No risk, no reward.

When I was in Porto, Portugal, I had a lovely dinner next to a table occupied by two German girls, both of whom worked for Bosch.  We chatted a while, as I helped them try to translate "garlic" from German to Portuguese.

I remember them responding to some comment I had made by saying, in unison, "No risk, no reward !" and then giggling.

Alright.  I get it.

I got up ridiculously early, at O-dark-thirty, this morning.  Made in-room coffee, packed, chatted with Shirley (the hotel owner) for a while, and then caught a taxi (lazy, lazy, lazy) to Caye Caulker Water Taxi, my ferry to Belize City.

Once over to Belize City (and having 95% avoided watching the little kid puking on the boat ride), I grabbed a cab for the bus station, where a direct, "non-stop" was heading to Benque del Viejo del Carmen del Something Or Other, pretty much immediately.

Hopped on, and off we went.

Got dropped in San Ignacio, where it was (wait for it) brutally hot, and -- blissfully for my body, but sadly for my eyes -- perceptibly drier.

Marched up to my hotel, who -- apparently -- had double booked the economical rooms, so -- For A Few Dollars More -- put me up in what's basically their new apartment building, but with a common kitchen.  Beautiful tile, delightfully comfortable queen-size bed, nice furniture and case work, and a veranda with a (iffy) view of the town, and another notable (will cryogenically freeze Ted Williams' head) air conditioner.

And cable TV :-)

It was being cleaned, so I dropped my bags, and marched right up (I can't remember the last uphill walk, but ... here it was) to the San Ignacio Iguana Project.  How could you not ?  How cool does that sound ??

It was big fun.  Pics below.  Met up with a couple of Maryland grandparents taking their young grandsons on tour.  The kids were a blast.

After that, I went to the #1 rated local restaurant and (wait for it ... again) mowed down a double bacon cheeseburger.  If meat's going to help my health, I'm going to give it a head start.

Only guy in the place, so the server and cook and I chatted.  They arrange tours, and are quite knowledgeable.

Here's where "No risk, no reward" comes in.

San Ignacio is really an outpost for a bunch of different adventures, and I've signed up for two.

Tomorrow, I'll (not included in the two) walk farther up the hill to Cahal Pech (Mayan ruins), camera in hand, and explore.

Wednesday, I'll do the "meant to be phenomenal, not to be missed" ATM tour with a guide company whose past tour guide may or may not have raped three British female tourists, and whose owner may or may not be a violent psychopath.

On Thursday, I'll do a half day horseback ride, to and around another set of Mayan Ruins, led by a guy who -- to my knowledge -- has never been accused of rape.

The risk is simple: lose my glasses.  It's really as unlikely as a plane crash, but -- in many ways -- as devastating if it happens.  I have "eyeglass retention straps," but I really don't trust them.  No other options, if I want to do any of this stuff.

And I do.

Backing up a bit ....

My last couple days in Caye Caulker were really nice.  I walked about 3hrs each of the last two days, primarily to burn off all I'd been eating, and ... make room for more.  I caught up with ... everybody (Rusty and Lynn, Hilda and Deanna, Ricardo and Natalia, and Steve and Casey), and we hung out the majority of the day.

Eventually, we all went into town, and had a big dinner at Bambooze.  Aside from continuing to battle Swimmer's Ear, Casey learned that her 60-ish year old aunt passed away.  Good luck with both, Casey.

They all got pics, which I'm hoping to get, but I got a picture or three of Steve taking his introductory kite-boarding lesson.  I'll lob those up onto the Gulag, too, in classic NBeener photo-dump fashion.

The Caye Caulker bunch were really great people.  I want to make a big distinction between being lonely (I don't think I have been, much), and remembering how much I enjoy the company of really great people.

If any of you happens across this blog and this post ... Cheers to you all, for helping to make my Caye Caulker time really, really nice.

And .... yeah ... for all the rum punch ;-)

It's down to 37% humidity in my room -- not a good sign.  Will probably have to keep the a/c just barely on, to keep the suffering to an absolute minimum.

But such are the delicate balances that must be struck ... here in the adventure travel outpost of ... The Gulag.

Rude.  I snuck a pick of this Mennonite gentleman, at the bus stop, in San Ignacio.  Prolly' going to hell for it, but ... cool shot :-)

Wasn't an easy pic to take: me ... feeding the little ones.

I know: hotel pics and meal pics are weird, but ... here are some of the former.....

