Sheldon Day on Ometepe Island

Well, Ometepe Island was the next stop on our trip through Nicaragua. The high point of this trip was supposed to be a nine-hour hike up a volcano. That was only going to be a high point for those who were interested in such things. I am not interested in such things. It appeared that I would get a full day to myself while others were off trying to sacrifice virgins. That was going to be the high point for me. (The day to myself thing, not the trying to sacrifice virgins thing.)

As we’ve become accustomed to on this trip, we took buses and boats to get to our next destination – Ometepe Island, in Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America. When we arrived, we first made a beeline to the ATM and then to the local convenience store where our tour guide suggested that we buy large bottles of Flora de Caña, which is evidently the pride of Nicaragua. I had never tried it before, and I’m not a huge rum fan, but I followed the advice and bought a bottle of my own before we headed to our hotel which was about a 30-minute van ride away. (For the record, it may have been the best advice I have ever received.)

By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was already starting to get dark and we were preparing for dinner. By preparing for dinner, I mean drinking rum. There were a lot of large bottles of rum floating about and people were drinking freely. We went to dinner and were entertained by a group of local teenagers performing traditional Ometepe-dances. Some of the dancing looked a little uncomfortably like the forbidden dance, but it was a good show and we appreciated it.

Afterwards, the rum continued to flow. I seem to recall some Jerk Chicken being involved. Sadly, it didn’t even end when my English friend vomited all over my front porch. Well, it sort of did for her, but not for my Australian friend and myself (if you’ve been reading this blog at all, you should be noticing a trend by now) as we even hit the rum that I was hiding out for the following night, going through about 1/3 of a fifth on our own. The night ended at around 3 am or so. It’s really hard to remember. It was probably the drunkest I had been during the entire trip, and that is saying quite a bit.

I got up the next morning around 10 am and found the grossest porch that I have ever seen in my life. My English friend, being a vegetarian, left french fries in virtually every stage of the digestive process on my front porch the night before. There was also some cigarette butts and loose change intermingled. I don’t think those came out of her but I can’t say that with a hundred percent certainty. I walked over to the restaurant and got some coffee. Afterwards, I returned to bed. At around noon, I heard the cleaning people arrive at my front porch and heard one of them say, “¡Dios Mio!” Out of embarrassment, I stayed in my room until they finished cleaning the porch, which took about an hour.

During the afternoon, I pretty much just chillaxed. I played on the internet, I napped, I walked around a little bit. Early in the afternoon, people started to return from island tours and volcano climbing and not one of them could tell me a story to make me even remotely jealous. Every now and then, Sheldon Days are the best days on the trip.

That night, we had a barbeque. I had some fish, some steak and some chicken. There also was some rum floating around, but not nearly as much as there was the night before. This was probably a good thing. We had yet another early morning the next day and most people called it an early night. I got some coffee in the morning and then we were off to cross the border to Costa Rica on our way to Monteverde.

Exit Honduras, Enter Nicaragua

I have to apologize at this point but I realize that I’m not taking nearly as many photos as I was earlier in the trip. I should still have a couple photos for each of the next several entries but not as many as usual.

Anyhows, on March 19, we headed to Comayagua. There really wasn’t much to do in Comayagua and there wasn’t really much reason to be there except that it was a halfway point between Roatan Island and Granada. We had left from Roatan Island at 5:30 in the morning and were fortunate enough to see an English Premier League match on the ferry ride on the way off the island. Other than that, the trip was pretty uneventful and we got to our hotel shortly after noon. After lunch, we walked around for a while. Meanwhile, I took a picture of a church in the center of town just to have a photo to post on this site. You’re welcome.

We were going to meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant later in the evening. We didn’t realize at the time, though, that there was a Wendy’s just around the corner from our hotel. We had a few Wendy’s virgins in the group so some of us went there and ruined our appetites. Especially me, since I needed a Baconator from the time I walked in.

I went to the Chinese restaurant anyway and just had a few beers. This was going to be a short night anyway, though, since we had a 12-hour trip across the Honduras/Nicaragua border the next day.

We got up early the next morning and started on our way to Nicaragua. The most important part was finding a volunteer to bring our Honduran jerk chicken into Nicaragua. As it turned out, the border between Honduras and Nicaragua was pretty damn simple and the chicken smuggling wasn’t a big deal.

From the border, we headed towards Granada. One of the most interesting events during the trip was when the bus stopped for a while to let a herd of cattle get by. It reminded me a lot of North Carolina.

Upon arriving in Granada, we went to find an ATM to get some bona fide Nicaraguan currency – Cordobas. Afterwards, we headed to a bar where I had some hot wings, which I find myself getting every time they’re available. There’s only so many rice and beans a man can take. We headed to an Irish pub, afterwards, and drank until they closed and returned to our hotel.

