I just looked up Jaime Awe on Wikipedia. He's not there, and I'm tempted to write an entry about him and encourage people to embellish it. He's had what I'm pretty positive is one of the most interesting lives I've ever encountered. I'd love to just sit and talk to him for a while.
Today was not only one of the best days I've had this month, but maybe one of the best days of my life. I wormed my way into the lab and cleaned bones with Christopher all day, and he taught me a lot of cool stuff, and we had good conversations with Hope and Pete and Martin, and after work he and I went and washed clothes in the swollen muddy river. I may have wrecked my field boots, which I need for tomorrow, but that's okay. When I realized it, I took them off and went barefoot, in the river and even on the walk home. (Up until now, I was afraid to walk barefoot on Belizean roads, even though I go without shoes pretty much all the time at home.) Now I'm at Hode's waiting for dinner, after which we have our final exam (fingers crossed for easiness), and I'm hoping people will want to go out afterwards so Hope and I can try to meet up with the guy we met in San Pedro last weekend who's now stopping in San Ignacio for a couple of days. (Don't worry, he's not sketchy at all, and even if he was we would have been much better targets alone in the Cayes than here surrounded by people who know us.)
I look around and find it hard to believe that these are my last days in Cayo. Tomorrow I will leave Central Farm for the last time, eat my last meal at Hode's, and drink my last 1 Barrel. On Saturday I will troll the market for cheap goodies for the last time before getting on a bus and speeding across the Western Highway for the last time. It feels like I've been here forever.
I suppose Belize will keep calling me back, in the same way London and Arizona have for years.
I will miss some people here. Sam and David and Martin and Suzan and Flex and especially Hope and Christopher. I will miss the dogs at Midas. I'll miss being on the farm. I'll miss pickup trucks. I'll miss seeing horses on the streets. I'll miss rum. I'll miss Coke in glass bottles. I'll miss the rain a lot. I'll especially miss my hammock and the sounds of the jungle at night. I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep in false silence and fake light listening to the sounds of machinery and passing cars. I suspect returning to an air conditioned world will be a much harder adjustment than leaving it. I wonder if I'll have a hard time being inside all the time after a month of being outside up to eighteen hours a day.
But I won't miss being dirty all the time. I won't miss Hode's. I won't miss the smell of the pig farm we pass every day. I won't miss the roads or the men I encounter on them. I look forward to milk and juice and dessert and good bread, and to having my own room and clean clothes and hot water. I love Belize, but I don't want to stay here forever.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
To Xibalba!
I wrote this last night, but after I'd gone back to my room, so I couldn't post it.
I worked my ass off today. I guess I subconsciously figured if I was going to be screwed out of a day in the lab, I might as well make my time in the field count. I also think I should have been working alongside cute Belizean field workers and the English archaeology princess* all along. They’re both excellent to talk to, and not wanting to look like a tool is easily the best motivation I’ve found so far.
Things I wanted to do before leaving include washing my clothes in the river, buying more gifts from a particular shop in town, and getting a henna tattoo. It appears that most, if not all, of these things are not going to happen, mainly because someone took it upon themselves to decide we were going to work until 5 instead of 4 all week, which they were supposed to ask all the students about before deciding it and didn’t. Martin calls it Fun Week (sarcastically, of course—he doesn’t like the way things are run, either).
But anyway, I owe you the epic tale of Actun Tunichil Muknal, or at least my trip to it.
Well, I went last Wednesday with Flex, Tori, Alette, and Kathryn. It was about an hour’s drive, mostly on very, very bad roads, roughly southeast into the Maya Mountains. Then it was a hike of another 45 minutes through beautiful jungle before we reached the cave itself. We forded the river in the van twice and on foot three times, and stopped once along the trail so our guide could poke a stick into a termite nest and offer each of us some. I think I mentioned before that I declined.
The cave has an hourglass-shaped opening, into the side of a mountain. The big chamber at the entrance contains a deep, clear pool of water, so you have to swim into the cave and climb up on some rocks. It was COLD. Fortunately it felt good deeper in, whether because it was actually warmer or because I got used to it I’m still not sure.
So, onto the rocks, and then over the rocks, and then back in the water. There was water in most of the cave, usually between knee and waist high, sometimes up to my chest. At one point I had to swim, but that was just because it was easier than continuously falling off the ledge I could have been walking on. Sometimes we climbed up over more rocks, and sometimes there was a stretch of dry sand. Our guide, who was quite entertaining, pointed out interesting rock formations (including one whose shadow looks like the head of a jaguar) and talked about Maya beliefs and rituals along the way. Finally, we came to a ridiculously tall rock, with a gap and then a shelf of rock, and then some kind of sandy-rocky formation that sloped steeply upward even higher. The guide announced that we would be climbing.
I had been worried about going to ATM. I even considered not going at all. I was afraid of the water. I was worried about small spaces (which turned out not to be much of a problem). But I had talked to others who had already gone, and they reassured me about those things and talked me through a lot of detail about the cave before I got there, so I was about as comfortable as I was going to get. All of the people I talked to failed to mention there was climbing involved, (other than something about a ladder that I’d forgotten but did recall when I saw it). Not just climbing over rocks, but scaling a cliff, essentially.
So I stared up at the wall of rock in front of us and wished I’d never come, I considered sitting right there and waiting until the rest of the group came back.
I asked the guide, “Do we have to climb back down?” hoping that this was only the way in, and we would take another path out.
The answer was yes.
I cried.**
We went up. We took off our shoes. And we entered “the cathedral”, the huge main cavern that’s littered with offerings. It’s like a vast field of pottery. And bones.
Then there was some more crawling through passageways before we reached the ladder, which also scared me but not nearly as much, which we climbed up to reach the ledge where the two most interesting skeletons are, one of a teenager who was killed while kneeling with their face to the wall, and the famous Crystal Maiden, sprawled out and amazingly complete. She was about twenty years old when she died and was 5 foot 2. Creepy.
