I am dedicating this post to a typical Belizian day, or at least
aspects of life that are unique to Belize such as the mushrooms that
grew from the floor of the bathroom and the wall of the shower....
They
were lovely, yes that is real life and it happened on three separate
occasions. The three that grew from the floor were particularly bad as
me and my friend Andi (the one I shared the bottom bunk with, we became
really close as you would imagine) cleaned them up at 1 in the morning
because we both had to go to shower and the mushrooms were giving
us a headache.
Washing clothes, which usually happened
once every other week, luckily for me because I brought a lot of things,
too much in my parents opinion but hey I only had one suitcase and it
was 50 lbs.
So
basically you had to fill up buckets of water from outside, dump them
in with the clothes and soap, usually it took about two buckets and then
there was a 15 minute wash cycle and then we would drain the water
through a hose onto the front porch and then get more water and do it
again, to get the soap out. That part of the washing machine fit a
surprising amount of clothes, the spinner part however, not so much and
it was only 5 minutes long so then they would have to hang outside, or
one of the makeshift clothes lines in the room to finish drying.
FOOD FOOD FOOD
DINNER
TIME! We always went and picked up dinner from mama K's house (that's
what we called our cook) every Sunday thru Thursday at 5pm it was about a
ten minute walk and it always came in nice little Styrofoam boxes.
Sometimes we all ate together, but usually a group of us would go pick
up dinner, go running in the park (because by then it was semi cool) and
then ate dinner, and then a couple times a week would go get ice cream
at this place across the street.
OH and this place was called sweet ting located on top of this HUGE hill but it had really good cake and baked goods and they sold legit American candy so everyone went there for their chocolate cravings.
This is a video I took going to pick up dinner at Mama K's one evening, the reason it gets all crazy when I walk into the house is because Mama K does not like being on camera that much, so I was trying to film without her noticing. Sorry its so shaky, if you listen closely you can hear her talking and its a pretty good example of the creole accent.
Mama K in her kitchen, showing us her shoes that were twice the size of her foot.
Walking back for dinner! Sometimes she would come and eat with us at the house, that was always really fun. You can see in my hand I have two of the dinners in the bag.
Cleaning the kitchen one day and I found this lovely surprise...I think it was bread at one point. But it was so green and moldy we couldn't really tell, but hey at least I was cleaning..?
Ice cream at Vivians! After we work out of course, because whats better then ice cream after a run. This would usually happen a couple times a week.
The grocery store, well one of the three that we frequented. Fun fact, they are all owned by Asians, every single supermarket is run by Asians. At some point a country in Asia came over a assisted the Belizian people and so that how they ended up in Belize.
Because everyone loves warm box milk...yes this was the milk.
This house, is just one of many that sells food from there front door, but this one is near and dear to my heart because it sold choco bananas! for 25 US cents and I basically got one at least every other day. Most of the food, if we went out to buy food, we bought off the street from various shacks, especially for lunch. Belize is one of few countries, where it is clean enough to get street food and not be asking for food poisoning.
Typical Belizian meal, bbq chick, rice and beans, fried plantain and cole slaw. Eaten out of a Styrofoam box of course. Oh and they love mayonnaise they put it on EVERYTHING.
Me, Bri and Jez making lunch one day at the house. Eggs, cheese, onions and zucchini. We all would make it together because we usually ended up making 20+ eggs. And I cant even count how many times I burned myself trying to light the gas stove with a match.
The market! This is where we got all of our fruit, and we ate a lot of fruit. Bananas were 20 for 1 USD and they were the best bananas ever, and the pineapple, you can eat the whole thing, there is no core you just cut off the spiky things and that is by far the best pineapple I have ever had.
Purified water, crucial necessity of course.
The park! Where we would run laps on the "track" some people would play basketball, or we would play with the kids when they were waiting for their bus home from school.
That blue thing is his hair, or dreadlocks, which were EVERYWHERE. The culture has huge Caribbean and Rastafarian influence.
Church on sundays, in front of the english branch which is a house and the the spanish branch has a building, which is second.
Just your average wildlife. This tarantula and well whatever the other
thing is where found at the old peoples home we worked out. But never
fear we also had a tarantula that size that lived in what would be the
chicken coops under the door of our house, we discovered him one day
while we were working out in the yard. And there was also always a
various amount of geckos that lived in the house.
Our lovely house, well just a part of it, the sheets were put up to create another room when we ran out of space. We also always had a massive pile of shoes by the door.
The local department store and night club which we are 99% sure was a brothel.
Meeting time! We had meetings every sunday and Wednesday night to discuss projects and schedules. Amanda is the country director in green and Hilary is the one with the Ukulele. You can see our lovely calender and then weekly days.
Graveyards, where everyone is buried above ground.
Mayan calendars and other mayan things where sold everywhere, if you can read the little cartoon it is pretty funny.
Random house, thought it looked cool, definitely one of the nicer houses.
Cooling off at the pool after a long day! There was a resort by us on top of a huge hill of course but we would go in and use there pool and it would feel awesome.