The outdoors things to do in Granada turned out to be pretty lame and not many people went out to do much. My Australian friend and I went out to get a three-hour breakfast and I had one of the most interesting omelettes that I’ve ever eaten. It was a bacon and cheese omelette with entire strips of bacon inside the eggs. It was the first omelette I can ever remember eating that required a knife. Afterwards, we met some friends for a drink and then I retired back to the hotel to write for a while.

Later in the evening, I went out and met a group of friends for some drinks. I had a few but was getting bored. The constant drinking thing was starting to get tedious. I left for about forty minutes and then met back with the group. Unfortunately, though, I wasn’t feeling it. After my Australian friend offended me, my English friend stopped by and made me feel better. Nevertheless, by that time, I had taken a few over-the-counter valium and was ready just to go to bed. The rest of the group went salsa dancing but I couldn’t have cared less. I slept the sleep of the dead and when I awoke, I was ready for the next day’s trip to Ometepe Island. On Ometepe Island, I was going to have a Sheldon day and I was really looking forward to it. I’ll get into that next time.

Finally, Some Physical Activity

The day after St. Patrick’s Day turned out to be one of my favorite days of the trip up to that point. It was much different from the others, but after spending several days mostly in bars drinking, it was good to get some activity under my belt.

The day started by me being awoken by my English friend throwing up at around 7:15 am outside the window near the bed in which I was sleeping. Having grown nearly immune to hangovers during this trip, I was feeling good but wasn’t able to go back to sleep.

I was supposed to meet a group of people at around ten to go to a nearby beach and rent some jetskis. I had never been on a jetski before so I was looking forward to it. We took a water taxi to the beach only to find out that it cost US$65 per person for a half-hour of jetskiing. I didn’t want to do it that badly. Instead, a Canadian friend and I were approached by somebody who wanted to know if we wanted to kayak. That sounded fun. We asked the cost and it was US$25 combined for two to three hours. That was much more in our price range so we decided to do that. We kayaked around the bay for about an hour-and-a-half and had a lot of fun. When we finished, we met up with the jetskiers for a drink.

After our drink, my Canadian friend and I went back to the beach to swim. It was one of the best swimming experiences I’ve ever had. The water was warm and calm and you could go out quite a distance without the water getting more than about five feet deep. I practiced my breaststroke for a half-hour or so and was really happy with how well I did.

We ended up walking back to our hotel and decided to meet for lunch. Instead of lunch, however, we stopped by a smoothie place and I had a chocolate and banana smoothie. It made me very, very happy. Then, I went souvenir shopping and bought a few things, including a beer t-shirt. I don’t recall the name of the Honduran beer off the top of my head, but I remember it wasn’t my favorite – I just liked the t-shirt.

Later on, a group of us went out for dinner. We stopped by the floating bar that we tried to board the night before and we were much more successful this time, seeing as there was no US$30 cover charge to worry about. There wasn’t much interest in staying out late for a second night so we returned to the hotel kind of early. When we got there, my Australian friend was standing outside smoking a cigar. Seriously, she was smoking a cigar. We decided that her efforts were a waste of lung capacity, so we brought out some jerk chicken and went for a walkabout. There was a little paranoia as my Australian friend took off back for the hotel near the end of the walkabout. Afterwards, nobody was in the mood for a long, long night, so we called it a relatively early night and went to bed. Also, we had a 5:30 am trip off to Comayagua the next day, so there really wasn’t much point in staying up anyway.

There wasn’t be much to Comayagua, but I’ll get into that in the next entry as well as our border crossing into Nicaragua.

St. Patty's Day - Honduran Style

It took a few buses and a ferry, but we made it to Roatan Island, off the northern coast of Honduras, late in the afternoon on March 16. By the time we arrived, it was already pretty late and there wasn’t much time for anything but dinner. We went to a pizza place that had wifi and I learned that somebody had been buying women’s fashions with my credit card. With that knowledge, I took out some money for the next few days and cancelled my card. Fortunately, I travel with a spare, so I won’t run out of money but it’s going to be a pain in the ass trying to replace the card while I’m traveling. (By the way, I don't have any pictures of these particular days so I'm just shooting up random photos of the recent past.)

The next morning, there were some people snorkeling and diving, or at least trying to do some of these things. The weather was pretty crappy, though, so I don’t think they got the full experience. I, on the other hand, went to get some breakfast at a place that had wifi and worked on my credit card issues.

After breakfast, I started looking for partners-in-crime. It was St. Patrick’s Day and I wouldn’t have felt right if I had neglected my Irish ancestors by ignoring such a holy day. I ran into some friends and had some lunch and then started looking for the usual suspects. I found them at the dive shop and, lo and behold, there was a bar upstairs of the shop. We went up around 1:00 pm and had a few beers. And a few more. And maybe another one; I don’t remember. Then people from the group came by and were heading to a Thai restaurant that was located across the street. We followed them over there, but the menu wasn’t appealing and the prices were steep so the three of us left and went to a bar a few doors down for some vegetarian nachos and more beer. One of the girls got sick, albeit discreetly, and we left before too long.