Going down the ladder was considerably more difficult than going up, and going down the cliff would almost have been better avoided by leaping into the water and hoping not to break anything, except that my anti-leaping instinct is rather strong. Everything afterwards was fine, and seemed considerably shorter than it had on the way in. I was almost disappointed by how quickly we reached the entrance pool.
Altogether, we spent about three hours in the cave, though I had no idea at the time how much time was passing.
Back outside the cave, we retrieved the lunches we’d left behind and attacked them like fire ants on an earthworm. (Or your foot.) This was partially because we were hungry and partially because it was the best lunch we’d had in days. (Lunch in the field is chicken and rice almost every day and chicken burritos on the rare exceptions.) Ham sandwiches with actual vegetables on them, and FRUIT, and CHOCOLATE.
The hike back out to the van took forever because I was tired and wet and didn’t want to do anything anymore. It was a shame, because it’s a fairly easy hike and very pretty. But anyway, when we finally got back, we changed into dry clothes and came back. The end. I’m glad I went. It was a good experience, and parts of it were a lot of fun. But other parts of it were not, and I don’t really feel the need to ever do it again.
* That would be Flex, who has been doing archaeology for five years, which I would NEVER have guessed upon meeting her. In fact, I had trouble picturing her as an archaeologist at all. A movie star, perhaps. She could be Keira Knightley’s little sister. She’s Archaeology Barbie.
** I’m not kidding.
I worked my ass off today. I guess I subconsciously figured if I was going to be screwed out of a day in the lab, I might as well make my time in the field count. I also think I should have been working alongside cute Belizean field workers and the English archaeology princess* all along. They’re both excellent to talk to, and not wanting to look like a tool is easily the best motivation I’ve found so far.
Things I wanted to do before leaving include washing my clothes in the river, buying more gifts from a particular shop in town, and getting a henna tattoo. It appears that most, if not all, of these things are not going to happen, mainly because someone took it upon themselves to decide we were going to work until 5 instead of 4 all week, which they were supposed to ask all the students about before deciding it and didn’t. Martin calls it Fun Week (sarcastically, of course—he doesn’t like the way things are run, either).
But anyway, I owe you the epic tale of Actun Tunichil Muknal, or at least my trip to it.
Well, I went last Wednesday with Flex, Tori, Alette, and Kathryn. It was about an hour’s drive, mostly on very, very bad roads, roughly southeast into the Maya Mountains. Then it was a hike of another 45 minutes through beautiful jungle before we reached the cave itself. We forded the river in the van twice and on foot three times, and stopped once along the trail so our guide could poke a stick into a termite nest and offer each of us some. I think I mentioned before that I declined.
The cave has an hourglass-shaped opening, into the side of a mountain. The big chamber at the entrance contains a deep, clear pool of water, so you have to swim into the cave and climb up on some rocks. It was COLD. Fortunately it felt good deeper in, whether because it was actually warmer or because I got used to it I’m still not sure.
So, onto the rocks, and then over the rocks, and then back in the water. There was water in most of the cave, usually between knee and waist high, sometimes up to my chest. At one point I had to swim, but that was just because it was easier than continuously falling off the ledge I could have been walking on. Sometimes we climbed up over more rocks, and sometimes there was a stretch of dry sand. Our guide, who was quite entertaining, pointed out interesting rock formations (including one whose shadow looks like the head of a jaguar) and talked about Maya beliefs and rituals along the way. Finally, we came to a ridiculously tall rock, with a gap and then a shelf of rock, and then some kind of sandy-rocky formation that sloped steeply upward even higher. The guide announced that we would be climbing.
I had been worried about going to ATM. I even considered not going at all. I was afraid of the water. I was worried about small spaces (which turned out not to be much of a problem). But I had talked to others who had already gone, and they reassured me about those things and talked me through a lot of detail about the cave before I got there, so I was about as comfortable as I was going to get. All of the people I talked to failed to mention there was climbing involved, (other than something about a ladder that I’d forgotten but did recall when I saw it). Not just climbing over rocks, but scaling a cliff, essentially.
So I stared up at the wall of rock in front of us and wished I’d never come, I considered sitting right there and waiting until the rest of the group came back.
I asked the guide, “Do we have to climb back down?” hoping that this was only the way in, and we would take another path out.
The answer was yes.
I cried.**
We went up. We took off our shoes. And we entered “the cathedral”, the huge main cavern that’s littered with offerings. It’s like a vast field of pottery. And bones.
Then there was some more crawling through passageways before we reached the ladder, which also scared me but not nearly as much, which we climbed up to reach the ledge where the two most interesting skeletons are, one of a teenager who was killed while kneeling with their face to the wall, and the famous Crystal Maiden, sprawled out and amazingly complete. She was about twenty years old when she died and was 5 foot 2. Creepy.
Going down the ladder was considerably more difficult than going up, and going down the cliff would almost have been better avoided by leaping into the water and hoping not to break anything, except that my anti-leaping instinct is rather strong. Everything afterwards was fine, and seemed considerably shorter than it had on the way in. I was almost disappointed by how quickly we reached the entrance pool.
Altogether, we spent about three hours in the cave, though I had no idea at the time how much time was passing.
Back outside the cave, we retrieved the lunches we’d left behind and attacked them like fire ants on an earthworm. (Or your foot.) This was partially because we were hungry and partially because it was the best lunch we’d had in days. (Lunch in the field is chicken and rice almost every day and chicken burritos on the rare exceptions.) Ham sandwiches with actual vegetables on them, and FRUIT, and CHOCOLATE.
The hike back out to the van took forever because I was tired and wet and didn’t want to do anything anymore. It was a shame, because it’s a fairly easy hike and very pretty. But anyway, when we finally got back, we changed into dry clothes and came back. The end. I’m glad I went. It was a good experience, and parts of it were a lot of fun. But other parts of it were not, and I don’t really feel the need to ever do it again.
