As we were waiting in the terminal; our departure time came and went, we kept our eyes mostly on the woman working at the Tropic Air counter. At one point she motioned for us to come over, looked at our boarding passes and walked us to our plane. We realized at that point that she knew us checking in because we were the only people flying to Punta Gorda on this flight. The Tropic Air woman confirmed that for us and said that we would pick up a few more passengers at the Belize municipal airport. The plane was definitely the smallest either of us had ever been on. We got on and sat directly behind the pilot. We were so close to the pilot, our knees touched the back of his chair. With the plane fully boarded (Larry, me, and the pilot), we took off. The pilot did his version of the flight attendant safety talk and took off. He did all of this without ever turning around to look at us. I could read the flight manifest on the seat next to him which said he had two female passengers, Danielle and Molly (Molly is close to Larry, but we think it must have been a mistake made when Polly called to make the reservation for us). Anyway, the flight was much smoother than anticpated, As soon as we were up in the air, we were headed back down to the other aiport-- all we saw was a small shed and a stretch of sand about five feet from the coastline and sure enough, we laned pretty smoothly on a sand runway. We picked up some boxes, three passengers, and a big screen TV. It was a quick 40 minute flight to PG. We landed on a very small stretch of pavement, got off the plane, and Polly was there to meet us. Collecting our luggage was the fastest of any flight ever. They pulled it out of the plane and rolled it 20 feet over to us. Anyway, Polly met us and let us know that we were the only two volunteers this week. It would have been nice to meet other diver people, but the lure of private diving made up for that.
Polly at first took us to drop off our stuff at the ReefCI house. At first glance it seemed like a run down college house. Polly looked around a little and started to try to clean the bathroom and the fridge. We didn't stay long and left to pick up some groceries and have lunch at the Reef CI bar. Polly is really a one woman show for Reef CI. She ownes and operates the dive program and research, runs a bar, and rents a house for the volunteers. Our first impression was that Polly seems scattered about things, but after a little time, we no longer think she's quite as scattered. It's more that she has way more to do then one person could possibly accomplish. She is out on the island Monday through Friday leading dive trips and doing research, she's maintaining her website, marketing, and working with prospective volunteers. Then, in February, she bought the bar to help supplement costs for Reef CI. The bar is open 7 days a week pretty much all day. Like most businesses we've seen in Belize, it's open a lot, but rarely has very many people in it. We hung out there for a while and talked with some folks while Polly did some work. We grabbed some groceries and headed back the house. It was hot hot. It felt even hotter than in Caye Caulker.
When we got back to the house, we started checking the place out a little more carefully. Larry went to take a quick shower to rinse off, the shower curtain had about three feet of mold growing on it. The place was gross. Our room was concrete and pretty bare except for a few remaining items of whoever was staying there before us. There was a fan in the room, but it was just the blades. It worked, but the whole fan looked like it was going to fall over any minute. Larry and I kind of looked at each other and tried to figure out what to do next. After a couple of minutes, we noticed some unidentifiable stuff on the walls. Then more and more things on the walls. It was either snot, vomit, bug guts, or a combination of all three. That was what put Larry over the edge. I was sitting on the bed and noticed that there were a plethora of little ants crawling on it. That's what put me over the edge. We were officially faced with our first real travel dilemma. We really really didn't want to stay there, but weren't sure what to do since we were now really in Polly's care. We didn't want to start the week on a wrong note since we were going to spend the rest of the week wtih Polly, but we were not going to be happy staying at the house, and for sure would not have slept well at all.
We went down the street to a guest house we passed to see if that might be an option. To our welcome surprise, the place was beautiful. Clean rooms, view of the ocean, pool, bikes to use for getting around town, nice owners, upper balcony, breakfast included, and most importantly air conditioning. Did I mention it was hot, like 100 degrees with 100% humidity? The room rented for the equivilent of seventy dollars, we were sold. We decided we should be straight with Polly. She had indicated that she was interested in honest feedback, so no time like the present to start that. We biked back down to the bar and told her we were uncomfortable at the house because it was not clean. Polly acknowledged that she hadn't been there in quite some time and had not had time to check it out prior to our arrival. She was appreciative that we were direct with her and was able to get us a discount on the room at the guest house.
We went back to the reef bar in the evening (by bike, which was great).
We talked to some local folks for a while. People in Punta Gorda are exceptionally nice. Friendly, interesting and interested. People in Caye Caulker were very friendly too, but it was more in a touristy was, and not in a person to person way. Punta Gorda has a strong Garifuna population, and the reef bar had some Garifuna drummers scheduled to perform. it was great. Amazing drumming, with one main guy singing and a couple of women singing and shaking moraccas. It was more chanting and drumming than a band. It was great. We never did learn what the words were that they were singing, but it was powerful none the less. So, when the drummers took a break, we headed back to the Coral House to end what was a very long day.In the middle of switching from the Reef CI house to the beautiful Coral House, Polly arranged a guide to take us to visit some Mayan Ruins, see the Belizian jungle, and visit a couple of waterfalls. So, right on time at 9:00am, Wilfred came and picked us up for our big venture to the jungle. Wilfred turned out to be an amazingly good guide. Very knowledgable of the area, personable, funny, and just overall a very kind person. He also had a wealth of knowledge about the trees and birds in the area as well. Our first stop was Nim Li Punit, one of the many Mayan ruin sites in Belize.