Despite traveling with the walking wounded, we decided to stop by another bar on the way home because it was advertising green beer and Cuban cigars for $6. Needless to say, this probably wasn’t a good idea– the sick girl turned into Linda Blair and started vomiting green – but it was good for a memory or two. We went back to the hotel to drop off the sick girl, who had to break into her room so she could get to bed.

After dropping off the sick Australian, my English friend and I decided to head out to a floating bar in which we heard there was some jerk chicken available. We had to take a water taxi to get to it and when we arrived, we learned there was a $30 cover charge. Umm, nevermind. We went back to the island on the same water taxi.

We walked around a little more and found out that much of the group was in a bar next door to the Thai restaurant, performing karaoke. We went in and had some more drinks and it was a lot of fun. I sang Wonderwall with a little group, just for the record.

While all this was going on, my English friend found a jerk chicken salesman. As I write this, I can see the stupidity of what I did, but three of us got into a van with a few salesmen and went for a ride. I tried to keep a close eye on where we were at all times (I always have an escape route in mind) but we ended up stopping at a house about 100 yards from our hotel, so we were in a good place. We had some jerk chicken and then called it a night. All-in-all, it wasn’t as memorable as my traditional Thai Thanksgiving, but I did enjoy my traditional Honduran St. Patty’s Day.

Now I'm Hiding In Honduras

March 14 was yet another early morning as we prepared for yet another border crossing. This time, we were headed to Copan, Honduras.

It took us about four hours to get to the Guatemalan/Honduran border. Once we got there, though, things went about as smoothly as possible. We all handed over our passports to the tour leader, waited about forty-five minutes, and then went on our merry way into Honduras. Copan was only about a 20-minute drive from the border.

We got to the hotel and checked in. It was a short downhill walk to the center of town and we headed in that direction for some lunch. I had a bacon, avocado and cream cheese sandwich that was a little too heavy on the avocado and a little too light on the bacon. Afterwards, a few of us walked around town to scope out a place to watch the next day’s Champions League match between Manchester United and Marseille.

That evening, we went out to dinner at a meat-oriented restaurant. As good as it smelled, I ended up having a steak that was so-so. The most memorable part of the meal turned out to be the heated discussion at the other table between my best friend on the trip and the tour leader. After about five minutes of complete awkwardness, we met up outside and went out for a few drinks. We ended up closing three bars before returning to the hotel, where we had to crawl through a small door in the gate to get in.

The next morning was cultural day in Copan. The most noted site in Copan is an ancient Mayan city. I’ve been going to ruins pretty consistently throughout this trip, but since Copan is the final Mayan ruin site on our trek, I didn’t want to miss it. I had heard great things about Copan, but I was a little disappointed. Perhaps I’m just a little ruined-out, but Copan’s Mayan site struck me as more of the same, just on a smaller scale. Much of it has degenerated and, although restoration is in process, there really hadn’t been enough of it done for the site to intrigue me but so much. Still, I took lots of photos because that’s what I do. (The rest of the photos for this entry are all from the ruins.)

After the ruins, I met up with the usual suspects and we went out to watch the Manchester United/Marseille match. The place at which we wanted to watch the match was closed so we went back to the restaurant at which we had dinner the night before, having remembered that it had a big screen television. As fate would have it, we ended up watching the match between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich. (Go Inter!!!) Also, as fate would have it, happy hour started at 2:00 pm, so we nibbled at some food and went through, oh I don’t know, six or seven bottles of wine. I figured we had drank too many when one of the girls with me and I started harmonizing to the CCR CD that was playing in the background. Good times, good times.

As we were walking back to the hotel, there were some musicians playing on one of the corners of the main square. I took my English friend home, once again crawling through the small door in the gate, and then went back to find my other friend. When I got back to where I left her, however, she had disappeared. It only took a few minutes to find her and, after speaking for a while with a drunk manicurist, we returned to the hotel. This time, however, even the small door was locked. My friend decided to scale the 12-foot high fence to get in. Just as she reached the summit, a guy from the hotel came out, yelling “No, no, no!!!” By this time, obviously, it was too late. My friend climbed down and the guy from the hotel unlocked the gate for me. Another fitting end to an evening of alcohol and merriment. The next day, we headed to Roatan Island, where I’ll pick up in the next installment.

Antigua and Two Days at Mono Loco

On March 12, we returned to Antigua. I’d love to tell you about all of the cultural things I did in Antigua, but I really spent most of my two days there drinking.

We left San Jorge La Laguna around 6:30 in the morning for a four-hour trek back on the chicken buses to Antigua. Once again, the buses were packed with people and once the trip was over, we were glad for the experience, but also glad for the experience to end. An English friend and I had one main goal, to get back to Antigua in time to catch the FA Cup match between Manchester United and Arsenal. We managed to get back just in time, drop our bags off at our hotel, and have a quick walk back to Mono Loco to catch the match.