* That would be Flex, who has been doing archaeology for five years, which I would NEVER have guessed upon meeting her. In fact, I had trouble picturing her as an archaeologist at all. A movie star, perhaps. She could be Keira Knightley’s little sister. She’s Archaeology Barbie.
** I’m not kidding.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thoughts for Today
Survey was less fun than I’d hoped/half expected, but still pretty good. We set a new record for the number of mounds found and measured in one day (21), but I think that was mainly attributable to the fact that the fields we were in haven’t been plowed recently, if ever, so we weren’t losing time picking up artifacts that had been disturbed. The worst part of the day was easily the multiple treks across a fallow cornfield, which for some odd reason was one of the worst hikes of my life. The two best parts of the day were finding two plaza groups, one of which had a mound over six meters tall, and being handed a machete for the first time.
There was apparently a fantastic storm one night over the long weekend that most of us missed. It lasted for hours and was more intense than the one two weeks ago that not only woke me up but kept me awake for a full hour before the thunder subsided enough that I wasn't just listening to it and thinking about the metal roof over my head. Anyway, this storm took out a tree that was literally right outside the window I sleep under, so I'm satisfied with having missed that. It's also flooded the river dramatically. I walked down the street this afternoon to see the bridge that's underwater (which is doubly interesting because normally that's the way from Santa Elena to San Ignacio while the suspension bridge a little bit upstream is the way from San Ignacio to Santa Elena, so now the one-lane suspension bridge has to be both). I also realized halfway there that because the bridge is underwater, I could not actually walk across it to the bakery on the other side of the river. Actually, I could have, because I saw an old man doing exactly that, just wading right across, but I wasn't dressed for it. I considered taking the long way, but the operative word there is long, so I settled for a sad-looking cinnamon bun from the "French" bakery on this side of the river, which was a poor substitute for what I'd envisioned.
Something else I neglected to mention before is that there’s dengue in Cayo (well, all over Belize, but mostly in Cayo). There was an announcement to that effect at dinner along about the second week—pretty much just “There have been a few cases, use bug spray, these are the symptoms, make sure one of the staff knows if you’re not feeling well even if it’s not dengue, blah blah blah.” Well, towards the end of last week I had dinner with Josue, one of the students who’s local, who informed me that there have actually been over a hundred cases, some of which are the hemorrhagic strain, and at least one person has died.
Anyway, to continue catching up, there isn’t much to say about last week’s work. I was with Jill, my favorite staff member, who unfortunately has the most boring excavation in progress, on Monday and Tuesday, and worked with Alette (who’s a historical geographer from the Netherlands) to clear a pretty much empty trench and then to do some pre-excavation measurements on another mound, which I was vaguely disappointed not to work on, since I hadn’t (and still haven’t) actually started an excavation unit. Wednesday was ATM, which I’ll get to shortly, and then Thursday I worked in the lab and cleaned artifacts. The best parts of the week were the things I can’t publicize right now, which I had far less exposure to than I wanted, although I used part of my lunch break on Thursday to steal some time and wound up running across the cow field in the pouring rain to get back to the lab late, which was totally worth it because it was so much fun. Not much happened in the evenings last week other than me and Hope trying to plan our weekend, and a long venting session at and after dinner last night among the handful of us who hadn’t already left.
I’m concerned that I’ve been making this month sound like a blast when it really hasn’t been. I have done a lot of cool things and made some good friends, but there is a giant rant building up about BVAR itself. Was this a worthwhile experience? Yes. Was it what I (and others) expected (and rightfully so)? No. At first we were just annoyed with some things we felt we'd been misled about, and about the quality of instruction and the methodology, but then there started to be real problems with the way things are run that have only gotten more frustrating as time gets shorter. But I don't want to go into all that right now.
But anyway, here's the quote of the day:
Suzan (jokingly, context now forgotten): What is wrong with you Dutch people?
Alette: So many things...
Reminds me of the great conversation that she and Christopher and I had about the ways the Dutch and the Belgians stereotype each other, which was hilarious.
There was apparently a fantastic storm one night over the long weekend that most of us missed. It lasted for hours and was more intense than the one two weeks ago that not only woke me up but kept me awake for a full hour before the thunder subsided enough that I wasn't just listening to it and thinking about the metal roof over my head. Anyway, this storm took out a tree that was literally right outside the window I sleep under, so I'm satisfied with having missed that. It's also flooded the river dramatically. I walked down the street this afternoon to see the bridge that's underwater (which is doubly interesting because normally that's the way from Santa Elena to San Ignacio while the suspension bridge a little bit upstream is the way from San Ignacio to Santa Elena, so now the one-lane suspension bridge has to be both). I also realized halfway there that because the bridge is underwater, I could not actually walk across it to the bakery on the other side of the river. Actually, I could have, because I saw an old man doing exactly that, just wading right across, but I wasn't dressed for it. I considered taking the long way, but the operative word there is long, so I settled for a sad-looking cinnamon bun from the "French" bakery on this side of the river, which was a poor substitute for what I'd envisioned.
Something else I neglected to mention before is that there’s dengue in Cayo (well, all over Belize, but mostly in Cayo). There was an announcement to that effect at dinner along about the second week—pretty much just “There have been a few cases, use bug spray, these are the symptoms, make sure one of the staff knows if you’re not feeling well even if it’s not dengue, blah blah blah.” Well, towards the end of last week I had dinner with Josue, one of the students who’s local, who informed me that there have actually been over a hundred cases, some of which are the hemorrhagic strain, and at least one person has died.
