode where he and Patrick sell chocolate bars and have some crazy fish dude scream “CHOCOLATE!!!” running after them, I was that fish dude.

CHOCOLATE!!!

The festival was crazy, filled with dancing from local groups and a few fun scam games I lost $3 on. While enjoying all the craziness we were supposed to meet up with the owner of the hotel we were staying at. Kristina had handled all the arrangements up to that point and apparently one of the owners told her the festival was only 2 miles away from the hotel. That would have been fantastic had she informed us that it would have been the next day but for now we were 2 hours away by bus from the hotel and the last bus that direction was getting ready to say adios. So after the confusion the owners said they had some jungle casitas and lodges near where the festival was currently and that we could stay in those for a higher price. It went from $18 to $30 so not too bad.

The owner’s name was Lee and he was Canadian that owned a hotel down here with his wife. We met up with him and dropped off our backpacks we had been lugging around all day in a place where they would be safe. We enjoyed the festival some more, watched some very awkward white girl try and dance like she was some tribal native and then enjoyed more reggae and chocolate.

We found a bike rental shop near the end of the street and we all rented bikes for 3 hours for only $10 Belize. We rode around PG for a while going into the back neighborhoods and up and down hills on beach cruisers. Those things go surprisingly fast. I ended up turning in early as my bum knee was giving me trouble but the rest of the group kept going. Later on Trellany and Danielle arrived with their bikes and then we waited an hour for the rest of the group, whom had gone off into the jungle in search of Howler monkeys, only to come out with bug bites.

When the bikes were returned we went to grab some grub (even though we were overflowing with chocolate) and went to a local spot that we heard was good called Asha’s kitchen. It was out by itself far from the main town but it was filled with people, and the food smelled great. We found out after waiting in line that they were out of food and nobody else would be getting any. Darn. So we ended up going to some other bar place. That was a mistake. The food took an hour and a half to make and they had the music from the boom box on the counter turned up so loud I couldn’t hear anything anyone said. I got a fish, and not a fillet, they gave me the whole fish, head, gills, eyes, tail, spine everything. I picked at it for a while and then was glad when we headed to our lodge for the night.

We took some taxis to our lodge to once again meet up with Lee the Canadian to check in. He showed us to our rooms one of which was a jungle hut. Kind of cool but the girls took it. We got a smaller room that seemed nice, the AC was broken but I’ve been without AC for a while it didn’t even faze me. Although the room was nice, I was faced with a nice large wolf spider on the wall near my bed that frankly, I was too tired to kill. I watched Randy poke it with a stick like Steve Irwin and was waiting with sleepy eyes for it to attack him. Unfortunately it didn’t and Kristina came in and just killed it. So much for a show before bed. I turned down my sheets and was greeted by about 10 mosquitoes under the sheets, some dead some still zipping around looking for blood, literally. Wonderful I thought. I brushed the dead ones off and added to the body count, by killing those that remained. Then I was greeted by the welcoming arms of sleep. I took a shower somewhere in there but it was just meh.
            The next day we checked out and headed out to catch the bus that would take us a bit northeast to the city of Independence where we’d take a water taxi to the peninsula where we’d stay in the beautiful beach town of Placencia. On the bus we talked to another Canadian named Will all about sports. It made the bus ride go by quickly and we were soon in Independence. There we walked about half a mile to the waterfront to catch our water taxi. When the short but fun water ride was over we got out we walked around in search of where we’d be staying for the night. Again it ended up being a little further away than we thought. This place was found by using one of those sites where people rent out their couches and homes for travelers. We just so happened to come across one of the coolest people for ours. Kristina called him on the phone and he was 12 miles away but said he’d be down soon to pick us up. Hallelujah, no more walking with heavy packs.           

Caribbean breeze

We grabbed a bite to eat at a place called Detach that was literally on the beach overlooking the Caribbean, very cool. We each got a burrito the size of my forearm. They were pretty huge but delicious. Soon after we met up with McKinley, the guy we’d be staying with. He was from South Carolina and had moved here last year with his family. He had 4 little kids who were very excited to get to play with new friends. They were pretty cute kids and full of energy. I think the oldest was 8 but he may have been a little younger.
            So McKinley and his wife, whom we didn’t get to meet, had been on a show called House Hunters International and we all watched the episode they were in when they moved to Belize. He gave us some behind the scenes info, which was fun to see how the show played out certain scenarios. And it turns out the house they “chose” on the show wasn’t even the one they actually got. We stayed in a huge house that was right on the beach and had a sweet pier out into the water.