We started drinking beer and I had more of the best hot wings that I’ve had in Central America. After the Manchester United/Arsenal match, I noticed that Carolina was playing Clemson in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, so we had to stay around for that match and continue drinking. Then there were more sports and more beer and we ended up getting back to the hotel around 6:00 pm. We decided to separate for about forty-five minutes and then meet up for dinner. We ended up meeting up with a few more people and after a few more drinks, we actually turned out to have an early evening.

The next day was our final day in the second-leg of my four-leg journey. Some people were leaving the group while others were joining it. We were supposed to meet at 2:30 for a farewell lunch but fate interfered. And by fate, I mean one-liter bottles of Dorada Ice.

I got up pretty early and decided to walk around Antigua and take pictures of the pretty little town beside the volcanoes. I had been up and doing this for about 45 minutes when I finally went to the main church in Antigua to take photos. Lo and behold, who should I run into except my English friend who was sitting on a bench outside of the church. It was only about thirty minutes before the ACC Tournament final between North Carolina and Duke, so we went back to Mono Loco. We split a vegetarian burrito (that I think ended up making both of us sick) and more liters of beer. We hung out for about four hours and then went back to the hotel to meet up with the departing group for the farewell lunch. Between buying souvenirs and taking photos, though, we ended up being late and missing the lunch. Once we realized this, we just went back to Mono Loco for more beer.

We returned to the hotel just in time for the 6:00 meeting with the members of the third-leg of the tour. By this time, however, my English friend had had a few more beers than she should have. On our way to the meeting, she was pointing at people and saying “Jesuscristo” for some bizarre reason. Just before the meeting, she passed out in my lap, leaving me to introduce her to everybody as we went around the room introducing ourselves. It was pretty funny and I’m sure she made a truly unique first impression on the new folks.

We ended up going to the welcome dinner, but I had no appetite and ended up just having a few drinks. Later in the evening, I had to carry my English friend home. On the way, she hit a curb and almost face-planted on the sidewalk. Fortunately, she ended up with just a minor scratch on her knee. After taking her home, I went out for a little while longer, but it was destined to be another early night since we were hopping on an early-morning bus to Copan, Honduras. I’ll pick it up there in the next entry.

Homestay in San Jorge and Maximón

On the tenth of March, we rolled into San Jorge La Laguna for a two-night homestay with a local family. When we arrived into town, one of the first things we were told was that it had been requested that we not drink anything while we were in town in order to keep from influencing the local children with our evil Western ways. Fair enough, but with virtually nothing to do in this tiny town of a few thousand, that didn’t leave a whole lot of options.

Almost immediately, we were introduced to our host family and my roommate and I went to see the digs. We were met by the mother (Mercedes) of the family who greeted us and showed us to our room. We were one of the fortunate people who actually had running water throughout our stay as most homes in the area had water only on every other day. After our meeting, a few of us walked down to the lake (Lake Atitlan). It was only two or three kilometers but it was all downhill. Easy enough, but that meant that the return trip would be all uphill. There wasn’t much to see at the lake, at least the part of the lake to which the path took us, but I got plenty of exercise returning to the town on the uphill trek.

Soon after we returned to the town, it was getting close to time for dinner. Upon our return, we met Alejandro, the father of the family, and he invited us to the dining area for some coffee. My roommate and I spoke with Alejandro for about an hour. He told us about the neighboring villages around the lake and the recent civil war, which appears to have left the villages around the lake very divided. He also had several questions about the United States and Canada.

After coffee, it was time for dinner. By this time, we had met the entire family, which also included two teenaged daughters, an eight-year-old son and an infant daughter. For dinner, I was expecting some sort of traditional Guatemalan meal. Instead, we had fried chicken and french fries. For all I know, that may actually be an authentic Guatemalan meal but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was really good, though, and came with a bunch of tortillas.

After dinner, my roommate and I walked around a little, but like I said, there’s really nothing to do in San Jorge La Laguna. We ended up going back to the room and playing some chess before going to bed.

We got up early the next day to visit a series of villages around Lake Atitlan. I don’t recall the names of all of the villages but they were all named after saints (San Marco, San Sebastian, etc.). I can’t say that they were too exciting but there were some interesting excursions. We went to a bakery that is owned by the grandmother of our tour guide and were serenaded by a group of children that are being taught music by one of our tour guide’s uncles.

The most interesting thing about the lake tour, though, was Maximón. Maximón is a mannequin (for lack of a better term) that was created by the Spanish and is treated as a god by his village. Every year he moves to a different home within the village and the locals bring him food, cigarettes, rum and various other offerings. He is supposed to eat, smoke and drink the offerings but I’m pretty sure the family that is taking care of him at any given time is helping him out a little bit. He shares a room with Jesus and Death, making it a very peculiar holy trinity.