Anyway, to continue catching up, there isn’t much to say about last week’s work. I was with Jill, my favorite staff member, who unfortunately has the most boring excavation in progress, on Monday and Tuesday, and worked with Alette (who’s a historical geographer from the Netherlands) to clear a pretty much empty trench and then to do some pre-excavation measurements on another mound, which I was vaguely disappointed not to work on, since I hadn’t (and still haven’t) actually started an excavation unit. Wednesday was ATM, which I’ll get to shortly, and then Thursday I worked in the lab and cleaned artifacts. The best parts of the week were the things I can’t publicize right now, which I had far less exposure to than I wanted, although I used part of my lunch break on Thursday to steal some time and wound up running across the cow field in the pouring rain to get back to the lab late, which was totally worth it because it was so much fun. Not much happened in the evenings last week other than me and Hope trying to plan our weekend, and a long venting session at and after dinner last night among the handful of us who hadn’t already left.
I’m concerned that I’ve been making this month sound like a blast when it really hasn’t been. I have done a lot of cool things and made some good friends, but there is a giant rant building up about BVAR itself. Was this a worthwhile experience? Yes. Was it what I (and others) expected (and rightfully so)? No. At first we were just annoyed with some things we felt we'd been misled about, and about the quality of instruction and the methodology, but then there started to be real problems with the way things are run that have only gotten more frustrating as time gets shorter. But I don't want to go into all that right now.
But anyway, here's the quote of the day:
Suzan (jokingly, context now forgotten): What is wrong with you Dutch people?
Alette: So many things...
Reminds me of the great conversation that she and Christopher and I had about the ways the Dutch and the Belgians stereotype each other, which was hilarious.
Second Weekend
So, last week Tabitha and I had planned to go to the Belize Zoo on Saturday. Later, some other people started planning a tour of Caracol. Grr. I chose the zoo.
Saturday was also the day the first batch of two-week students was leaving, so that morning I got up early and went to the market for breakfast so I could hang out with Kathryn and Leslie and Brita one last time. They woke up Christopher, who had partied rather hard the night before, and dragged him along, as far as I can tell mostly for entertainment value. He was supposed to go to Caracol but wasn’t keen on leaving at 7 a.m., and at five til seven when I reminded him he needed to be going, he announced he was coming to the zoo instead.
We all walked back to Midas so that the two-weekers could say good-bye to the people going to Caracol before the bus left, and then we sat around in the common room for a bit before I had to go back to the market to meet Tabitha so we could catch our bus. Christopher whined, so I left him and said he should find us by 7:45 if he still wanted to go. I thought it unlikely that he would show, and he didn’t.
Tabitha informed me that she was feeling sick and hadn’t gotten enough sleep, but she still wanted to try to go. We walked to the bus station and confirmed that the bus to Belize City would indeed take us past the zoo. We had a while to wait before the next one came, and while we were sitting Tabitha continued to look miserable. I reiterated that I wouldn’t be upset if she didn’t want to go. She was indecisive for a few minutes, because she thought if she slept on the bus she might feel better, but she didn’t want to wind up feeling like crap at the zoo and not enjoying it. Eventually she decided she wanted to back to Midas and sleep for a few hours and go later. I agreed.
The problem was that we were supposed to be back from the zoo in time for her to go canoeing with Alex, on a trip they’d already booked. If Tabitha was going to have to choose, she wanted to go to the zoo, but she didn’t want Alex not to be able to go canoeing because of her. So we went to find Chris, who was asleep on the couch in the common room where I’d left him. Tabitha informed him that he was going canoeing, which was a much longer conversation than seemed necessary, since Christopher was half asleep and probably hungover. They talked in circles for some time while David and I looked on and laughed hysterically.
Tabitha went to bed and I lay in my hammock with a book. After the agreed-upon two hours Tabitha came to my cabana and asked if I would hate her if she said she didn’t want to go at all. Obviously, the answer was no, though I was extremely disappointed that I missed out on Caracol only to miss out on the zoo, too. I considered going alone, but decided if that was going to happen I’d prefer to wait until morning and go before the heat. Or at least, before the worst heat.
So I had a very lazy Saturday. I walked across the bridge to Santa Elena and back, but mostly I lay in the hammock and read and sat in the common room and did computer-y things. Late in the afternoon I started thinking about not wanting to miss dinner plans, so I went to the patio and joined Brenna and Simone and Tabitha, who were also having long lazy Saturdays (Brenna and Simone were also not feeling well, and had attributed it to the birthday cake we all ate the night before, though that doesn’t make sense considering that only one person who went to Caracol reported being sick, and nearly everyone ate the cake.), and Maite, who was supposed to have left that morning but whose mother still hadn’t arrived.* Tabitha, who was a two-weeker but was staying an extra night before heading off to travel on her own, had decided she was sick enough that she needed to go home, so Simone and Brenna and I set about helping her to cancel her reservations for the mini-vacation in the Cayes that she’d planned and changing her flight. She was very upset.
When the Carcol group returned, most of us went out to Mr. Greedy’s for drinks and dinner. I hung out with Sam and Flex and Kathryn (a different Kathryn than the one I’d cleaned bones with) and Hope, all of whom expressed an interest in going to the zoo, but most of whom preferred the though of sleeping in to the thought of getting on a bus as early in the morning as I wanted to. In the end, only Hope went with me.
I should mention here that Hope and I are both pale and freckled and have dark hair to accentuate our whiteness. Plus, I was looking pretty touristy in the same battered shorts and t-shirt I’d worn the day before, and Hope was drawing attention to herself with a pretty skirt and tank top and her hair done nicely. In short, we were going to stick out like sore thumbs even if we weren’t the only gringas on the bus. Which we usually were.
