Doug's South America Excursion

Tried 2 long-distance places yesterday to see if I could send/receive my email. In both cases, when they found out I wanted to hook up my computer to the phone line, they said that is not permitted, only voice is permitted. I could never get an answer which I could understand as to why it was not permitted.

I'm beginning to think the only reliable way to do it is either have an acoustic coupler so I can just use the pay phones like I do for my voice calls, or bring a cell phone and the appropriate connections to use it. Surprisingly enough, I've seen cell phones numerous places here in Mexico. I do not know how prevalent cell phones are in the rest of Central and South America, though have read that in many countries the wireless phone system i better and more reliable than the old wire-based system. I wonder if you need an account in each country, or if one account back in the States is sufficient. Shows how much I know about cell phones, since I've never used one even back in the US.

part arrived 2pm

nothings ever easy - had to remove heated handgrip, then restring the wire through the handlebars. with all the interruptions from people stopping by to talk, it took me 2.5 hours to finish.

Afterwards I thought I should have had Cal send me another pair of gloves.

Tuesday October 1 (56115 miles)

Left around 8am after hearing the latest CNN news while eating breakfast across the street.

Went through the military checkpoint at the intersection with the road to Ccobah for the 4th time in the last week. It was raining fairly hard so the soldiers just waved me on through.

By the time the rain stopped my pants were completely drenched, but once the sun came back out a couple of minutes later, it became quite hot and the wet pants felt good. An hour of riding in the sun at 60mph and my pants were dry.

A deer ran across the road in front of me. Although it wasn't close, it still surprised me as I wasn't expecting to see a deer in this part of the Yucatan. I think it was the first large wild mammal I've seen south of the border.

A little bit later, a small, bright, sky-blue bird, the sixe of a sparrow flew across in front of me, almost hitting the windscreen. I have no idea what kind it was.

At the town of Bacalar, I turned off the main road, onto the Costera Bacalar a divided avenue which winds along the shore of Lake Bacalar. The town of Bacalar has an old fortress built over a lagoon to protect the citizens from pirates and Indians. Mqny large, expensive homes line the lakeshore along th Costera Bacalar. Most had docks extending out into the lake, many with power-boata or sailboats tied up alonside. The lake is a popular swimming resort.

I had lunch in a restaurant alongside the lake. It rained quite heavily whil eating. 5 little kids, ranging from 3 to 6 years old, are swimming in the lake and a small wading pool at the edge of the lake. It's pouring cats and dogs and they're out in it having a great time. When I go to leave, I'm talking with the waitress and a young guy in his 20s who works at the restaurant, and not paying attention to what I'm doing and drop the bike as I'm taking it off the centerstand. Right in front of them. I look at them, shrug my shoulders and laugh, and they laugh as well. the guy helps me pick it up. Just like last time I was parked on uneven gravel, had less than 100 miles on a full tank, and let the bike lean too far to the right. With a near-full tank of gas, there is not much leeway in leaning it away from you and keeping it upright. I laughed, but I'm really pissed at myself when I d this. No damage to the bike fortunately.

The hotels along the lake are too expensive and I don't want to camp, so I decide to continue on the 20 miles to Chetumal, which is within a couple of miles of the Belize border. I'll cross first thing tomorrow morning. In Chetumal I get a room at the Hotel Ucum for 55 pesos. This place requires a 5 peso deposit just to get a towell. Unbelievable!

My bike must have a very distinctive or unusual sound. Throughtout Mexico, and again today, as I'm riding along the highway and approaching pedestrians walking with their backs to me, more often than not they will turn around to see what is approaching. Must be the more open StainTune muffler.

Wednesday October 2 (56335 miles)

Woke at 6am to heavy rain, so rolled over and went back to sleep. By 7:30 it had stopped, so got up and had a long breakfast at the restaurant at the front of this hotel, while reading up on Belize.

Have only 75 pesos left and I should be able to use most of those to top off my tank before crossing the border.

Took my weekly malaria pill today. Only have one left so will have to try t get more locally. I wait till I get into Belize since it should be easier since they speak English.

Took about an hour to clear Mexican an Belizean customs. On the Mexican sid I had to find the Banjercito (Mexican Army Bank) office and get my vehicle permit canceled and the hologram sticker removed from my windscreen. The permit is good for multiple entries, but only for 6 months, so I will need t get a new permit when I return in 9 or 10 months. I then drove through Mexican customs and since there was no guard, that I could see, standing anywhere near the road checking outbound vehicles, I proceeded to head acros the bridge into Belize. Al of a sudden I heard whistles and looking in my mirroe I saw a border guard running after me, waving. So I turned around an went back and he indicated I needed to go into the nearby building with my paperwork. I apologized and he was laughing so there was no problem. Insid I presented my Mexican Tourist Card to the lady, and she looked at it and waved me out the door. Got back on the bike and rode back across the bridge into Belize. I guess it was all for appearance sake.