After the tour, we ended up in Panajachel, another village along Lake Atitlan, where a friend and I stopped for a few beers before returning to the dry San Jorge. When we arrived, there was a procession going on for some saint on another who was being carried around, nailed onto a cross. After the procession, we had dinner with our family once again, this time consisting of a pasta dish with chicken (with bones), peas and peppers. Again, it was good and we called it an early night.

The next morning, we had breakfast with our family (scrambled eggs with peppers and onions) and met together early for another chicken bus expedition back to Antigua. I’ll pick up on Antigua in another post.

Chicken Busing Out of Antigua

After our quiet time at Rio Dulce, it was time to move on. The next trip started on to Antigua, where we stayed for only one night (we were coming back a few nights later) and then on to a homestay with a Guatemalan family in San Jorge La Laguna.

The trip to Antigua took seven hours, but as I recall (or rather don’t recall), it wasn’t particularly memorable. It included a stop at a restaurant somewhere along the way and, since the restaurant didn’t look particularly good, I moved on to Pollo Campero. Fried chicken always is a good idea.

Ultimately, we got to Antigua. It was already getting late in the day, about 5:30 pm, and we had a little walking tour of the part of the city in which we were staying. The hotel was only a few blocks from the city’s historical center and, thus, the walking tour was pretty brief. I took out some Guatemalan Quitzales and then we moved onto a sports bar, the Mono Loco, for dinner. (Mono Loco will feature prominently in a future post, I’m certain.) I had the best hot wings that I’ve had in Central America and they had a Champions League match on the big screen television.

There’s a girl in my group who is a huge Manchester United fan and we hung around the Mono Loco after everybody left to watch the rest of the match. Not much happened afterwards so we went back to the hotel, finished off the Jerk Chicken from the night before and that was the end of the night. (While we were walking back to the hotel, we were a little lost and we were stopped by somebody who gave us directions to our hotel and warned us that the neighborhood was dangerous. Another girl in the group was assaulted nearby (she was okay), so the warning turned out to be true. Again, that’s another story, though, for another person’s blog.)

The next day was chicken bus day for us in Guatemala. We had about a six-hour trek to San Jorge La Laguna and we took various chicken buses to get to our destination. Chicken buses are privately-owned buses, generally old school buses from the United States and Canada, that are used to transport people in Guatemala from city-to-city. If you remember when you were younger, each of the seats in the school bus could hold up to three children. Well, in Guatemala, the seats hold three adults. Uncomfortably. We were packed into the buses like sardines, with every third person’s ass cheek hanging in the aisle, while the daredevil bus drivers took the hard turns of the Guatemalan mountain roads at speeds that would make Jeff Gordon cringe. This caused the entire ride to be like a roller coaster and meant that you learned to be rather intimate with the people sitting closest to you.

Don’t get me wrong, the chicken bus actually was pretty fun. If nothing else, it is an experience that one definitely should take advantage of while in Guatemala.

After six chicken buses and a stop along the way for some breakfast and some shopping, we arrived in San Jorge La Fortuna.

This seems like a pretty good stopping point, so I’ll pick up San Jorge in another entry.

Sweet River Chronicles

The next day, we headed to an island on the Rio Dulce, once again via both bus and motorboat. Don’t ask me the name of the island because I couldn’t tell you. The Rio Dulce sits on the shore of Lake Izabal and our island was connected to the rest of the world only by motorboat.

We arrived fairly early to the island and we checked into our huts. These huts were more impressive than those in Tulum because we actually had electricity, though bathrooms were again shared. We arrive pretty early so we had time to do some activities during the day. A group of us went to Livingston, a tourist town on the banks of Lake Izabal and had a brief tour of the lake. We had lunch in Livingston and had some time to walk around the town, but there really wasn’t that much to it, to be perfectly honest.

When we returned to the island, we headed upstairs of the restaurant/lobby of the island hotel because there was a pool table upstairs. The “bad kids” drank beer and shot some pool as the night went on. Eventually, the party went outside and we continued to drink until we realized, untimely, that the bar had been closed. By this time, we really wanted some more alcohol, but I had run out of vodka the night before in Flores. One woman in the group had some leftover Mezcal and we started drinking that, which led to another woman throwing up on my leg. That was the end of the Mezcal and the drinking for the night. We tried to come up with a way to get more alcohol, but our efforts proved fruitless. Eventually, we decided to call it a night.

The next day, we headed out pretty early and went to visit a nearby hot waterfall. This was my first experience with such a waterfall. The water coming in from the nearby creek was cold but the water coming down from the waterfall was actually very warm. This made for very comfortable swimming conditions and I went into the water as far as my limited swimming abilities allowed. It felt good to get into the fresh, warm water and the proverbial good time was had by all.