Nonetheless, I though the bus ride was a lot of fun. We stood up for part of the way, until seats opened up. There was music playing, and with the windows open it was nice and cool, though sometimes (when the bus was speeding, which is most of the time it wasn’t stopping) the wind was too bad to see out the window very easily. As we were coming up on an hour of travelling, I told Hope to keep an eye out for signs for the zoo, since I’d been told by Suzan that it took about an hour to reach it on the bus. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t entirely sure whether the bus stopped AT the zoo, or just near it, and if the latter I wasn’t entirely sure where we were supposed to get off or how we would know when we reached it, since most bus stops seemed not to be marked as bus stops, much less as specific bus stops. After an hour and twenty minutes had gone by, I was starting to get worried. A little while later and Hope pointed out that we weren’t that far outside of Belize City. Finally, after an hour and forty-five minutes, the bus stopped in front of a sign for the Belize Zoo over a long gravel driveway. (I later mock-yelled at Suzan for lying to me, and teased her about her sense of time.)
The zoo is in the middle of freaking nowhere. But it’s pretty cool, despite being quite small. It’s all local wildlife (so the enclosures are really natural), and all animals that were rescued or captive-bred and given by other zoos. And of course there are exotic birds and lizards just hanging out along the trails that don’t technically belong to the zoo. It’s full of really cheesy signs about the various animals, but at least we had some good laughs about them.
Animal-wise, I was pretty fascinated. I don’t remember ever having seen tapirs (which I LOVE) or coatimundis or jaguarundis before, and some of the big water birds are completely amazing. There were even a few animals I’d never heard of, something that’s usually hard to come by. And then there were the jaguars. I had quite a moment with one. He was in a cage that part of which was sort of an overpass above the trail, and I climbed up on a nearby stump to look in and see if I could spot him. Lo and behold, he was curled up right in front of me, looking out with beautiful golden eyes, and we locked eyes with barely a foot between us. We just stared at each for a long moment before a large group with many noisy children began approaching. The jaguar gave me a look that clearly said, “Oh, good grief,” and got up and walked a few steps away so he was partially hidden by a tree. I swear he would have rolled his eyes if he could.
Leaving the zoo proved to be even more of an adventure than getting there. After about three hours there, we walked back out to the road to await a bus. After about half an hour of watching, one came by marked “Benque”. Expecting one for “Cayo” or even “San Ignacio”, we let it pass by, even though Benque is the last stop in the right direction. We soon realized our mistake and thought we would have to wait another hour for the next one. Fortunately, one came on the half hour, and we made it, but that just made me realize that if the buses ran every half hour, we had probably missed another bus that would have come by about five minutes before we reached the stop. Sigh.
* Maite is in her thirties, married with kids, and lives in NYC, but her parents still live in Mexico and she was apparently going to spend some time with them before going home.
Saturday was also the day the first batch of two-week students was leaving, so that morning I got up early and went to the market for breakfast so I could hang out with Kathryn and Leslie and Brita one last time. They woke up Christopher, who had partied rather hard the night before, and dragged him along, as far as I can tell mostly for entertainment value. He was supposed to go to Caracol but wasn’t keen on leaving at 7 a.m., and at five til seven when I reminded him he needed to be going, he announced he was coming to the zoo instead.
We all walked back to Midas so that the two-weekers could say good-bye to the people going to Caracol before the bus left, and then we sat around in the common room for a bit before I had to go back to the market to meet Tabitha so we could catch our bus. Christopher whined, so I left him and said he should find us by 7:45 if he still wanted to go. I thought it unlikely that he would show, and he didn’t.
Tabitha informed me that she was feeling sick and hadn’t gotten enough sleep, but she still wanted to try to go. We walked to the bus station and confirmed that the bus to Belize City would indeed take us past the zoo. We had a while to wait before the next one came, and while we were sitting Tabitha continued to look miserable. I reiterated that I wouldn’t be upset if she didn’t want to go. She was indecisive for a few minutes, because she thought if she slept on the bus she might feel better, but she didn’t want to wind up feeling like crap at the zoo and not enjoying it. Eventually she decided she wanted to back to Midas and sleep for a few hours and go later. I agreed.
The problem was that we were supposed to be back from the zoo in time for her to go canoeing with Alex, on a trip they’d already booked. If Tabitha was going to have to choose, she wanted to go to the zoo, but she didn’t want Alex not to be able to go canoeing because of her. So we went to find Chris, who was asleep on the couch in the common room where I’d left him. Tabitha informed him that he was going canoeing, which was a much longer conversation than seemed necessary, since Christopher was half asleep and probably hungover. They talked in circles for some time while David and I looked on and laughed hysterically.
Tabitha went to bed and I lay in my hammock with a book. After the agreed-upon two hours Tabitha came to my cabana and asked if I would hate her if she said she didn’t want to go at all. Obviously, the answer was no, though I was extremely disappointed that I missed out on Caracol only to miss out on the zoo, too. I considered going alone, but decided if that was going to happen I’d prefer to wait until morning and go before the heat. Or at least, before the worst heat.
So I had a very lazy Saturday. I walked across the bridge to Santa Elena and back, but mostly I lay in the hammock and read and sat in the common room and did computer-y things. Late in the afternoon I started thinking about not wanting to miss dinner plans, so I went to the patio and joined Brenna and Simone and Tabitha, who were also having long lazy Saturdays (Brenna and Simone were also not feeling well, and had attributed it to the birthday cake we all ate the night before, though that doesn’t make sense considering that only one person who went to Caracol reported being sick, and nearly everyone ate the cake.), and Maite, who was supposed to have left that morning but whose mother still hadn’t arrived.* Tabitha, who was a two-weeker but was staying an extra night before heading off to travel on her own, had decided she was sick enough that she needed to go home, so Simone and Brenna and I set about helping her to cancel her reservations for the mini-vacation in the Cayes that she’d planned and changing her flight. She was very upset.
When the Carcol group returned, most of us went out to Mr. Greedy’s for drinks and dinner. I hung out with Sam and Flex and Kathryn (a different Kathryn than the one I’d cleaned bones with) and Hope, all of whom expressed an interest in going to the zoo, but most of whom preferred the though of sleeping in to the thought of getting on a bus as early in the morning as I wanted to. In the end, only Hope went with me.
