The Peninsula 2 & Belize

So, it's after sunset, and I'm sitting in this dingy little picnic-table fish-fry place just off the beach in Caye Caulker, Belize, and I'm munching on delicious red snapper, and gulping down my third rum-punch, and sweating, and wringing my hands and thinking:

Goddammit's been two weeks since I've written anything! I've got so much to say, how will I ever get it all out? Bah, to hell with big thorough entries, and to hell with expensive internet - if I don't write now, I'll never catch up with myself!

So, I did what anyone in my position would do - I emptied my glass, ordered another for the road, and made for the nearest internet cafe to throw-down this rag-tag entry in the hopes of bringing you all up to speed with respect to where I've been and what I've been up to these past few weeks. A lot has happened, so I'll waste no further time on introductory remarks.

(Except the time it takes to say that I have missed you all the past little while, and I flatter myself to think that maybe a few of you have poked around this website of late, and perchance even thought: Hmm... I wonder why Joe hasn't written? But I digress.)

I left Campeche for Merida - the capital city of Yucatan state - shortly after having written my last entry. Being as I am, without guidebook, I had little to no idea what I would find there, and was thus pleasantly surprised to find an incredibly beautiful colonial city full of history and culture - certainly my favorite on the Peninsula.

As a testament to the culture of the place, there happened during my short visit, to be a Salvador Dali exhibit hung at one of the many art galleries in town, which I happily viewed. Cameras were not permitted in the exhibit, but I did my best to surreptitiously capture a few of the more interesting paintings in photographic form for your viewing pleasure. You'll pardon, I hope, the necessarily clumsy framing of the following few photos, which, as always, you can enlarge by clicking upon them.



On my second day there I met a man in the town square, and wound up staying with him free of charge at his hostel-to-be for the remainder of my trip. He was a kind fellow - a Mexican of some thirty years - who introduced me to a few of his friends, and showed me around town to a few local sites - most notably a set of beautiful cenotes or underground sinkholes. I suppose I'll let the photos do the talking on this one.



I was scheduled to meet Jaz in Cancun on the 16th of March, and so left Merida on that date, and met her at the airport. Now, Cancun is infamous enough among Mexican cities as a raucous tourist destination, but it is particularly well-known as a hub for a unique species of tourist known affectionately among Mexicanos as spring-breakers. For those of you who don't know, these are predominantly young folks of a particularly saucy persuasion who fly into Cancun for a few weeks each year to drink their faces off, shout obscenities, clog the white-sand beaches that hem them into their high-rise hotels, and indulge in all other manner of debauchery before promptly skipping town when the school-bell tolls anew.

Suffice it to say that I had not planned on coming to Cancun, let alone on coming in the height of spring break, but it was the cheapest place for Jaz to fly into, and the best timing both of us could muster, so there we were. I had initially planned to nab her and hit the road a.s.a.p., but we wound up spending three nights there all told. Why so long? Well I'll tell you - shortly after tripping through the so-called "hotel zone" we got the idea that it might be fun to stick around and do our best to blend-in with the more overtly toursity tourists - maybe even do our best out-tourist them? This was just novel enough an idea for me to accept, and so we got ourselves into gear, signed up for the nearest all-inclusive full-day tour we could find, and off we went, to Chichen Itza, as it happens - one of the largest and most famous of Mayan cities, located a few hours inland from Cancun. Again, I think the photos do a pretty good job of encapsulating this event.

Once we snapped out of it and realized we'd better keep moving, we headed on down the line a little to a portion of the strip known as Playa Del Carmen, where we thought it might be easier to find some peace and quiet. As it happened, we were quite mistaken about this, and found only more of the same: big shiny tourist trap streets full of Haagen-Dazs ice-cream parlours, McDonald's and Starbucks coffee shops. A few days of playing cheezy tourist is one thing, but this was getting out of hand. The beaches however, were very nice, if shockingly full, and we were too tired to keep moving right away, so we decided to pause for a few days and soak up a bit of the the punishing Carribean sun. Each of us earned burns here that would haunt us for days to come.