View from the veranda ... where it's just insanely hot !

Anniversary

Yep.  Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my 'incarceration.'

But I did an admirable job of keeping myself distracted.

Early in the morning, I wandered up to Caribbean Colors, where I joined Hilda and Deanna for breakfast and coffee.

Then, we wandered back to Colinda's Cabana's, where all my new friends were staying.  We spent half + the day on the hammocks at the end of their pier, jumping in and out of the water, and chatting more about the incident that led TO me being jailed.  Hilda -- bless her heart -- is a mother of three boys, and  just kept asking more and more about it.

But we talked about family, about marriage, about travel, about the respective politics of the US and Canada, and about many UN-related things.

Steve and Casey showed up.

As did Russ (ops/finance guy for an Oregon software company) and Lynn (an ER Nurse Practitioner).  Each was divorced.  Each had a child.  Lynn had taken a year to do some glorious traveling.

Then, Ricardo and Natalia showed up.  Italian Post-Doc folks, working in (Mike ?) Computational Biology at UC San Francisco, after having lived in Zurich a few years.

Ricardo was flabbergasted that -- after describing his work -- I commented that it "Sounded a lot like Computational Biology."

"That's IT !" He said.

"How do you know about this field ??"

"Well ... I have this dear friend ....."

As the sun was setting, a local sold Lynn a few pounds of fresh red snapper.  Pot luck was called.  I could bring ... nothing.

I decided that dinner rolls, Coke (for the rum), and a BIG bottle of Caribbean rum ... wouldn't offend.

We all cooked.  I did the prep, and stir-fried the veggies.  Casey made wicked Rum Punch.  Lynn pan fried the fish.

We ate.  We drank.  We all started singing.  Beatles.  Pink Floyd.  The Eagles.

Casey -- amused by my pretty good command of lyrics -- kept going to her iPhone to name the top hits from various years gone by, to see if I could and would sing them.  I'd drank enough to have no inhibitions.  They'd drank enough to think I sounded pretty good.  Natalia IS a singer, and harmonized with me, occasionally.  Ricardo kept naming Pink Floyd (primarily "The Wall") songs to get HIS addiction satisfied.

I happily obliged.

Worried about noise and the neighbors, we walked out onto the pier in the black night.  Those who had bathing suits hopped into the water.  The rest of us (ie, me !) stripped down into our boxers and jumped in (worried, of course, about my glasses, but ... no issues).

Back up onto their patio, we kept the rum punch flowing, as the numbers dwindled.  Finally, it was Steve and me, talking about his birthday ascent up Mt. Hood, Oregon.  Sounded like a great trip.  He and Casey are trying to figure out if they could take a year.  The bug bites another couple :-)

My tiny flashlight and I made it back through Ferocious Crab Alley to my hotel, where I conked out.

It's 7am.  I'm showered.  I've had coffee.

I'll wander into town, and see who I can meet.  Steve should be at Kite-Boarding lessons by now.  I have to bring Sudafed to Casey, who -- apparently -- got swimmer's ear.  I'll take my goggles and my beach towel, and prepare for a very low-energy, low-effort, high-sun day.

Wearing Deep Woods Off ... because ... mosquitoes name ME as their lust object.  Bleccch !

Tonight, I'll have to start looking into my next move, scheduled to start on Monday.  More Belize ?  Leave the country ?  Stay on Caye Caulker, and meet some of the next crew, because -- like Aaron said -- it's just a pretty chill, beautiful little place to hang out.

Still don't know.

This is a good group.  These are people whose lives are going pretty well, but who are spending 7-10 days in Paradise.  They're doing okay.

Which is how it SHOULD be .... in the palm-tree-dotted, tropical breeze cooled, fresh pineapple punctuated, rum-soaked offices of ... The Gulag :-)

Staggered home, last night. GOOD for me !!

Hot.

Blazing, scorching, searing hot.  My room doesn't have a/c, but ... with the floor-standing fan on, the breeze makes it plenty tolerable.

Unless the power goes out at 8am ... the morning after the one night I got drunk.

Which it did, and which *I* did.

I ran into Matthew and Dwayne -- the Oklahoma boys -- in the street, as I was heading back to the hotel, last night.

We started drinking, and didn't call it quits until after midnight, and after I'd sung "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," at THE local karaoke bar, which was chock full of glistening tourists, pretty much all plowed, spilling drinks, and stumbling on the dance floor, in what could only LOOSELY be called an effort to dance.