After the waterfall, we returned to the island and there wasn’t a whole lot of activity going on there. A couple of us watched the Barcelona/Arsenal match on the television upstairs and then I retired back to my hut to work on this blog. (I still haven’t found sufficient internet connections to post anything, but that means there will be many posts in rapid succession once such a connection is found.)

At night, we returned to the billiards table and shot some more pool. After declaring myself Mexican champion (as well as Chinese champion back in October), my partner and I earned the right to call ourselves Guatemalan champions as well.

As happy hour ended, we loaded up on beers to make sure we didn’t run out of alcohol once again. In addition, we were able to find some more Jerk Chicken on the island. For the second night in a row, it turned into a long drinking night, this time with Jerk Chicken and without anyone throwing up on me. Who could ask for anything more?

There wasn’t really much to do on the island but drink, so that’s what we did mostly, but we would make up for that in a few days when we hit the dry town. But that story is still a few entries away.

Flores/Tikal/Welcome to Guatemala

On March 5, we made our way to Flores, which is an island in Lake Peten Itza. The trip started with a trek to the border as we crossed from Belize into Guatemala. Getting through immigration and customs was pretty simple and we headed into Flores. (The highlight of Flores was Tikal, so all the pictures with this post are from that Mayan site.)

We arrived in Flores, checked into our hotel and went to lunch. Afterwards, somebody in the “bad kids” group discovered a bar with a happy hour that started within minutes of our discovery so we went there and had a few drinks. Afterwards, while others went swimming, I went onto my computer, since I was able to plug into the next-door hotel’s internet, and I played on my computer. At around six, we went out for another drink. We got back at 6:30 for a meeting with the rest of the group. In the meantime, I left my computer plugged in while we drank.

Sometime within the thirty minutes that we were gone, somebody had removed window panes from our window and broken into our room. As far as anybody could tell, the only thing that was missing was my roommate’s computer. The thieves nearly had to step on my computer in order to get to my roommate’s computer, but mine was left untouched. In addition, things were taken out of my small backpack but nothing was missing, despite the fact that I had about $200 in a small baggie at the bottom of my bag. The only justification that I can think of is that my roommate’s computer is small and was easy to hide by the thieves. At the end of the day, though, nothing of mine was stolen and I considered myself to be very fortunate.

The next day, we headed to Tikal. Tikal is a very interesting Mayan site. Unlike many of the Mayan ruins that we had visited throughout Mexico and Belize, much of Tikal has been reconstructed only to a very limited degree. It is a very large complex but many of the temples and other structures are in various states of disrepair. Still, the structures that are still standing are quite impressive. We also got to see some exotic birds. I found it interesting that the Australians in our group seemed to be very intrigued by woodpeckers and hummingbirds since those are so common in the United States. I was much more interested in the Toucans myself.

Come to think of it, maybe we went to Tikal the day before our room was broken into. That must have been the case because after our room was ransacked, I requested to be moved to another room. Since there were no more rooms available in the hotel, we were moved to the hotel next door. This turned out to be quite an upgrade. My roommate and I ended up getting a room with large beds, comfortable pillows and air-conditioning. We also had a huge balcony. The “bad kids” decided to take advantage of the balcony by buying beer and heading upstairs to drink. When the beer ran out, we emptied out the vodka that I had been carrying around since Mexico. For the record, vodka goes better with Gatorade than it does with Orange Crush.

That was pretty much it for Flores. Other than Tikal and being robbed (or at least my roommate being robbed), there wasn’t really much to report. The next day, we were heading to an island on the Rio Dulce and that is where I’ll pick up next time.

Xunan Tunich and Jerk Chicken

I wasn’t expecting much from San Ignacio but I ended up having one of the most unexpectedly fun nights of my trip.

I woke up early in the morning and I had absolutely no plans. It seemed like it was going to be a wasted day in Belize. The other “bad kids” were going caving and I was pretty much on my own. I stopped in a place across the street from the hotel to grab some breakfast, however, and ran into some other people from my group who were planning to head to the Mayan ceremonial center at Xunan Tunich and I decided to tag along.

We took the public bus to Xunan Tunich and walked about a mile to the Mayan site. Compared to other Mayan sites that I have visited on this leg of my journey, Xunan Tunich is very small. There are a handful of excavated temples, however, and a small group of folks and I climbed to the top of the tallest one on the complex and we were able to get fantastic views of the surrounding area. It provided a truly unique perspective on how these Mayan sites, located in the rain forest, were able to be completely swallowed up by the surrounding jungle. The Belize government did a great job of maintaining the site but you could see the jungle closing in from all directions. After visiting the site, we stopped for a beer at a nearby bar and then returned to San Ignacio via public bus.