The pier from McKinley's house

The best part of the night was when Kristina, Trellany, and I were on the pier late at night just talking about our lives. I won’t say exactly what we talked about but a lot had to do with my family and some personal things that I was able to share with my cousin.

The next day was a party day at the resort that was right next to McKinley’s house. We walked over there and played some beach volleyball and then swam with McKinley and his kids in the largest pool in Belize. We swam and had a good time for hours playing pool games.

Around 2:00 we all said goodbye to the kids and McKinley drove us back into town to the water taxi. The water taxi was full so we opted to catch the next one and get some food. We searched around for a good place to eat but due to the holiday (Commonwealth Day) most places were closed. We ended up eating at Detach again and it was still good. After that we thanked McKinley for his generous hospitality and friendship and boarded the water taxi to Independence.

When we got off in Independence Randy and Kyle sprinted to catch the bus we needed to be on and hopefully hold it. Unfortunately we barely missed it so we had to wait ‘til 5:30 for the next one. We waited at a park watching some locals play basketball and we threw a Frisbee around for a while and had some ice cream and Fanta.

Finally the bus came and we got on to head up to Belmopan. Along one of the stops in Dangriga a whole slough of people boarded the bus and we were all literally being marinated in humidity and body heat. It was gross, but I couldn’t help giggling at the sight of about 50 people standing and sitting on top of each other in the isle while the rest of us were smushed 3 to a seat if possible in little school bus seats.

Freedom came in the form of a bus station in Belmopan where we exited the sauna bus and boarded one with spacious leg room and tired faces from a long day of traveling. After 5 hours of buses we finally reached San Ignacio and hobbled back to our apartment, happy to see our beds.

Santa Elena

These past two days have been eventful so I've been a bit preoccupied and didn't update the blog. Thats if anyone is actually reading these still, in which case, thanks. So as I may have written before I'm working a lot with a battered women's shelter called Cornerstone. Not all the women are abused but a majority are and it allows the women come and learn new skills and empower them to make changes in their lives. If there is one thing I learned from the most recent semester at school, is that the number one reason for poverty is because of the low status of women. And there is plenty of poverty to go around here.

Cornerstone not only helps women but they also provide amazing services to children. Which leads to what I've been doing these past two days. In the morning I've been going to Cornerstone to help prepare meals for the children and other people that are in need. So yesterday, me and Trellany went and met Miss Marta and Sofia two of the staff at Cornerstone. Both women are hardworking and have caring hearts. Miss Marta did a ton of cooking even before we got there in the morning but she still had plenty of work for us. We cut up a lot of plantains and boiled them, then prepped the bowls we'd use for the food. It was close to 60 bowls that we filled with rice, cut hot dogs in gravy, and a piece of plantain. (Plantains are in almost every meal here)

When we got all the meals ready to go we met Stanley. He's a local that used to live in LA for a time before he got deported back to Belize. We went with Stanley to deliver the foods to different schools and homes in his truck. Our last stop was a school in Santa Elena, the twin city of San Ignacio that's right across the river. We stopped and got the lunches out for the children when we were greeted by the lunch bell and hundreds of children of all ages came running out of the classes. Some of the kids started lining up by Stanley and signed their name for the lunch. Stanley told us that there were selected children on the program for Cornerstone to bring them lunches. Most of the kids come from from really hard backgrounds and definitely have it rough.

The kids were great. There were 52 of them and every one of them wanted to know who we were. Trellany played some little cup game, which most of the girls enjoyed. I watched two little boys take turns punching each other in the face, some of the hits looked like they would have hurt but it didn't phase them. I would have never known that these kids had it rough. All they did was smile and were just so thankful for what they were being given.

Feeding the children

After the lunch the children all said goodbye and gave high-fives. We then drove back to Cornerstone and cleaned up the bowls from lunch. When we were done Trell and I met with the manager Rita about the computer class I'd be teaching. She didn't have anyone for us on Tuesday but promised we'd have people to teach on Thursday.

