Well, if I keep blogging at this rate, I’m not gonna have much to show for my travels. Sorry if have disappointed anyone on the frequency of my posts, but I didn’t realize that I’d be able to keep myself so busy. I just thought I’d be alone all the time, doing my own thing, but as it turns out, I’ve been meeting tons of peeps and keeping my schedule so busy that I have barely done any fishing at all. And if you know me at all, that’s just plain weird.
Just to give you an idea of what it’s like out here, I’ll try and paint a little picture with some humble words. I got an apartment here on the island, and as I’m typing this right now, lizards and iguanas are scurrying about the courtyard. There’s a small gecko-looking lizard that lives in my apartment, though I’m not sure where he spends most of his time - I only see him occasionally. I have named him Littles. He’s maybe an inch and a half long, and I welcome his presence because I’m pretty sure he’s on constant bug patrol. When you look to the east here, you always see the barrier reef and its wavy smile, which is such a lovely sight. Especially when it’s accompanied by the whistling sound that the constant wind on this island creates as it sails over your freshly opened, ice cold Belikin. A snorkel trip at the reef gave me the opportunity to check out a big old barracuda, stingrays, nurse sharks, grouper, and a million other types of reef fish in about every color you could imagine. As with most reefs, the life out there is the true definition of rich. “The Split,” which is where hurricane Hattie broke the island in two back in ’61, is the chill spot. It’s a great place for a swim or just lounging with a bucket of beer and a few friends. The wind, which as I mentioned is pretty much a constant and always making the palm trees dance, comes in from the east; so the water in all of its shades of turquoise, is pretty rough on the eastern side. It’s difficult to see much into it if you’re looking for fishy critters (as I always try to do), but if you go to the west side of the island which faces back towards the mainland of Belize, it’s sheltered enough from the wind that you’re usually able to catch a glimpse of a bonefish (sometimes tailing, but mostly as sandy ghosts patrolling the flats for something to eat), small barracuda lazying about, needlefish skimming the surface, or a school of jacks speeding through the grass, sand and mangroves.
It’s weird to think that I have been here for a month now. One month down, and who knows how many more to go. I said in my original post that I just planned on meeting as many people as I could and hope that led me to new adventures. Well, in my first week here, I met a group of people who offered me a place to go to in Tulum, Mexico and then to Playa del Carmen, I was approached by a guy who needed help splitting costs and running lines on his catamaran to Guatemala, and I met Tommy who lives here and had plans of traveling to El Salvador for a week with a free place to stay at a sweet house on the beach. So I picked El Salvador, and just got back on Monday. The trip was insane. Tommy, TJ and I were Team Belize, and we met up with four of Tommy’s high school buddies (Todd, Matt, Glen and Paul) at Rancho Cajun. Rancho Cajun is Todd’s rental house that he manages just outside of La Libertad, El Salvador, in a small town called Playa Sandiego. In total the trip was 12 days. We spent the night in Antigua, Guatemala on the way there, then we spent six days in El Salvador, then back to Antigua for two days, then we took a boat down the Rio Dulce down to Livingston (which was some of the most amazing scenery I’ve seen in my life) where we spent the night, then we took a boat from Livingston to Punta Gorda (better known as PG), spent the night there, then took a bus back home to Caye Caulker.
Now I’m home in Caye Caulker for the next month or so, and although I haven’t decided exactly on what my next move is going to be, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be heading for Guatemala to do a home stay language study, probably somewhere on Lago de Atitlan. From there I may head for Nicaragua, so to all of you who’ve offered advice on places to go in Nica, I’ll probably be hitting you up in the near future. I wouldn’t be opposed to doing the language study there, if it’s a possibility. I’ll try and do a better job of updating the blog from here on out, especially now that I have a somewhat permanent residence.
-Peace and reel/real grease
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