Near the bus terminal in downtown San Ignacio is an Italian restaurant, amor mio, run by an Italian couple that serves hand-made pasta coupled with made from scratch sauces. They also serve Belikin beer cheaper than anywhere else in the city and a mean cup of coffee. They aren’t open for dinner yet, but one of the owners, Fabio, offers me a table to have a cold beer and sort things out, then leaves me completely alone.
When asked he tells me that there are numerous hotels, explains the street layout, and informs me that there is a hotel that was recently purchased by an American and offers free breakfast and wireless internet.
When I get to Rosa’s Hotel, the owner Tony is asking a bit more than I was looking to pay. However, on looking the room over, it is clean and has hot water. Go back and read that again.
Hot Water.
Just for the record. This is the first I have seen of this in Belize. So I splurge and spend the $25 for my own room, near the wireless hub and warm water with a private bathroom. It’s almost like heaven. He even provides towels. After a warm shower I am feeling in quite a good mood, so I go back to Amor Mio for dinner.
Maltagliati. The bad cut. This is the name for the leftover pasta bits after an Italian woman has made handmade pasta, the cut are odd shaped, as it is leftover scraps. I know this because the chef knows this.
Maltagliati Bolognese is on the menu for dinner and it is all I could hope for and more. An extremely amiable Dutchman sits down across from me and we spend the evening discussing Amsterdam, windmills, traveling, Belize, etc.
For the third time today, I see a Harry Potter lookalike in an odd purple hat. Now, he is sitting across the restaurant eating dinner. Behind me I can hear an American Tourorist giving us all a bad name and giving Fabio a hard time. U.S.A. yeehaw!
The Dutchman and I eventually finish our repast and head out in search of entertainment. We play some pool and find a gigantic warehouse of a club cranking out techno music at all volumes without a single customer inside, so I give him a high five and head back to the hotel to go to sleep.
The following morning I’m walking over to meet my cave guide for ATM, the cave of the crystal maiden, when the Dutchman pops out of a restaurant called Flayva and yells Buenos dias. There are numerous characters in my caving group, perhaps not as strange as the crotch hunting german or Daniel telling us how simple brain surgery is. There is a quite agreeable boat captain from new England who is all about sustainable living, a lovely brother and sister pair from the U.S.A. and, not surprisingly, the weird purple hat guy.
Eric and Julie are the American siblings, Emil and Poncho are the guides, and Dom is the weird hat guy. Nearly half of the group are old enough or fat enough so as to be a liability for a trip such as this. At the last toilet stop before the cave no one exits the bus to use the restroom, but we take a break anyway. I use the time to get off the bus and walk to the closest farmhouse and talk to a pair of local high school kids about their life. Things are not so different here aside from the distance they travel to go to school. When not in school they inform me that they basically watch tv and hang out in the street. Also, they have a wild looking phone book.
Socks are important in Central America. Emil, our guide, tells Dom to bring his socks several times before he tells Dom to get his damn socks or he isn’t going into the cave.
The hike is marvelous, truly jungle terrain. The trees are like nothing I have seen. Emil points out chocolate trees and fruit that can be used to start a fire. The entrance to the cave does not disappoint. It’s like something that fell out of an Indiana Jones movie. It is massive, and we enter swimming. Emil confides in us that it is good that our half of the group is all young and relatively fit so we can take the fun and more challenging routes through the cave. We see see plants, bats, crickets, and fish in the cave. Emil does his best to explain the cave formations, but I’m hardly a geologist and I don’t really care.
I am the only one that notices that Emil is not wearing socks. When we are asked to remove our shoes and walk only in our socks through the sacrificial areas littered with skeletons and broken pottery, I ask him why he is barefoot. His answer is what I suspected, but is still a trip to hear.
“I am a Catholic,” he prefaces, “I believe in God. However, these are the gods of my grandmother; old Gods. The spirits here are both benevolent and malevolent. When I walk here, I can feel them. I don’t want you to be affected by them. It would be like… bad karma.”
Shocking.
Aside from that little tidbit, he imparts some interesting statistics. 9/10 of the Mayan people died around 1500 from numerous causes. That equates to about 1/5th of the world’s population at that time; comparable to 1.2 million people today.
The bones are cool, and the rock formations are simply staggering. I imagine myself as a Mayan priest, climbing a half mile underground by torchlight, smoking a bunch of weed and eating mushrooms. This must have been one hell of a religious experience for them.
On the trip out of the cave, Dom is in front of me a few feet. He turns a corner, then comes right back. Emil, the guide is gone. We are a half mile underground in a cave with numerous routes that may or may not lead out. Dom starts to panic, but I tell him to keep going forward and start leading the way.
Once Emil sees that his group has a new leader and is leaving without him, he materializes from a hole in the wall. His joke didn’t go quite the way he had planned. Nor is it for Dom. He forgot his helmet.
Back on the bus, the siblings, Dom, and I make plans to meet up later for the Superbowl… in Belize.
Unfortunately, no one but me shows up at the proposed time and location. So , I order a bucket of beers, anticipating their arrival, and a big steak dinner because I am already hungry. No one shows. I go for the backup plan in the third quarter; Faya Wata.
Everyone is there. They went to my hotel loking for me after everyone was ridiculously delayed and when I was gone, they went to plan B. Dom definitely comes up with the high card for wild phrases for the evening.
“There is a town in Bolivia where you can buy dynamite, as much as you like. I tell you this as a friend… don’t try to cross the border with it. As you are well aware… I forget things.” ~ Dom on south American jails.