Around 5 on Tuesday we finally got our first rainstorm/thunderstorm. Holy cow was it loud. It was almost equivalent to the ones back home in AZ but the part that made it loud was that it echoed off our metal roof. Very fun even though it lasted 30 mins. More when the rainy season comes I guess.

Wednesday morning was a repeat of Tuesday. Helped out at Cornerstone this time with Danielle and Kim. Although they were downstairs helping the women do baking. I was upstairs helping Marta and Sofia. Kim and Danielle came with me and Stanley on the deliveries though and we all had fun again at Santa Elena school with the kids.

In the afternoon Kim and I went to meet with the head of the Department of Labor to help teach people how to do resumés and interview for jobs. Surprisingly, the head didn't have anyone for us to teach and was sort of confused by the whole ordeal. I tried to explain what we'd be doing but she seemed out of it. Maybe it was the heat. I managed to have her commit to have us come every other wednesday to do the resumés with people and she said she'd get back to us when she had more info on who was coming.  Which means we'll be waiting a while.

The pencil that made a basketball court

The title says it all. Monday morning we set out to go once again to St. Andrews school and paint a basketball court for the children. There we met a local named Bernard who was to help us paint the court. Before we showed up I tried to grab some dimensions for a basketball court but it was hard to tell what exactly they wanted. Our contact Richard had dropped off a sheet of paper with a drawing of a court on it but it had no measurements just the picture. So we thought we we're on our own trying to figure this one out.

Bernard approached us and we as we walked over to the courts he looked confused and told us he had drawn it all out yesterday, as he held up a tiny pencil. It looked like one of those pencils you get at a golf course, you know the mini ones with no eraser. I found it comical that he had drawn the entire thing out with a tiny little pencil.

So because the drawings he had done had been wiped away by the feet of dozens of children, we had to start all over. Now at this point it was roughly 9:30 AM and it was close to 100° and really high humidity. Needless to say I was dripping with sweat. My water bottle which holds 32 oz was down to a cup left and we hadn't even started.

The ingenuity of Bernard was something to behold. The lines for the court needed to be 3 inches wide so Bernard went and grabbed a 2x4 and macheted the crap out of it until it was 3 inches wide. Then he found a long hose so we could do the rounded lines. It took a few hours and we we're all pouring sweat. But Bernard wasn't joking when he said he drew the whole thing out with a tiny pencil. Around 12:45 we finished painting but we only had done half of the court. It was simply too hot and we didn't want to wear ourselves out for the rest of the day so we called it quits and went to grab almuerzo.

I didn't eat anything but instead sat in front of the fan for an hour and even after lunch, my clothes were still damp with sweat. At 2:00 we headed down to Cornerstone Foundation (Funny name if you think about it) We met with Sofi, one of the staff, she showed us around and I got a chance to check out the computers I'd be working with for the next few weeks teaching people how to use one. They were old but ran fine. I'll be teaching people how to use microsoft office, set up emails, and show them how the basics of a computer. I made an outline for my first class it shouldn't take long and I'll just be introducing people to a mouse and keyboard and get them started on how to type. I found a typing program online that I'll have them do. Hopefully it goes well.

Lockout

So this post will be short. I'll tell you about what happened Sunday and then do another one for Monday. Sunday was a relatively boring day, the gang went to church and everyone just hung out in the apartment afterwards. Around 8 we had our meeting for our weekly activities and projects we'd be doing. For myself I'll be helping out at a women's shelter this week called Cornerstone. I'm project lead on teaching women how to be computer literate. For those of you that know me I'm not a tech genius but I can still find my way around a computer. For the people here I've heard I'll be mostly introducing them to mouse and keyboard. Fun. Also I've got some other projects going on including preparing and serving lunch up at Cornerstone as well.

Anyway later that night I introduced everyone to BANG! which I think everyone enjoyed. Kyle seemed to enjoy it a lot. So while we were playing Randy went to bed early so he could get up for his project at 8:00. We kept playing until about 11:30 at which point I walked to the guys room and was greeted by a locked door.

Apparently when Randy went to bed he took a shower and went in the room and locked the door so he could change. He then put in earplugs to block out the sound of the impending snoring that would greet everyone's ears later that night. I won't say who it is but his name sounds a lot like mine and he has a beard. OK fine it's me.  So when I noticed the door locked I knocked hoping that Randy was awake but alas, he was asleep with his earplugs in.