I should mention here that Hope and I are both pale and freckled and have dark hair to accentuate our whiteness. Plus, I was looking pretty touristy in the same battered shorts and t-shirt I’d worn the day before, and Hope was drawing attention to herself with a pretty skirt and tank top and her hair done nicely. In short, we were going to stick out like sore thumbs even if we weren’t the only gringas on the bus. Which we usually were.
Nonetheless, I though the bus ride was a lot of fun. We stood up for part of the way, until seats opened up. There was music playing, and with the windows open it was nice and cool, though sometimes (when the bus was speeding, which is most of the time it wasn’t stopping) the wind was too bad to see out the window very easily. As we were coming up on an hour of travelling, I told Hope to keep an eye out for signs for the zoo, since I’d been told by Suzan that it took about an hour to reach it on the bus. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t entirely sure whether the bus stopped AT the zoo, or just near it, and if the latter I wasn’t entirely sure where we were supposed to get off or how we would know when we reached it, since most bus stops seemed not to be marked as bus stops, much less as specific bus stops. After an hour and twenty minutes had gone by, I was starting to get worried. A little while later and Hope pointed out that we weren’t that far outside of Belize City. Finally, after an hour and forty-five minutes, the bus stopped in front of a sign for the Belize Zoo over a long gravel driveway. (I later mock-yelled at Suzan for lying to me, and teased her about her sense of time.)
The zoo is in the middle of freaking nowhere. But it’s pretty cool, despite being quite small. It’s all local wildlife (so the enclosures are really natural), and all animals that were rescued or captive-bred and given by other zoos. And of course there are exotic birds and lizards just hanging out along the trails that don’t technically belong to the zoo. It’s full of really cheesy signs about the various animals, but at least we had some good laughs about them.
Animal-wise, I was pretty fascinated. I don’t remember ever having seen tapirs (which I LOVE) or coatimundis or jaguarundis before, and some of the big water birds are completely amazing. There were even a few animals I’d never heard of, something that’s usually hard to come by. And then there were the jaguars. I had quite a moment with one. He was in a cage that part of which was sort of an overpass above the trail, and I climbed up on a nearby stump to look in and see if I could spot him. Lo and behold, he was curled up right in front of me, looking out with beautiful golden eyes, and we locked eyes with barely a foot between us. We just stared at each for a long moment before a large group with many noisy children began approaching. The jaguar gave me a look that clearly said, “Oh, good grief,” and got up and walked a few steps away so he was partially hidden by a tree. I swear he would have rolled his eyes if he could.
Leaving the zoo proved to be even more of an adventure than getting there. After about three hours there, we walked back out to the road to await a bus. After about half an hour of watching, one came by marked “Benque”. Expecting one for “Cayo” or even “San Ignacio”, we let it pass by, even though Benque is the last stop in the right direction. We soon realized our mistake and thought we would have to wait another hour for the next one. Fortunately, one came on the half hour, and we made it, but that just made me realize that if the buses ran every half hour, we had probably missed another bus that would have come by about five minutes before we reached the stop. Sigh.
* Maite is in her thirties, married with kids, and lives in NYC, but her parents still live in Mexico and she was apparently going to spend some time with them before going home.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Speed Updating
Hello all. I'm back from my epic long-weekend road/boat trip across Belize. I survived, and did some pretty cool things, some of which I never expected to do. There will be details to come, along with the other stories I've promised. This is going to be a crazy week, but I'll do what I can.
For now, I would like to mention that I have set a new record for the worst sunburn I've ever had. I think I'm probably lucky not to have blisters. So, a word to the wise: When snorkeling, one is not, in fact, far enough under the water to not need sunscreen on one's legs.
Also, I no longer have my annual watch tan, which is somewhat sad. A break with tradition. It's an unfortunate side effect of my wristwatch becoming a pocketwatch. Which is itself apparently a side effect of trying to retrieve a pool ball from the goal of a fooseball table. (Trust me, that sentence is more interesting if I don't explain it.)
Also, I found out this evening that over the weekend some guy got stabbed to death in the bar where said fooseball table is located. I wonder if that will deter any of this week's evenings out.
I think I'm going to devote an entry to food at some point, but I need to vent for a moment: Mayonnaise is for some reason ubiquitous down here. I have yet to be served a sandwich anywhere that wasn't soggy with mayo. Often on both pieces of bread. I hate mayonnaise. And it never, ever, ever, belongs on a hot dog.
Oh. Did I mention that last weekend Sam was bitten by a baby howler monkey and had to spend most of last week trying to convince someone to give her the rest of her rabies shots? (She was, both fortunately and ironically, the only person in the group to start rabies shots before she got here.) Well, that taken care of, she then proceeded to have a table collapse on her foot this weekend. It's not broken, but it's pretty much destroyed in every other possible way. I don't understand how this girl keeps smiling. I've never seen such ridiculously awful luck.
I am on survey crew tomorrow (FINALLY) for the first and probably last time. I'm looking forward to it, but I'd still rather be in the lab, for reasons some of you know and others will have to find out via not-a-public-blog.
For now, I would like to mention that I have set a new record for the worst sunburn I've ever had. I think I'm probably lucky not to have blisters. So, a word to the wise: When snorkeling, one is not, in fact, far enough under the water to not need sunscreen on one's legs.
Also, I no longer have my annual watch tan, which is somewhat sad. A break with tradition. It's an unfortunate side effect of my wristwatch becoming a pocketwatch. Which is itself apparently a side effect of trying to retrieve a pool ball from the goal of a fooseball table. (Trust me, that sentence is more interesting if I don't explain it.)
Also, I found out this evening that over the weekend some guy got stabbed to death in the bar where said fooseball table is located. I wonder if that will deter any of this week's evenings out.
I think I'm going to devote an entry to food at some point, but I need to vent for a moment: Mayonnaise is for some reason ubiquitous down here. I have yet to be served a sandwich anywhere that wasn't soggy with mayo. Often on both pieces of bread. I hate mayonnaise. And it never, ever, ever, belongs on a hot dog.