I went to lunch with a couple of people with whom I went to Xunan Tunich at an Italian place about which I had read some great reviews. The food was actually pretty average but it did provide the line of the trip thus far. The owner of the restaurant was a tanned Englishman with a strong cockney accent. He also was our server as the restaurant was kind of deserted. As we were paying, an older, flighty woman in our group told the man, “You’re English is quite good.” The other person there and I sort of looked at each other as if to say “Seriously? You said that.” At that point, the owner responded, “It should be, I’m English.” I couldn’t do anything but lay my forehead on the table and bust out laughing. I think I may have offended the person who made the comment, but I couldn’t help myself. Oh, there are some in every group.

After lunch, I ran into the rest of the “bad kid” group. They were all exhausted but filled with adrenaline from their day of caving. After waiting around for an hour for everybody to shower, we headed to a nearby bar for a drink. Then we had another. And another. Eventually, we moved the party to a table in the back that was outside because there was some smoking involved. If you recall, in an earlier post, I made reference to a group search for Jerk Chicken. Well, after about beer number ten, the bartender came over to us with a spring roll of Jerk Chicken . . .

. . . Eventually, we finished our Jerk Chicken and went back to our hotel. I had a seat on the couch in the lobby and a girl from the “bad kid” group sat next to me. Within about two minutes, her head was on my shoulder, her hand was on my stomach and she was fast asleep. I was a bit tired myself and I sat there for about an hour with her slipping in and out of consciousness. After a while, however, I had to piss and my arm had fallen asleep. I slipped out from under her, went to the bathroom and returned to find her sprawled out on the couch in a fetal position. I got her up and walked her to her room so she could go to bed and then went to my own room and had one of the better sleeps that I had experienced in a while. I think that this is what solidified our designation as the “bad kids.”

Convenience Store Hopping in Caye Caulker

The next day in Caye Caulker was destined to be a Sheldon Day. Most of the other folks on the tour were going snorkeling and I was going to stay around town.

There’s really nothing much to Caye Caulker. Like I said in my earlier post, none of the streets are paved and there are virtually no vehicles on the island except for golf carts and bicycles. I went out to breakfast with some friends and then decided to explore as much as exploration was possible in Caye Caulker. I walked the streets for a couple of hours, stopping in to several shops to see if anything was worth buying (it wasn’t) and stopping off here and there for a drink. Close to our hotel, next to the graveyard that we had to walk through to get to our hotel, was a restaurant at which I stopped for some lunch. It had internet access, so I played on the internet, had some fish and chips and some beer. That was the highlight of the day. I went back to the hotel and wrote a little bit before the others returned from snorkeling.

In the group, somehow I’ve been linked in with the “bad kid” group. (Okay, it’s not “somehow.” I know how.) The rest of the people just sort of look at us with disapproving glances and then we respond by doing pretty much whatever we want. When the group returned, we went out to dinner. Sadly, two of the “bad kid” group were diving the Blue Hole at 5:00 in the morning, so they went straight to bed after dinner. That left two of us to do something I’ve never done before – convenience store hop. There’s really not enough bars to go bar hopping in Caye Caulker, and walking with open containers is not a problem there, so a friend and I went from convenience store to convenience store, buying beer whenever we ran out, and walking the streets of Caye Caulker at night. That lasted until about midnight when the last of the convenience stores closed. The highlight of the walk was watching a crab try to cross the street while, at first, we started gawking at the crab and then a group of tourists joined us. We got back to the hotel about 12:30 when we got shushed by another hotel guest. We ended up going out to the pier and hanging out for an hour or so before going to bed.

The next day, the group was stuck in Caye Caulker until around 4:00 pm and few people really wanted to do any of the water activities so the day was pretty much like the day before except I had people to hang out with. It was hot and we were bored so we just went from restaurant to restaurant and sitting in each one for an hour and a half. The highlight of this day was going back to the restaurant in which I had eaten lunch the day before and ordering a mango colada while we played on the internet. The mango colada was one of the best drinks that I’ve had on the entire trip.

We took a boat ride off of the island and then hopped on a local bus to San Ignacio, going through Belize’s new capital, Belmopan, on the way. By the time we arrived, there was time for little more than dinner as there were plenty of activities planned for the next day – our only full day in San Ignacio – so that was pretty much it.

Sorry there wasn’t any more excitement than that on which to report with respect to Caye Caulker, but excitement didn’t really seem to be on call there. I’ll get into my day – and night – in San Ignacio in the next entry.

Belize is Alright With Me

Tulum was the end of the Mexican leg of this trip. From Tulum, we took buses and boats across the border into Belize and Caye Caulker. Belize was to provide me a few days of being able to be by myself.

The trip into Belize started at mid-morning. After breakfast, we headed into our final comfortable Mexican bus to head to the border. The bus took us to a port where we were stamped out of Mexico. Then, for the next hour or so, I suppose I was a man without a country. When we stopped, we went through immigration and customs in Belize, where I got to declare my water bottle filled with vodka. It’s a long story. From there, we hopped on another boat to Caye Caulker.