So we all had a good laugh at the situation and we ended up having to have everyone switch beds so me and kyle could have beds as well. Kim slept in Kristina's bed with Kristina and I took Kim's bed. Kyle busted out a spare mattress and layed out on the floor. Needless to say Randy was nothing but apologetic in the morning when he realized he locked us out.

Cahal Pech

So Belize is filled with Mayan ruins which I love. Archaeology has always had my interest and visiting some of the places in Central and South America has always been a dream of mine. With that being said today we went to one of the ruins called Cahal Pech.

Our entire group took taxis up to the ruins which is like 2 miles away and when we got there nobody was there. We paid the $10 Belize for entrance and then set out for the ruins. Big huge stone buildings where you could see what went where. For the most part I was amazed by the fact that we had the entire place to ourselves. I got some cool photos but I'm not able to put them up right now because my apple laptop doesn't want to play nice with my superior phone. But once I'm able to get the photos up I will.

The ruins weren't very large I would say a small community had lived there. You could go inside their stone huts where they had huge slabs of smoothed stone for beds. We also saw where the market was and also where the priests had their temple used for blood sacrifices. Apacolypto anyone? Very cool to see it was almost surreal.

After we spent about 2 hrs in the ruins we headed to a resort to swim in the pool. $10 Belize to swim and the water felt so nice. We spent close to 3 hours playing various pool games and enjoying the relaxing break from the heat. Kristina has had swimmers ear for the past week but we she got in and swam anyway. Poor girl she's been going nuts from the water stuck in her ear.

By the time we were done swimming my hands and feet were nice and pruny. So we all dried off and headed out to find a restaurant that served some good Belizian food. I don't know why, but for some reason I love rice and beans I always have. So I got some rice and beans with chicken and fried plantains and chased it with some watermelon juice. Watermelon juice can be found everywhere and it is delicious.The rest of the day was spent exploring the town and resting on the veranda in the hammock. I took a cold shower to wash off the sweat and pool water and then relaxed until it got dark.

Danielle and I headed down the street a little bit to a DVD shop where this kid sells burnt DVD's for $5 Belize each. I talked to him a bit and happened to be wearing my "Vegetarian" shirt at the time. So he filled me in that we could get some good "veggies" from him. Haha I thanked him for the offer. After talking for a bit I got him to give us discounts promising good business and the fact that we would return what we purchased when we left. He seemed to think it was good so I made a friend and got a discount at his place. I bought Olympus Has Fallen because I've never seen it. So I'll watch it later on.

Most of the locals loved my "vegetarian" shirt and true to their Rasta ways promptly filled me in on where to find the best stuff. I just laughed and found it funny. One guy played for us his rap song he made about Belize and talked to us a bit in Kriol. I still want to learn it.

The Scottsman and the Iguanas

So for those of you that don't know Belize used to be an English colony, thus why they speak English here. But the relevancy of this information will come into play soon enough. Today we didn't have much going on it was a day mostly for us to make new contacts for potential projects and to explore a bit on our own. A bit of an early weekend start. Kristina, one of the country coordinators wanted us to meet a man she had met a week or so ago named Dave.

Dave is a Scottsman who sounds a lot like Craig Ferguson. He's got that Glascow Scottish dialect accent going on with a full head of white hair. Anyway, we all went and met with him around 11:00 in a little shack on the side of the road. Apparently he sells seafood, at least thats what the sign on the wall outside said with a poorly drawn fish with a nice happy face where the gills should be. Amazing right?

So we all went in and sat around in chairs he provided as we introduced ourselves and tried to keep the sweat from pouring down our noses.  Dave told us he was here serving in the British military back when it was a colony (see I told you the information would be relevant). He came back afterward and married a Belizian woman and has been here for the past 20 years. He gave us some life lessons about general things he thought we needed all the while people dropped in and would say hi to him.

After we left Dave's shop we headed back to the apartment and got some stuff that we'd need for the weekend. Mostly water. Trellany, Kim, and I went to a small store to get two 5 gallon jugs because we were out. Celina's it was called and they sold a jar of peanut butter for the low cost of $45.00 Belize, which is like $23 American. You keep your peanut butter I'll do without the PB&J for now.