Oh. Did I mention that last weekend Sam was bitten by a baby howler monkey and had to spend most of last week trying to convince someone to give her the rest of her rabies shots? (She was, both fortunately and ironically, the only person in the group to start rabies shots before she got here.) Well, that taken care of, she then proceeded to have a table collapse on her foot this weekend. It's not broken, but it's pretty much destroyed in every other possible way. I don't understand how this girl keeps smiling. I've never seen such ridiculously awful luck.
I am on survey crew tomorrow (FINALLY) for the first and probably last time. I'm looking forward to it, but I'd still rather be in the lab, for reasons some of you know and others will have to find out via not-a-public-blog.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Quick Update about Random Stuff
I was going to be caught up on the last few days by tonight, but I got distracted by trying to plan for the upcoming long weekend. Hope and I have successfully waited until the last minute to try to organize an excessively complicated adventure. We want to visit the ruins of Lamanai, AND go canoeing and horseback riding, AND spend enough time on Ambergris Caye to visit more ruins and do nature-y stuff in the national park there. Not to mention hang out at the beach. All in less than four days. And we have to have some idea what we're doing and how we're going to do it by dinnertime tomorrow, even though we can't contact anyone until after 4-4:30 p.m. tomorrow. Woohoo!
I have an extraordinarily painful blister on the bottom of my right pinky toe. It is causing me to limp, which I find extremely irksome, as not even the twisted ankle hurt enough for that. The ankle, by the way, for those who have asked, was totally fine by Sunday of that weekend. Initially I was pretty sure I'd sprained it, but after I walked around on it all day Saturday without it swelling up too much, that seemed unlikely. Now it only hurts a little when I turn my foot a certain way (specifically, the way it turned when I fell).
My computer MAY have fallen on the tile floor of the common room the other day. Now the CD player makes interesting growling noises at me every time the computer wakes up. I am without CDs and therefore unable to determine whether it still functions. The battery, meanwhile seems to function even less than before, which is not related to the fall. Now in addition to running down super fast, it doesn't always feel like charging while it's plugged in.
I went to Actun Tunichil Muknal today (see one of my earliest posts). There will be a post to come devoted to that, I hope.
There is exciting stuff going down at Baking Pot this week. Let's just say that Christopher and I probably couldn't be more thrilled, and maybe you can piece together what that means. I almost wish we had work on Friday.
Sam's latest encounter with American cuisine: Peanut butter and jelly. Apparently, it's the most disgusting thing on earth. I can't remember when I've seen such a hilarious reaction to food.
I had the opportunity to eat termites today, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to.
I have an extraordinarily painful blister on the bottom of my right pinky toe. It is causing me to limp, which I find extremely irksome, as not even the twisted ankle hurt enough for that. The ankle, by the way, for those who have asked, was totally fine by Sunday of that weekend. Initially I was pretty sure I'd sprained it, but after I walked around on it all day Saturday without it swelling up too much, that seemed unlikely. Now it only hurts a little when I turn my foot a certain way (specifically, the way it turned when I fell).
My computer MAY have fallen on the tile floor of the common room the other day. Now the CD player makes interesting growling noises at me every time the computer wakes up. I am without CDs and therefore unable to determine whether it still functions. The battery, meanwhile seems to function even less than before, which is not related to the fall. Now in addition to running down super fast, it doesn't always feel like charging while it's plugged in.
I went to Actun Tunichil Muknal today (see one of my earliest posts). There will be a post to come devoted to that, I hope.
There is exciting stuff going down at Baking Pot this week. Let's just say that Christopher and I probably couldn't be more thrilled, and maybe you can piece together what that means. I almost wish we had work on Friday.
Sam's latest encounter with American cuisine: Peanut butter and jelly. Apparently, it's the most disgusting thing on earth. I can't remember when I've seen such a hilarious reaction to food.
I had the opportunity to eat termites today, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Catching Up: Last Week
Monday night it rained. Monday morning I woke up to darkness and the sound of more rain. At breakfast the staff declared a rain day, and we stayed at Hode’s watching documentaries in the morning and doing lab work (aka washing ceramics) in the afternoon. It poured for three solid hours before slacking off, though by lunchtime it was starting to be clear and we began to worry they would send us out to the field after all in the afternoon. But they didn’t, and even let us go early. I think it was pretty much the best work day of the month: no excavation, fun stuff and relatively enjoyable work, early dismissal, and beautiful weather in the afternoon and evening when we’re free. Several of us went to town and did some shopping and browsed the “henna” tattoo options at the “mall”, which is about five shops in a little building next to Cayo’s only movie theater.
Several of us had already planned to go out to dinner that night, and happy hour is conveniently at the same bar/restaurant, so we went early. I like banana daiquiris. The restaurant, which is called Mr. Greedy’s, is very Americanized and has very good pizza and allegedly the best burgers in town, although if that is true I think I will just abstain from burgers until I get back to the States.
After dinner, we went to Mana Kai Camping Cabins, which is the other place where BVAR students (mostly the boys) are being housed and which is a really good place to hang out because they have a giant yard, with several hammocks under a pavilion, and a fire pit with a picnic table next to it. It’s down the street from Midas, on the other side of Hode’s. Christopher* had promised us a fire and s’mores, and even though the closest thing he could find to graham crackers wasn’t very good and the chocolate ran out quickly, it was still a great idea. I had to explain s’mores to Sam and Flex (Felicia), who are Australian and English respectively, and later watched Sam excitedly teach Alex, another Aussie, how to make them. It’s interesting that they’re getting kind of a double cultural experience, since they’re in Belize with a group of mostly American students. Several people now live in the U.S. but are originally from somewhere else, but I think the two Brits, the two Aussies, and Chris are the only students who actually live somewhere else.
Anyway, Monday was probably the most fun evening I’ve had, too.