Punta Gorda (PG) is very culturally diverse, and all the cultures seem to get along quite well. The main groups include: Mayan people, Garifuna, East Indians, Chinese, Mennonites, and traditional Belizians. It is interesting how different some of the groups are from each other in terms of culture and dress (especially the Mennonites), but according to everyone we talked to, all the groups seem to live harmoniously. One of other defining things about Belizians in our opinion, is their general focus on environmental conservation. People in Belize seem to really care about protecting both their native flora and fauna. There are many organizations based in Belize focused on conservation. We met a guy at the San Antonio waterfall who was part of a volunteer group that watches over the area from sunrise to sunset everyday to make sure it stays clean. When he's not doing that, he is an organic farmer. He spoke to us for several mintues about how he felt that eating organic and farming organically has been good for both his health and for the land.
Anyway, I digress... the Mayan ruin site was very cool. Experts believe that there were approxiametley 10,000 people who lived around this site. They think only a small part of it has been discovered to date. They alse believe that there were several other Mayan cities nearby with about the same or more people. We saw some carvings on big pieces of rock mostly identifying people and dates, some tombs, and some replicas of what they thought the housing might have looked lke. We also saw a place where they believe they played some sort of sport involving a really heavy ball made from the nearby rubber trees. In addition to being played just for sport, they believe the game was also played for religious reasons or political reasons as well- although those games were played to the death. There was stadium like seating on either side of the playing field for the folks to watch.
In another part of the site, there was an astrological calander made up of big stones. The stones were spread out and calculated such that the light would shine on them just right on the solstice and the equinoxes. How they knew to figure that out is beyond my comprehension. More to the point, how the mayan folks figured how to do a lot of things is fascinating. Wilfred hopes that there will be more money put toward excavation in the area in the future. There are a lot of unanswered questions and he believes there are still alot of answers buried below. Just walking around, you can see piles of stones under which there must be more structures. Wilfred also taught us about a variety of trees in the area including huge palm trees, rubber trees, mango tree, avocado trees, trees with spikes on the trunk, and trees whose bark will peel off if attacked by bugs, etc. You have to have strong defense mechanisms to survive in the jungle- and so do the trees.
We were the only people visiting the ruins. Usually there are more, but Wildfred thinks that the heat is keeping people away. It was indeed hot! At the end of the circuit, there was one lonely Mayan girl selling some crafts. Wilfred said there are usually a lot more, but, not today. We didn't buy anything and felt a little badly about that, but the items were surprisingly expensive and there wasn't anything that we wanted.
The rest of the day was spent visiting two waterfalls in more of the jungle areas. The first one was great for swimming and extremely refreshing- and clean, thanks to the volunteer group mentioned above. Our final stop was at a national park. Wilfred told us that there were numerous national parks and more all the time. There are numerous volunteer groups that come in and help set up the parks- which is great, but there is no real plan for ongoing maintenance of the trails or facilities. Not much different than the state of public lands in the US.
On to the diving. On Monday morning we headed out to Hunting Caye, the new home of ReefCI. Hunting Caye is part of the Sopadilla Cayes Marine Reserve. It is the second longest barrier reef in the world (the great barrier reef in Austrailia is the longest). It was about an hour and a half boat ride straight out into the blue water until we came up to the islands. The island really was a paradise island. That is with the exception of the trash (mostly plastic bottles) floating in the ocean and washing up on the shore. Apparently, trash from Guatamala and Honduras flow down the river and into the ocean. It is gross. If there was ever any question about reducing, recycling, and reusing, then looking at the coast of the island answered that question loud and clear.
After a quick lunch and sorting of dive gear, we were off for our first dive. It was beautiful. Lots of fish of all sizes and very healthy coral. A very healthy reef. With just the three of us diving, it was most calm diving we have ever done. Very luxurious. The next three days were spent in the following routine: wake up, eat, dive, rinse, eat, dive, rinse, eat, dive, shower, eat, sleep. We counted that we changed in and out of dive gear and clothes seven times per day. In the time in between the above activities, which really wasn't much, we studied different fish, creatures, coral, sponges, etc. Polly ws great in teaching us about some behaviors of different fish and pointing things out to us underwater. It was absolutely an ideal dive experience. We did do two reef surveys that ReefCI will use as part of their research. One was measuring conch, and one was a commericial fish count. It was really fun. The only downside to the time on the island was the sand flies. As Polly said, paradise comes at a cost. For hunting caye, that cost was sand flies (and heat, but that was not specific to the island. After one last dive on Friday morning, we headed back to the mainland. Overall we are extremely impressed with the organization Polly has built. Polly told us a little bit about the struggles she had setting up the organization. She faced corruption, threats, and someone even sank her boat at one point. She didn't give up and now she and reef CI are a well respected part of the PG community.
Back in PG, we spent the late afternoon cleaning up and repacking for our next adventure. We felt like we were on a two week vacation, and now we were headed off to travel. Next stop: Peru.
1 comment:
LOVE the travel 'discoveries'! You actually are starting to look relaxed again, Dani!!! :)
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