My Horror Journey to Belize Part 1

The year must have been 1975 plus or minus. Here’s what I was thinking: Belize is a good vacation destination because it’s an English speaking country and it’s exotic. Don’t forget it used to be British Honduras. Belize also has the largest barrier reef in Western Hemisphere and therefore it will have magnificent snorkeling. So, I beg, plead and cajole my partner into going with me and agree that he can bring his buddy. (In this story he will be known as U.C. which stands for Uncooperative Companion. His buddy will be known as I.C. which stands for Inebriated Companion.

We make our plans and they have to be loose because UC hates to plan anything. Winging it is his way so the only thing we book in advance are the plane tickets. Everything else: good luck.

Departing from Oakland, California we fly to Monterey, Mexico, where we sail through customs and re-board to fly to Cancun. We’re going to rent a car in Cancun and drive down the eastern coast of Mexico to Belize. We get to Cancun early so we have time to do something before we have to pick IC up from the airport. He’s getting in later in the afternoon. We hop on a bus with “Nosotros con Mario” emblazoned on the side (We’re with Mario) and arrive at a small dock to get the ferry to Isla Mujeres. Once there we only have enough time to get a Mexican coke (with required drinking straw) and sit there sipping where the waves lap languidly next to the break water.

Now it’s time to go get IC.

How do we know he’s there? We hear boisterous laughing way off down the hallway and pretty soon there he is yucking it up with some stewardesses. He’s been drinking the whole time he’s been on the plane. Three sheets to the wind and then some. At least he can walk. Back in Cancun now we rent a VW Beetle for the road trip to Belize. I call the VW Bug La Cucaracha and we have been assured that the Mexican auto insurance we buy will get us there and back just fine.

So off we go with UC at the wheel because IC is rip roaring drunk. He goes on and on with one hilarious anecdote after another and I can’t remember a single one. My main entertainment is to look out the car window (I’m sitting in the back seat) and watch the monotonous scenery go by. It’s a tunnel of jungle all the way to our first stop, a hotel just off the highway on the road to Tulum. The only excitement is a lazy tarantula crossing the road in front of us.

It’s almost dusk when we arrive at the hotel. It’s a pink stucco Spanish two story and you access the front desk through a tiki bar. IC stops at the bar for fortification. Our room is spare but clean and once we put down our bags, we decide it will be fun to check out the ruins even though we know that it’s closed. A full moon illuminates the empty paved road, so we walk right down the middle. It’s not far. It’s now dark when we arrive at Tulum and everything is indeed closed. The vendor huts have their security doors pulled down but the entrance gate is a joke, and we can easily squish through and we’re in and have the place all to ourselves.

At first, we walk together into the compound but then IC decides to wander off alone, and UC and I go another way. IC is a big boy and we figure he can take care of himself.

It’s now lightly raining but this is perfectly okay because the rain is warm enough and there’s the waves of the Caribbean ocean in a small cove with El Castillo looming above on the cliff. We strip down and plunge into the small waves and bob around. I have one moment where I’m by myself and get to savor the solitude of me, the ocean, and the clouds with the moon peeking through openings in the clouds. I could be a Mayan girl. It could be 800 years ago. Nothing has changed. Martha Gellhorn put it perfectly, “I was in a state of grace which can rightfully be called happiness, when body and mind rejoice totally together. This occurs as a divine surprise, in travel; this is why I will never finish traveling.”

When are finished with our little swim we go off trying to find IC. He’s nowhere to be found. We’re getting a little worried and then after a bit of wandering around calling his name we find him. There he is passed out on a rock platform at the base of another temple.

The next day we attempt a detour to see the underwater caves at Bel Ha but the muddy dirt road is rutted with ruts the size of the Grand Canyon and we don’t want to take the chance of wrecking La Cucaracha. No go to underwater caves.

Back on the highway of the unending tunnel of jungle. More tarantulas languidly crossing the road until we come to a little roadside café in the middle of nowhere at Xul-Ha (shool-ha). The bathroom outside has a toilet that actually flushes but is in a dingy storage room and I watch carefully for snakes while I hover not wanting to sit down. No toilet paper either.

There’s a little “café” there and UC and IC say let’s eat everything and get it over with. They’re talking about “La Tourista” otherwise known as the famous Montezuma’s Revenge so there they are chowing on uncooked salsa piled high on their tacos which are delicious by the way but I having had the worst dysentery on the planet when I was in New Delhi years ago tell them no way Jose I know what dysentery feels like and it’s no picnic. I’m warning you. Ignoring me they gleefully down everything in spite of what I say.

And then we come to the river at the border of Mexico and Belize…

Part Two – We Arrive in Belize and Things Start to Go South