The Belizean side was straight-forward; Fill out a short form and get my passport stamped, then go to another desk and show them my bike title, and the cancelled Mexican vehicle permit, (which they kept). After checking the VIN on the bike, they issued me a vehicle permit. When I drove through Belizean Customs I had to show the guard my insurance binder providing coverage in Belize, in addition to my passport and vehicle permit. And then I was in Belize. Very painless, but then again, I was dealing with English again.

I find myself constantly replying in Spanish, and have to remember that I'm back in an English speaking country again.

I head to Corozal, 12 miles south of the border to exchange some money. The Belizean dollar is pegged to the US dollar at a rate of 2 Belizean dollars per 1 US dollar. The banks here do not have ATMs, so I cash some travellers checks instead.

Siting on a bench in the town plaza across from the bank, I meet Mario, a 60-something taxi driver. He told me how he rode bikes till about 10 years ago, and told me of trip he took when younger, on a 250cc Honda, to Guatemal City, and on through Central America.

After lunch I visit the 2 drugstores in town and the local government health center to try to replenish my supply of Mefloquine malaria medication. The drugstores have nothing and the health center only has Cloroquine. They suggest I may be able to get it in Belize City.

Back at the town square a teenage boy on a bicycle stops to talk. He says h knows of a new guesthouse in town run by a Canadian guy for 25-30 Belize dollars per night, and he leads me there on his bike. It's a nondescript, 1-level concrete-block building, painted bright blue, with a narroe concrete porch along the front. One of the signs on the front wall says "Email".

Vince is in his early thirties, from Toronto, and has an East Indian wife an a 5 year old son. The place is called the Corozal Central Guesthouse, and its only been open about 9 months. He has 2 rooms now and is working on a third. He has a direct internet hookup (PPP account) through the local phon company Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL). I'm initially a little concerned about having to park my bike on the front porch, but both Vince an the boy convince me it won't be a problem, so I take the room. Vince ran a guesthouse in Toronto before coming down to Belize.

After a shower I walk the 1 block to the BTL office to try my luck with email. The personel there are very friendly and helpful and help me get set up and connected. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that there is no additional local surcharge to call the local Sprint tollfree access number. Simply dial 115, ask for the Sprint operator, and then you get prompted to enter your card # and dial your phone #, or wait for the operator to come on line. Unfortunately, I arrived only 10 minutes before they close at 4pm, an able to make only one attempt. I actually get through and connect, but something is wrong with the connection and there is a lot of gibberish on th computer screen. I've seen this before, primarily when I've dialed manually which is what I did this time because I had to verbally ask for the sprint operator. I think it's partly a bug in the software. I tell them I'll be back in the morning. Maybe I can also try at Vince's tonight.

Earlier in the day I found out that, surprisingly, Belize is on Mountain time, one hour earlier than the rest of mainland Mexico,

Later, I walk a couple of blocks to Nestors, another hotel/restaurant run by a Canadian expatriate, for dinner. He must have been a Texan-wannabe, since the place was decorated with posters of country-westrn singers, and the Country Music Awards were playing on the TV in the corner of the bar.

There's another, older American couple that have been staying at Vince's for a month or so now. They're trying to find a place in Central America to retire to, but she wants to be able to also continue her Chiropractic work. She was griping about the beaurocracy here in Belice, and also about not having their expenses paid by a local Belizean woman who was supposedly "sponsoring" their trip. It wasn't clear to me what kind of arrangement the had, but to me it looked more like a case of 2 Americans, expecting somethin for nothing, and I didn't have a lot of sympathy for them.

Thursday October 3

I have 33 messages waiting for me. Actually not too bad considering it's been 5 weeks since I last dialed in. Since I have access to a known good phone line, and I also want to catch up on my email, both reading and replying, as well as sending my trip reports, I decide to stay another night here in Corozal. Spend a lot of the day reading and replying to email, interrupted by breaks for lunch at Nestors, and a break in the afternoon to go with Vince over to a building on the waterfront he is renovating as another guesthouse. In the evening I watch a video, 12 Monkeys, with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, with Vince and his wife.

Got some more details on how Vince and his wife, (she goes by Pinky; I didn' ask) met. It's kind of interesting. Vince was in the process of setting up his new guesthouse in Corozal, and needed someone to work there and help him run it. Pinky had just come over from India, with some other relative, her brother I believe. I believe the brother had a green card for the US, but Pinky did not. Vince knew the relative peripherally somehow. She needed a place to work/stay, and Vince needed a worker, so she began working at the guesthouse. He said it wasn't long before both of them realized that there was a spark between them, and he said it wasn't long after that they got married. Pinky was just learning English, so she did not speak a whole lot. Vince had lived in India for a while with his parents when younger and could speak a bit of whichever language Pinky spoke (I forget which). Vincde said it was only a month or so ago that she stopped wearing the sari.

Friday October 4 (56355 miles)

I leave about 1pm and ride a whole 60 miles south to The village of Crooked Tree, within the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. The last 3 miles is on an easy graded dirt road, but I can tell that with a lot of rain, the dirt/clay would become slicker than snot.