That is probably what I would classify this weekend as since everything we did was very touristy but very fun. We only get 30
day visas so in order to renew them we simply leave the country and come back
in and bam new visas. We went and visited Tikal in Guatemala, we only live
about a 15 minute drive from the boarder and then just walked across which was
a cool experience. Despite the rain at the beginning it ended up just being
slightly overcast which was nice kept the temperature down. This is the fourth
Mayan ruin I have visited and was definitely the most impressive second being
Tulum in Mexico. But Tikal is just huge they have a couple thousand structures
not even a fourth of them are unearthed. You can climb on so many of them and
they just keep going like you climb up one and walk through it and then all the
sudden there is a ball court. Guatemala was also incredible the people there
have such a rich culture there was a lot of them wearing traditional Mayan
dress walking around Tikal and apparently they still do rituals and ceremony's in
Tikal itself. We also learned that although yes December 24, 2012 is the end of
the Mayan calendar this just happens to be one of the several times the Mayan
calendar has ended and will simply just start over again at year 0 and end in
5,337 years. Hate to disappoint looks like we will make it to 2013. Then for
lunch we had a traditional meal and I was dared to eat the homemade hot sauce
by a spoonful which of course naturally I did it. Regret, I have never felt so
much fire in my mouth and I started crying because it was so hot. But totally
worth it because I got free ice cream. So end of the day ended up with lots of
stamps in my passport and another unforgettable experience.
Walking across the boarder!
Back view of temple one, the most famous one. Its a temple because it only has one staircase.
Me, Bri, Kristy and Andi at the top of one of the many ruins. I love them.
Some more ruins, pretty cool looking they are all covered though with an additional layer of bricks to help preserve them.
One of the carvings on the side of the temple its covered up with a hut to help preserve it, its really big and incredibly cool looking supposedly its in the image of The Chocolate King, one of the most famous kings.
All of us together with temple one in the background!
This ledge was slightly intimidating this is a close up of the one that is above.
Saturday was all day fun, literally. We left about 8:30 and went zip lining,
it was of course raining again because now it is rainy season and we were zip
lining through the jungle. The views were incredible, it was over 2,000 feet of
zip line which involved climbing ladders, hiking through the jungle or simply
zip line from one platform to the next. There was a few tree people collisions
because you are responsible for stopping yourself, but we all made it out
alive. At the end for the last zip line we had to take a jungle lift up, it was
a little nerve racking but completely thrilling.
(Currently dont have any pictures of zip lining)
After lunch we drove to a different place and went cave tubing which
was absolutely incredible, on of the coolest things I have ever done. It of
course naturally started pouring down rain the second we got there so we hiked
through the jungle for about 45 minutes in the rain before we could put in our
tubes. It then stopped raining so we free swam for a bit and then entered the
cave. You have to go with guides which was actually really cool because they
gave us this whole Mayan tour and how the Mayans believed the caves were the
entrance to the underworld and would go in them and perform rituals. They had
us all link together as they took us through the caves. On the way home we
stopped in Spanish Lookout which is where all the Mennonites live. Awhile back
the government made a deal with them that they could live tax free so the
country could benefit off their produce, its so odd to see people dressed as
pioneers driving cars. They are the most technology advanced people in the
country and make the best ice cream. And now its Sunday and Ive been working on
this blog post hanging out with everyone in the house. Our chef, who we call
Mama Kay came over and ate dinner with us, she speaks creole and is one of the
most entertaining people I have ever met as she called out everyone in the
house on different things, like not being married yet or having a crush on each
other. Oh and we attempted baking chocolate chip cookies. So all and all there
are really no words to describe how truly amazing this has all been. I
absolutely adore everyone in the house we all get along so well and I feel like
I have already known them from somewhere before. I love life. Thank you for
taking time to read my blog posts, if you have made it this far.
The whole group! Almost the whole team went, and yes it was absolutely pouring rain, the first time I have actually felt cold here, but so worth it.
The end of the river.
Hiking through the jungle to get to the starting point.
This is were we started the cave entrance is on the far right, the water so blue and pretty.
Everyone in the water!
All linked together ready to enter the cave
Exiting the cave.
Random Mennonite picture! They have the best watermelon.
Weekends are the best, always. Xunachinuch is some ruins pretty close to where we live and super inexpensive to visit which is nice. Its small though especially in comparison to Tikal. We took this tiny wooden "ferry" across the river and then hiked a mile to get the ruins there is a couple temples. The main one that you can climb up to the top where the view is absolutely incredible you could see Guatemala because we are so close to the boarder. And then right were the bus stop is there is all these little shops HELP International actually put up a map there to help increase tourism and help the town.
Only four of us went to Xunantunich, Vanessa 27 just graduated from University of Chicago with her MBA, Andi 18 just finished her first year of college at a JC in California, Jeff 19 who also just finished his first year of college and then myself who just graduated high school!
Restored side of the temple, what it should have looked like.
All of us at the top....
..........View from the top!
The next weekend was my birthday weekend!! Best 18th birthday ever we went to Placencia, just one of the beaches here in Belize, which is home to the Guinness Book of world records smallest main street in the world. Traveling there though was a battle, it is a fight to get on the bus and it took about four hours but the beach was beautiful and our hotel was literally right in the sand. It was super laid back we kayaked one day, where I of course despite the lack of waves still managed to get completely wipe out and end up with the kayak on top of me. One night we learned to salsa dance it was great to celebrate my birthday on the beach with great new friends. And it was so nice to have hot water at the hotel, I forgot how much I like hot showers.
At dinner for my birthday! The whole restaurant sang to me and I got free cake! It was the best. In the picture starting on the left is Taylor, me, Hilary, Heather, Bri, Andi, Jez and then Jasmine.
Waiting at the bus stop in the middle of no where.
We woke up one morning and watched the sunrise this was right outside our hotel room.
More sunrise and wave...
Passed out on the bus
Waiting for the bus, it was a bus war, literally.
The whole group!
Andi giving me a birthday tackle! This was right outside our hotel