While Trell, Kim, and I got the water, Kristina and Danielle went into Belmopan (the capital) to find an orphanage to work at, and Kyle went to go pick up our newest team member, Randy who flew in today. So after getting the big jugs of water we headed out to go find a place called the Hammock Bridge where apparently a lot of iguana's congregate. Dave told us this info.

The bridge was about a 45 min walk on a long dirt road towards the jungle. We found a pretty cool pond on the way with a hut built out on a pier. Took some pics and then continued on. When we finally reached the bridge at the end of the road it was a cool sight indeed. Two rivers merged and a very rickety plank bridge spanned across one of the rivers. Oh yeah, and there were NO iguanas. I was somewhat dissappointed but hey what can you do? Some locals were swimming in the water and jumping off a swing that was attached to a HUGE tree that hung over the river. We watched some kids swing off and one kid eat it hard twice. Got some good laughs and then we headed out.

Dinner was at Greedy's a local place where we had some BBQ chicken and wings, we enjoyed some more Bob Marley music and laughed at the rastafari dude sitting near us as he was just sharing his love of life. After dinner we all took taxi's to Benque a small town right on the border of Guatemala, like the border is a minute away by foot.

We were there to support a local from San Ignacio and his band. There were a lot of people there but we made fools of ourselves dancing to the reggaeton music. Nobody was dancing everyone was sitting on the sides like some sort of high school dance where everyone sits on the sides and the one odd kid is dancing, except that odd kid was us. So then the bands played some covers of 80's rock songs and we cheered them on. Got some sprite in bags with straws and saw a dog with a unibrow and curly mustache drawn on him with marker. Some more laughs and then we headed home for the night.

St. Andrews

So our first full day here we were scheduled to go and help out at a local elementary school really close to our apartment. We had a nice breakfast of eggs, sausage, and baked beans drowned in catsup and then we all got ready to go.

When we got there school was in session and you could see all the children in their uniforms learning. We immediately drew their attention away as they looked out the windows at the 5 Americans coming into their little school. We met with the principal who showed us the wall that needed painting as well as the staircase next to it. We got to work scrubbing down the wall with brooms to get the dirt and other junk off. The wall had seen better days and the sun had most definitely worn off a lot of the blue paint.

The paint they had us use came in 2 colors a light blue and a royale blue. For some reason the royale blue had weird globs of tar or something floating around in it as well as thick layers of dried paint from past uses. We spent the next few hours painting the walls and then started on the staircase. During the middle of painting the children were released for lunch and the kids rushed over to see and feel the new fresh paint. Lets just say there were more than a few children that couldn't resist touching the shining oily paint. One little girl touched it "accidentally" like 6 times. Each time coming back to the fountain where I was trying to clean up the other kids.

After the kids went back to class we started on the staircase and busted out into Disney songs. Thankfully from spending time with Kyle Schoney in Texas, I knew the lyrics to most of Disney's greatest hits. Some of the faculty commended us on our amazing singing voices.

When were all done with St Andrews we headed to the local fruit market to grab some fresh fruit to make smoothies for some lunch. We grabbed some fruit at the market and went back to our apartment. Unfortunately our power was out, so instead we relaxed on the Veranda of the hotel. Nice tropical breezes greeted us in hammocks. It was nice.

When we were all freshened up and sweat free we did a scavenger hunt to find local places that we might need to know for later. I was teamed up with Danielle and we found most places but also met some more than friendly people, one gentleman especially. They like to hold hands while talking, very much like Middle-Eastern cultures. Anyway this guy rubbed his hands up and down my arm saying "Ya mon I help ya out findin dis tings on da leest" He showed us around trying to find some center, he took us to the wrong one then was like "So what you gonna do to help me out mon?" I gave him a Belize which is equivilant to $0.50.

Me and Danielle climbed some gnarly hills and soon called it quits when finding one place was 30 mins away. We headed back and grabbed some pillows on our way. Belize's finest pillows it advertised. More like rough cloth over styrofoam. But hey TIB (This is Belize) a saying I might adopt from the Chinese TIC (This is China)

Start of HELP

So for those of you that don't know I signed up for a humanitarian service trip back in January when my cousin Trellany had suggested I go with her to Belize for 2 months through a company called HELP-International. To make that long story short... I interviewed, was accepted, started to fundraise, received unbelievable donations from the most wonderful & caring people, sold some pork to help fundraise further, bought a plane ticket, paid for the trip. and on May 15th set off for Central America with my cousin.