There’s really not a lot to Caye Caulker. It’s about eight kilometers long and even at its widest parts is less than two kilometers wide. It’s strictly a tourist trap, but does have its charm. There are no paved roads on Caye Caulker and the only motor vehicles that you see are related to construction on the island. People get around by golf cart and bicycle to some extent, but walking will get you pretty much everywhere.

On the first night, we went out to dinner and then a few of us went out to get some drinks. It was just a few of us going out since the group with which I’m currently traveling isn’t exactly the party crowd. Anyway, we went to a reggae bar and had some Belizean beer. I like the taste of the Belizean beer (Belikin), but it makes me feel a little cheated because it comes in heavy bottles that only hold 284 milliliters, so you never get as much as you think you’re getting. People usually hold up the empty bottles to their mouths thinking there will be more because of the weight of the bottle only to have their little beer-guzzling hearts broken.

Back to the reggae bar . . . downstairs, there were swing set seats at the bar. After a few beers, we headed upstairs to see what that was like. It was a pretty cool area, with tables and hammocks and a loungy-type area, lots of rasta folks and tourists and a distinct tinge of marijuana in the air. The upstairs closed around eleven and we moved back downstairs for a little more beer, some dancing and then we wound up closing the bar at midnight.

After the reggae bar closed, three women and I headed to a night club that was open until 2 am or so and the night’s goal had changed as everybody started looking to score some jerk chicken. (Okay, we weren’t looking for jerk chicken, but this is a family blog, so let’s just call it jerk chicken.) Assuming that the rasta guys were the best sources, the women went into search mode and I drank some more. The entire ordeal turned out to be a lot more trouble than it should have been since there were people all over Caye Caulker willing to sell jerk chicken to anybody that was interested. It took so long to score in the club that I finally decided it wasn’t worth it and at 1:30, I just headed home. (Oddly enough, somebody tried to sell me some jerk chicken on my walk home. By this point, though, I was no longer interested.) The ladies did eventually find what they were looking for and ended up getting back to the hotel around 3:00 am. There were some ordeals involved in that adventure, but that’s another story for another person’s blog. As for me, the night was over and a new day beckoned.

Tulum Carnival 2011

Our second day in Tulum turned out to be much more productive than our first day, thanks in part to an early start to the day and in part to beautiful weather.

The group from the Italian restaurant the night before had decided to meet at 9:00 am to head over to the ruins of Tulum. I ended up getting up early, around 6:30 am, shortly after sunrise. I showered and went out to the beach, where I laid on a beach chair and watched and listened to the tide as I occasionally dozed off. At 8:00 am, the electricity in the hotel returned and I made it up to the restaurant for breakfast. Okay, coffee. We ended up heading out to the ruins at around quarter after nine.

I really don’t have too much information on the ruins of Tulum. After visiting places like Palenque and Chichen Itza in the prior week, the ruins of Tulum really pale in comparison. Their main claim to fame appears to come from the fact that they are right on the shore and include a public beach. We didn’t have a guide and the information plaques were not particularly helpful. We stayed for around an hour, took some pictures and headed back to the hotel.

In the afternoon, I stopped at the hotel bar for a few drinks and some lunch. Afterwards, I went and did some work for my soccer blog and got caught up on the internet. By mid-afternoon, the weather was still pretty good and the wind had died down along the beach, so it was finally time for me to get into the water. Since I don’t swim, the beach is the only place I really indulge and I had a good time although I did cut my toes up in the beginning because of some rocks hidden close to shore. All-in-all, it was fun.

That night, after dinner, we found out that there was a carnival in town, Tulum’s annual carnival. A few of us decided to check it out. There were a lot of rides (mostly for kids), food stands and lots of stalls with vendors selling stuff. We had some hamburguesas and tacos for dinner and then rode a couple of rides. My favorite, though I don’t recall the name of it, was the kind in which you get strapped down and then turned upside down about 40 feet in the air. The best part of it was that there was a moth sitting on the bar holding me in shortly before we started and he was still there when the ride was over. He was a true badass. We finished at the carnival by sharing a bag of churros and then we returned to the hotel.

At the hotel, we stopped at the bar for a nightcap(s). All was going well – meaning we weren’t attacked by snakes this time – until near the end of the night when we tried to pay the bill. Actually, we tried to pay part of the bill so one person to go to bed while a few of us wanted to stay and drink some more. The person in charge must have thought that we were arguing about the amount of the bill because when we tried to pay one person’s portion, he got really frustrated. Eventually, he told us not to pay and to just have a great holiday, though he was still obviously frustrated because I think he still thought we were trying to get out of the bill. Finally, we just settled up the entire bill, grabbed a couple more beers and mozied down to the beach where a friend and I just drank and talked. We ended up staying down there until about an hour after the electricity was turned off, making our quest to find our cabañas in the dark quite daunting. Fortunately, my trusty iPhone turned into a flashlight and saved the day. Is there anything the iPhone can’t do?