Next stop was another hopefully quiet place - a little set of sea-side Mayan ruins known as Tulum. Jaz and I had heard this was a nice cheap place to chill out and enjoy the white sands and crystal blue waters of the Carribean, and it was, but still quite full, and we paid too much to stay at the only place we could find vacant. But by this time we had grown weary of trying to be stingy in a strip of towns that seemed to forbid it, however, and so yielded to the high prices, and enjoyed every minute of it.

After a few days there, we began to set our sights on Belize. We dropped a few couchsurfing lines, and although Belize is a quite sparsely populated country (with not much more than 300,000 people total, only 40 of whom are willing to host couchsurfers) managed to find a couple of potential hosts. So, after bussing down to the lovely city of Chetumal in southern Quintana Roo, where we spent two nights in a quiet little guesthouse, and did our best (and failed) to find some rare contact lenses to replace the one Jaz had lost in the sands of Tulum, we headed into Belize, less one eye's worth of vision on a particularly sunny day in mid-March. (After Jaz lost her contact, there was some talk of an eye patch, and she even went so far as to fashion one out of an expendable bathing suit, but chickened-out shortly thereafter.)

There was a touch of trouble at the border - despite having traveled in Mexico for three months, I had not once been asked to pay any entrance fee, or purchase any type of visa or tourist card, nor had any government officials ever asked to see my passport. I had simply walked across the border in Tijuana, and gone about my business. This fact was interpreted by the Mexican border officer, however, as an "evasion of immigration" on my part, and I was forced to pay a small fine of 100 pesitos. No big deal.

While we were sorting this out however, our temperamental bus-driver decided that we were taking too long, and promptly threw our belongings into the street, driving off without us, despite our earnest protestations. Thankfully, we were able to hop a cheap rickshaw ride through the neutral zone between the Mexico and Belize borders and shuffle through immigration there in time to board our bus once more. Our driver was less than pleased to see us again, but let us on without a fuss.

I don't quite know what I expected of Belize, but it has treated us very well thus-far. Far more rural, for one thing - due in-part to the aforementioned modesty of population - but also a huge cultural shift. There is simply not enough time to include a satisfying account of Belizean culture here, but points of note include radical shifts in language (more English and a healthy splash of Creole), food (new and different spices, deep-fried breads and delicious savory meats), music (reggae, and a bit too much Sean Paul), and dance (basically pelvic-thrusting and dry-humping).

We have been here a number of days now, but only stayed in a few places. Our first stop was a quaint little town named Orange Walk, where we surfed with a sweet young Jewish fellow from Washington D.C., named Jacob who taught us a bit about the Peace Corps, and provided us with tons of information about Belize, and pointed us toward our second stop - Crooked Tree.

As it happens, we were passing through this tiny village at one of two particularly special times of year: Tilapiafest Tilapia is a small and delicious fish native to the waters surrounding Crooked Tree. During the festival it is harvested en masse and prepared in a variety of different ways, each delicious. Incidentally, we also enjoyed some turtle meat, and eggs at this time, and enjoyed the various other celebratory activities of the day, namely, beer-drinking, mud-bog/tractor-pulls, and highly provocative dance competitions involving some far-too-young members.


Despite our initial discomfort at the sight of toddlers being taunted into bump-and-grinding before a screaming crowd of family and friends, it ought to be noted that a good time was had by all. In fact, apart from a few surprise midnight visits from some curious locals - both puctured below, the latter, I'll have you know, was curious enough to crawl across my naked chest - Jaz and I quite enjoyed our short time in this tiny place.


Since then, we have moved on through Belize city from whence we caught a water taxi to Caye Caulker where we remain for the moment. It is a beautiful and tiny island, well-geared to looking after tourists, to be sure, but not of the offensive variety that plague the northern half of the Mayan Riviera - there are no spring-breakers here, and the waters are warm and clear.

Highlights so far have included snorkeling with tropical fish, eels, and sting-rays, biking around the island, and kayaking among mangroves crawling with cauliflower-looking jellyfish. There are loads of birds, and the food is great, and I am reading lots and enjoying the delicious local stout beer. In short, life is good these days, and again, I regret having taken so long to tell you all about it. Thanks for waiting!

So, we're all set to leave the island tomorrow, and have only a few more days in Belize before heading down into Guatemala. With luck there will be some place to stop and throw some photos up before then. I miss you all, and I hope life is moving along well - talk to you in April!