I stop at the small Visitor Center just outside of town, and chat with Steve the ranger on duty, for over an hour. The Belizean Audobon Society runs mos if not all the preserves and sanctuaries in Belize, and Steve works for them I believe he said he makes $150 every 2 weeks. He has a wife and 2 sons, ages 5 and 7. He says times are very hard in belize right now, especially for farmers, who can't sell their crops or cattle. He says the Value Added Tax which the government instituted within the last year is to blame.

Steve says that medical treatment is very bad in Belize, especially in Crooked Tree. There is a nurse in the village, but very little medicine. People must pay 50 dollars for a ride to the nearest large town, Orange Walk about 20 miles away. He says a lot of Belizeans go to Chetumal in Mexico fo treatment, or even to Merida, a 6-8 hour bus trip.

Steve tells me about his own experience, in which he was bed-ridden for over a year, spending all his money going to various doctors in Belize, trying to diagnose his illness. He got various diagnosis, including heart disease. Finally he went to a doctor in Chetumal, and was diagnosed with an internal parasite (something related to triconosysis), and taking a few drugs cured him. He didn't have a lot of faith in the Belizean Medical System. Smiling he said, tat as soon as he was betteer, he got married, and had 2 kids.

The village is fairly small, though I'm told that 900 people live her, however because it is spread out over quite an area it seems a lot smaller than that. I get a room at Rayburns, run by Owen Rayburn, a distinguished looking black man in his 60s. An older woman, Maggie, with a heavy German accewnt, who I believe is Owens wife, shows ne the room. She apologizes profusely, since they are in the midst of some renovations, prior to the start of thew tourist season at the end of ctober. But the room she shows me is very nice and clean, a corner room on the 2nd floor with a fan and a lot of light and ventilation. The bath is shared. 20 Belizean dollars.

After a shower and washing some clothes... houses on stilts a&b restaurant, old mobile home with thatched roof porch out front, Bab Marley tunes blaring on the speakers and a 5-6 young men out front laughing, joking, and drinking rum and cokes.

I suck a coke down, then walk to the edge of town along the lagoon. I follo several trails along the lagoon, seeing a few birds, ending up back at A&B's at dusk. Bob Marley is still wailing away. I go in and order the fish and chips. The fish was fried and covered in a spicy red sauce with peppers and onions. Very good. With 2 beers the bill came to 8 US dollars.

While eating I talk with Charlie, who has a very heavy Jamaican accent to hi English, so I have to work to understand him. As I'm finishing up, 2 Americans, Dara and Mark, come in, accompanied by a Belizean. They're from Philadelphia, but are doing 6 months of volunteer work in Belmopan, the capital of abelize. The Belizean is Sam Tillets, the local bird expert, who runs a hotel and gives guided boat trips. He says he is going out tomorrow morning with Dara and Mark, and asks if I would like to go along. That is just what I was looking for, since a boat costs 60 dollars but I wasn't goin to pay that much by myself. Given that I had seen no other tourists in town until I saw Mark and Dara, I was beginning to think I might not go.

We have a choice of going to one of 2 areas. The first area we'd see a lot of birds of various types, including the rare jabiru stork, with a wingspan of 10-12 feet. The second area we would see many birds, but no storks, and also howler monkeys. Since Mark and Dara, like myself, are planning to go t the Baboon (howler monkey) sanctuary, we all agree to go to the 1st area and see the storks. We'L also be able to wade through ankle deep warter for about a 100 yards to see crocodiles. That sounds exciting. I have to meet them at 5:45 tomorrow morning.

By the time we're done talking, it is pitch black outside, since the moon is nowhere to be seen, though the stars are visible. Of course I've forgotten to bring my flashlight and have to walk the hlf mile back to my room in the dark. Heat lightening flashes in the distance to the west, and fireflies flicker in the fields along the road.

Saturday October 5 (56416 miles)

The most rare birds we saw included the Jabiru stork, with a wingspan from 10-12 feet, a Laughing Falcon, and a Perigrine Falcon. Naming a few of the birds we saw: Green Heron, Great Blue and Little Blue Heron, Rossette Spoonbill, Yellow Warblers, Jacalas, Great Egrets, Snowey Egrets, Cormorants Wood Storks, various ducks I can't remember, Ringed and Banded Kingfishers, Snail Kites, several types of swallows and Grebes, and quite a few others I can't remember, sorry Janet. I was really wishing Janet could have been along. We also saw two Iguanas, the largest being over 6 feet long from nos to the tip of its tail. I was surprised how far up in the leafy parts of bushes and trees they climb to sun themselves.

We also saw a 4 foot crocodile which had been killed the night before. Both Sam and Steve yesterday say that poaching is a real problem. Steve said tha the rangers are trained as law officers, but are issued no weapons. He said that psychology is his weapon, and that it takes every psychological weapon in his arsenal to deal with the poachers he comes across during his work. H said it can be dangerous at times.

When I arrived at Sam's place at 5:45 his wife served us juice and coffee, and sliced watermelon. When we returned at 9:30 she served us breakfast of fresh, warm, homemade bread, homemade plum jam, juice, and some type of ommelette-like egg dish, with salsa. Very delicious. The price for everything, including breakfast was $2