Tuesday it was back to the field, and I was assigned once again to the vertical test pits. Fortunately, it was only a half day, and also fortunately, I was not made to get into the pit, which was more than three meters deep. That afternoon we had a tour of Cahal Pech [“Place of Ticks”], which is the site that’s literally in San Ignacio, up on top of the hill. It’s basically Jaime’s baby, where he’s worked on something almost every excavation season for the last twenty years. I really liked it, because it was very different from the other sites we’ve seen—everything is very compact, and there are lots of tunnels and passageways and small enclosed courtyards. Someone later compared it to a medieval castle, which I thought was pretty apt.
There were two bad things about the trip to Cahal Pech:
1) I had decided that morning that I was getting sick, and by midafternoon I really just wanted to be done and go back to Midas.
2) Tabitha fell down the stairs on our way up to the site, and Alex caught her before she broke her ankle, but she still sprained it pretty badly.
On Wednesday I felt like crap, mostly just because when I get sick I get ridiculously tired. Unfortunately, I was on excavation again. I screened for a while, and then I couldn’t do it anymore and mostly just sat next to the trench until lunch. After lunch I did some trowel work, but still wasn’t terribly useful. It was a very long, very unpleasant day, culminating in the post-dinner lecture that I could barely sit through because all I wanted to do was go to sleep, which was a shame because it was about osteology and I would have liked to at least appear interested even though most of it was a review for me.
Thursday I was still sick but I was working in the lab, which wasn’t so bad. Ditto for Friday, which was a shortened day anyway because after work was the annual staff vs. students soccer game at the field across from Hode’s. Staff won**, but by a less painful margin than I’d expected. That night after dinner there was a big party at Hode’s, since it was the two-week students last official night. I did not drink and left early since I was still sick, but there was entertainment aplenty.
Up next: The ridiculous weekend.
* A handsome history-geek osteology student who dresses like Indiana Jones and is living proof that some people really do live in the Yukon. He’s the only guy here I’ve actually forged a friendship with.
** Obviously, since they had Jaime and several Belizean workers on their side.
Here’s a conversation from before the game:
Jill (one of the field supervisors): Our team is stacked with Belizeans. I think we might have the advantage.
Joe, a student, to David, another student: Do you play soccer?
David: In, like, middle school.
Joe: Well, we have Gabe… And I’m not terrible…
Several of us had already planned to go out to dinner that night, and happy hour is conveniently at the same bar/restaurant, so we went early. I like banana daiquiris. The restaurant, which is called Mr. Greedy’s, is very Americanized and has very good pizza and allegedly the best burgers in town, although if that is true I think I will just abstain from burgers until I get back to the States.
After dinner, we went to Mana Kai Camping Cabins, which is the other place where BVAR students (mostly the boys) are being housed and which is a really good place to hang out because they have a giant yard, with several hammocks under a pavilion, and a fire pit with a picnic table next to it. It’s down the street from Midas, on the other side of Hode’s. Christopher* had promised us a fire and s’mores, and even though the closest thing he could find to graham crackers wasn’t very good and the chocolate ran out quickly, it was still a great idea. I had to explain s’mores to Sam and Flex (Felicia), who are Australian and English respectively, and later watched Sam excitedly teach Alex, another Aussie, how to make them. It’s interesting that they’re getting kind of a double cultural experience, since they’re in Belize with a group of mostly American students. Several people now live in the U.S. but are originally from somewhere else, but I think the two Brits, the two Aussies, and Chris are the only students who actually live somewhere else.
Anyway, Monday was probably the most fun evening I’ve had, too.
Tuesday it was back to the field, and I was assigned once again to the vertical test pits. Fortunately, it was only a half day, and also fortunately, I was not made to get into the pit, which was more than three meters deep. That afternoon we had a tour of Cahal Pech [“Place of Ticks”], which is the site that’s literally in San Ignacio, up on top of the hill. It’s basically Jaime’s baby, where he’s worked on something almost every excavation season for the last twenty years. I really liked it, because it was very different from the other sites we’ve seen—everything is very compact, and there are lots of tunnels and passageways and small enclosed courtyards. Someone later compared it to a medieval castle, which I thought was pretty apt.
There were two bad things about the trip to Cahal Pech:
1) I had decided that morning that I was getting sick, and by midafternoon I really just wanted to be done and go back to Midas.
2) Tabitha fell down the stairs on our way up to the site, and Alex caught her before she broke her ankle, but she still sprained it pretty badly.
On Wednesday I felt like crap, mostly just because when I get sick I get ridiculously tired. Unfortunately, I was on excavation again. I screened for a while, and then I couldn’t do it anymore and mostly just sat next to the trench until lunch. After lunch I did some trowel work, but still wasn’t terribly useful. It was a very long, very unpleasant day, culminating in the post-dinner lecture that I could barely sit through because all I wanted to do was go to sleep, which was a shame because it was about osteology and I would have liked to at least appear interested even though most of it was a review for me.
Thursday I was still sick but I was working in the lab, which wasn’t so bad. Ditto for Friday, which was a shortened day anyway because after work was the annual staff vs. students soccer game at the field across from Hode’s. Staff won**, but by a less painful margin than I’d expected. That night after dinner there was a big party at Hode’s, since it was the two-week students last official night. I did not drink and left early since I was still sick, but there was entertainment aplenty.
Up next: The ridiculous weekend.
* A handsome history-geek osteology student who dresses like Indiana Jones and is living proof that some people really do live in the Yukon. He’s the only guy here I’ve actually forged a friendship with.
** Obviously, since they had Jaime and several Belizean workers on their side.
Here’s a conversation from before the game:
Jill (one of the field supervisors): Our team is stacked with Belizeans. I think we might have the advantage.
Joe, a student, to David, another student: Do you play soccer?
David: In, like, middle school.
Joe: Well, we have Gabe… And I’m not terrible…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