It was fun.  I reeked of beer -- mine and others'.

Steve and Casey were there.  Steve turned 31 (today), so I bought him a shot of Jaegermeister -- a traditional birthday shot, and a sure fire way to get him hung over (also today), on top of Kamikazes and Belkin beer.

Today, we sat on the pier of their hotel, largely since the power wasn't due to come back on until 2pm (which it still isn't ... 2pm).  Steve had to either go throw up, lay down, or both.

I was simply really tired, and more than a bit dehydrated.

The power went off ... three drops into my automatic drip coffee maker dripping.  Oh, bother.  I never sleep in.  I slept in.  I missed my morning coffee.  Rat farts !

Talked with Shirley, for a while -- the proprietor of my hotel.  80 years old.  Fascinating lady.  Loves to travel.  From British Columbia.  Holds Belize, UK, and Canadian passports.  Healthy, but ... getting older.

SHE had coffee, but only what was in her cup ;-)

I marched into town to find Amor y cafe, reputed to have good, if pricey, food and coffee.  I had both.  It was both -- good and pricey, relatively speaking.

I awoke with more Belizean money than I had when I went out, yesterday.  Oh, yeah.  10pm ATM run.  It's starting to come back to me now.  The ATM vestibule, at the bank, was brilliantly air-conditioned !  My new all-time favorite place (in the 0 - 12 square foot category) in Caye Caulker.

Steve is an IT guy.  Casey is doing marketing for a real estate agency.  They're from Portland, live in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, and are contemplating a move to Boulder, Colorado.

Also in the water, off the pier of their hotel, was Hilda, a Law Clerk at a huge Canadian firm, in Toronto.  Hilda and Casey asked my story, which -- unusually -- I decided to tell.

They (as well as Dwayne and Matthew, who got the nickel version, last evening) were horrified at the way I had been treated, and the condition in which I was left.  But ... like me ... they were acutely aware that it "allowed me" to travel.

Small consolation, they agreed, but ... better than nothing.  I think.  Occasionally.  Depending on how you look at it.  Professional driver.  Closed course.  Your mileage may vary.

Which brought us all to politics, man's inhumanity to man, and how hard it is to make the simplest decisions when you're vacationing in Paradise.

We're going for Italian, for dinner, tonight.  That was easy.

What TIME we should go ... was the subject of -- not intense debate, exactly.  More like .... nobody cared enough to even voice an opinion.  I told them I'd swing by around 6p, and we'd decide whether or not TO decide, or if we should simply light a fire under our collective butts, and DO the bloody 12 minute walk into town.

Or blow it off and have a pizza delivered, by golf cart, from up the road.

We agreed, and felt exhausted by the process ;-)

It's that kind of island.

Hilda's fascinating.  Big talker.  Good lady.  Asks great questions.  Is interested in the lives and opinions of others.  Casey's just groovy.  Wants to be a writer.  Has a strong independent spirit.

Steve was too hung over to form opinions about, other than ... the opinion that he's pretty hung over

 ;-)

Which seemed a lot more like an objective fact.

"Body by Jaegermeister."

Happy Birthday, Steve :-)

It's 87* and 79% humidity in my room.  Ever so slight ocean breeze, but ... nowhere near enough.  I miss my fan.  So near, and yet ... so far away.  It's 1:45pm.  Could be 15 minutes.  Could be hours.  This is an "emerging nation," after all.

I've chatted with a few people about the Bowen family, owners of most of the big Belizean industries.  All agreed that the latter patriarch, who fatally crashed his airplane a few years back, was a bastard of epic proportions.  It's commonly known that he had a national monopoly on beer, and that -- when the politicians could no longer support that monopoly, he -- literally -- had the beer bottles of the competition smashed, until the other beer companies were forced to buckle.

He left a couple of daughters behind.  I found one on Facebook.  She had a Grateful Dead reference/icon on her page.  I reached out to her.  Seems like a very nice lady.  Married to the guy who now runs half of daddy's empire.  I refrained from asking the age-old question: how DOES the heiress to some very dirty money sanitize it, or make peace with the stain that's indelibly associated with it ?

We'll leave that for another time :-)

I've done nothing, today, save for the walk into town, around town, and back to the neighboring pier, where ... I also did nothing.  I think I shaved, or my whiskers went on sabbatical.  Something changed in that regard.