The plane ride is always interesting for me, especially when hearing traveling stories from others. You don't often hear about someones plane ride and for the most part it's left out completely, after all who wants to hear about a monotonous journey that's hours of redundancy? I for one like the plane rides, and feel sometimes you get the best stories from them. This trips plane rides unfortunately lie within the boring category. I will note that on my first leg to Houston from Phoenix I had quite the, shall we say, pendejo in front of me. From takeoff to landing he had his seat reclined the entire time yet chose to sit up straight and even bend forward to read his book. Thanks buddy. About mid flight he turned around with his smug face and hipster glasses and asked me to "Stop tampering and kicking" with his chair. OK pal, I'm sorry I was trying to put my tray table up. I actually was quick mouthed and told him to turn back around, when normally I would have just apologised for inconveniencing him. Proud of myself for that one.

After landing in Houston we took the fun little tram to our next terminal and waited there for our next flight. Saw some interesting very stereotypical Texans with hats and all and I felt a bit nostalgic. It's been 4 years since I was last in Texas so I tried to soak up all 2 hours we were there. We saw a Menonite family that was on our flight to Belize, never seen Menonites before so I couldn't keep myself from staring at a distance.

The next leg wasn't as bad just very boring but coming into Belize was cool. Seeing the coastline meeting the jungles was pretty neat and as we neared the airstrip you could see the smolderings of "slash n burn" fires polka-dotting the landscape. The airport itself was very 3rd world but decent. After clearing customs we met our group. The two country coordinators, Kyle and Kristina and the other two members Kim and Danielle.

Cecil, the taxi driver, came complete with dreads to midback and a look straight out of Rastafari. Ya Mon. He took us to the bus station while teaching us some Belizian Kriol. I read some, to give you an example: Tak da sop an pandy in ur hans to git da cleen felin frum da waata. Well at least I think that's Kriol, fun to speak and read and I'll try and pick some up more when I'm here.

The bus station was full of people and kids going home for the day. It was only $9 Belize to take the express bus from Belize City 2 hours away to our city of San Ignacio. I was unlucky enough to get the seat over the tire. The backseat middle feet-on-the-hump seat for buses. Each stop the bus made seats would fill up. Two to a seat and then there was me. All my American goodness filling up that seat with the stupid hump, which by the way had already been claimed by my overstuffed backpack. I dreaded the stops once the buss filled up because I knew there was going to be that one smelly dude lookin for a seat and would find me, in the back half of the bus with a nice seat all to myself. Luckily for me I didn't have to sardine myself over the hump and some smelly dude for 2 hours. I lucked out and got the seat to myself.

Once we arrived in San Ignacio we got out luggage and headed to our apartment. It was about 3 blocks from the Bus station and Welcoming Center so not that bad of a walk. Our apartment is in the back of a hotel called the Tia Maria, it's a nice enough hotel with wifi and AC for it's guests, we have no AC but we got enough fans to keep us cool. The accomodations are better than what I have imagined and to be honest so is the weather. It's mildy cooler than AZ in May which is to say about 90° during the hottest part of the day, the humidity isn't too bad either and I'm sure I'll get used to it in a few days.

So here I am in Belize with some cool people and a very beautiful atmosphere and landscape. It's a little piece of paradise that's looking for some HELP. And that's why we're here.

First post ever

So for those of you actually reading this... (Mom) I thank you in advance for entertaining the notion of reading what I write and also hope I don't bore you with what I have to say. This is my first Blog I've ever done. Why you may ask did I wait so long? I don't know, I partly feel that the places I've been and the things I've seen are special to me and that to share those things and not have them taken in with the same attitude and feeling I have for them would dull those experiences. Nevertheless I also like being able to share my adventures with people without having to figure out a way to squeeze them into a watercooler conversation. So a blog is a viable solution. People can come and read what I have to say and ask me about it later if they want to know more of an experience I write about. Also this will help me be able to recall events from my travels that may get hazy the more time passes and the more I tell them.

So I thank you again for reading my blog, if anyone besides my mother is reading it. Enjoy