“It sounds like Italian, plus chicken speak. Only, Imagine the chickens are speaking Spanish.” ~ Dom on Argentine Spanish.
“I am shat.” ~ Dom on… well… Dom.
The night ends well and late. I fall asleep on my bed, surrounded by my belongings such as they might be, fully clothed.
3 a.m.
I am jolted awake by my hotel room door crashing open and a mildly attractive latina walking in and giving me the ‘oops’ look. I return her startled stare, as it would be impolite to do otherwise, and she apologizes in English and walks out. I lock the door and go back to sleep.
7 a.m.
I am jolted awake by knocks on the door. Luckily, it is just Harry Potter. I mean Dom. Apparently, I told him to meet me at 7 so we could see Xunantunich. Oh. I remember. We also planned to see Cahal Pech and then go to Guatemala. I’m slow getting packed.
By 10 a.m. we are fed, faxed, and on a bus for Xunantunich. Much the same drill, enter the pass and pay once it is on the way. For $1.50 Belize we get a ride to a dock at a river and a sign saying we are only 1 mile from our goal, but that is not the story here. The story lies in the miles between the city center and Cahal Pech. The story is Jack Sparrow.
In my short time in Central America I have learned that one can meet some gnarly individuals on the bus. None of my experience has prepared me for this. Quite possible the most drunk bipedal entity I have ever personally witnessed clambers about our modified schoolbus. Noone says a word, no one even acknowledges the mangle-toothed, snaggle-toothed, rum-bedraggled bastard that stumble-swaggers down the aisle of the bus. There are empty seats all over the place and, in fact, the entire rear half of the bus from Dom back is empty. Passing all the the empty seats before and eschewing the empty area behind, our horrible angel of the Belizean apocalypse swings squarely in to the seat next to Dom. There is a small fortune of gold in his mouth and a large meals worth of food stuck between his teeth.
“hawashacvaggaajabaasa!”
Yup, that’s pretty much it.
The next 20 minutes I will always remember as the day that I almost caught Jack Sparrow. Between the rum and peanuts on his breath, any word he may have been trying to say in English was immediately lost. Spanish was barely any better.
Suddenly, our new pilgrim yells out, “Yack Sparrow!!!”
And now I see it. The gold teeth. The long straggly hair. The dark circles under the eyes, and god forbid, the pristine hat he suddenly materializes from the bag in his lap. Dom and I are quite literally in the presence of the great Belizean Jack Sparrow.
Jack never says a single usable word to me but is continually giving me the fist bump to soften the blows of his rum addled breath. Dom is clearly uncomfortable and I am milking it for all it’s worth. Asking him every question I can think of in Spanish, then finally falling back to English. Jack probably wouldn’t notice if I were speaking Aramaic.
Soon, Jack has shown us the houses where his grandmother lives, and the house he shares with his mother and father. Next comes the holy grail.
“tengawaokwatrouparawaeionad;klhjdsfsdsdrhietminnbwharblegarble!”
Yes, you heard it here first. Jack Sparrow has four rooms for rent and he would like us to come stay with him. As a gesture of his undying friendship he offers us the peanuts from his pocket. One of them is clearly moldy.
I’m whipping Jack into a frenzy by this point and he is thrilled, going so far as to give me his number. And here it is for you gentle folk. The telephone number of Jack Sparrow. Though if he is not home, remember to leave a message with his parents, Jesus and Amelia.
501-824-4172
God help me. From the lips of that Unholy Saint to the screen of your computer comes the key to greatness. What you choose to do with it is up to you.
Xunantunich was awesome.The mile walk uphill was a bit much, but the ferryman let Dom and I manejar el pollo (crank the wheel to take the ferry across the river) for a small fee. The ruins: Truly amazing. When we weren’t discussing the merits of just going back to town and staying with Jack Sparrow to see what happens next, we were agog with the impressive sight before us. This is also the first time I have seen park guides armed with M-16s and 12 gauge shotguns.
The walk down the hill was slightly easier. Whistling is widely accepted as a form of communication in Belize. So we whistle to the ferryman and he returns to pick us up and cart us across, happily informing us that the twice-hourly bus left 5 minutes ago. Looks like it’s time to thumb it.
After about 12 unsuccesful attempts at hitchhiking back into san Ignacio, a battered old Nissan wheels to a stop. The driver is Guatemalan and speaks no English, nor apparently do any of the people in the car with him. Dom and I make full capacity and we roll on through the vast new frontier of Bilingual hitchhiking. The driver deposits the first guy at the edge of town, making the backseat much larger and loosening the tongue of the striking looking young woman in the front seat. Within seconds, Dom, the Australian, and this young girl are discussing Visa laws for her to come to Australia. Unfortunately for Dom, we are getting out of the cab before she asks him to marry her.
Dom manages to negotiate a taxi to take us directly to the border of Guatemala for $15 BZD while I grab my bag from Rosa’s hotel and we are off on the next grand adventure, discussing the merits of swinging by Jack Sparrow’s place to bring him with us.
Ultimately, it is decided that Jack will have to wait. As is customary for Belize, we are descended upon by locals before we are even out of the taxi. I swap all my paper BZD, over to Guatemalan Quetzales save the $37.50 BZD needed to pay the border crossing to Guatemala.
The silent feeling of victory and accomplishment that accompanies a new unique stamp in my passport is indescribable. Guatemala is mine.