Shaving was like skiing moguls, because I actually have a handful of mosquito bites on my face.

On my face.  Can you stand it ??

We were going to rent kayaks.  The water is very calm.  But nobody could be bothered.  Hilda just splashed around in the Caribbean.  Casey jumped in and out.  I was dressed, and just baked on the pier.

I bought a cinnamon roll, in town.  I keep seeing them.  Placencia Village AND here.  Fine.  I can take a hint.  I just can't eat the darned thing, yet.  Not after two iced coffees, an iced mocha frappa-whatever, scrambled eggs, two English muffins, and a glass of watermelon juice.

And two gallons of rainwater -- one poured over me to wet my shirt.  The other put into me, to whet my whistle.  Is rainwater, from a food-safe tank, potable ??  We shall see.

Last night, I had an actual bacon cheeseburger at a Cuban restaurant.  And a mojito.  I needed a break from beer.  The waitress -- amused that I spoke Spanish (wait.  DO I or DON'T I speak Spanish reasonably well ?  I have no idea), and complimented me on my discerning tastes.

It's just a cheeseburger -- first one I've (intentionally) had since about 1985.

And ... yeah ... it was really good.  They don't seem to do that steroid/hormone/antibiotic stuff, but they don't use lofty terms like "organic" or "free range" or "grass fed, grass finished."  It's just beef ... like it was a century ago.

I didn't tell Casey, the animal rights activist at heart, that I'd stopped being a vegetarian on this trip.  Some stories are better left un-told.

Meaning: shrimp linguine for dinner again, tonight :-)

I'm going to rest/nap.  I found out that I DID pack "eyeglass retaining straps" that SHOULD allow me to use my glasses to rent a kayak -- much easier than the prescription swim goggle thing.  So ... provided I don't drink, this evening (easily done), maybe tomorrow will be Dia Del Poached Neil Al Mar.

And now a word from our current sponsor - Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.....

A year ago, tomorrow ... I spent one of the worst nights of my (now almost a half-century) life ... in the Larimer County Detention Center.  

Happy Anniversary to me, huh ?

I'll be contemplating a way to spend tomorrow that nurtures me, brings me some measure of peace, exposes me to beauty, and keeps my mind as uncluttered and quiet as possible.

Maybe it's a whirl at kayak rental.  Maybe it's a day sail on a local charter company.  Maybe it's renting a golf cart, and just being silly.  Maybe I'll walk around the rather desolate southern part of the island, and try to urinate on big lizards and blue crabs.

Or maybe I'll just hang out in town, and tell each person I meet a totally different and wildly untrue back story about myself.

Either way ..... I suspect I'll take a Clonazepam, just to hedge my bet :-)

Ciao for now ... from ... Kelvin and Hobbes, in .... The Gulag.

Caye Caulker

Is where I am, now.  Caught the 10:30am water taxi from Belize City -- a grueling ... maybe 11 minute walk from my hotel.  Safe boat.  Uneventful ride.  Not overloaded.

It's a very touristy island, and -- again -- pretty well centered around water sports (and drinking).  Looks like I'll probably do some kayaking, but cannot safely make snorkeling work, and scuba is definitely out.

But I'll get on the water ... which is nice :-)

As usual, I strolled around town, today.  As usual, it's blisteringly hot.  This room doesn't have a/c OR a television, so I anticipate being out and around a fair bit.  Might have to up the ante to FOUR meals a day :-)

This is what it looks like, plus color commentary:

Crappy night shot, of view of canal, from back porch of Belize City hotel (x3)

Caye Caulker beach

"Chocolate --" a famous local snorkeling/fishing tour guide/impresario/raconteur

Beachside massage business.  Yeah.  That.

A bit surprised to see Jehova's Witnesses on a tiny island, but ... they DO have a/c :-)

Sheet goods !

I can virtually never identify species.  Anybody ?  Bueller ??

An organized shop makes a good first impression for clients.  A local woodworker.

Cutoffs are a problem everywhere, I guess :-)

Although I've never had a cutoff pile of coconut husks, if memory serves.

Fire department

The school.  Aaron ??  Is this where you taught ??

Nope.  Not a Peeping Tom thing.  Just thought she looked classic, basking in the Caribbean sun.

It LOOKS like Southern Yellow Pine.  Bob ???

Hotel room wall paneling.

Caribbean view out my window.

Whenever possible, buy local -- particularly with coffee.  When IM-possible, buy what they have :-)