hola a todos!

After a crazy freaking trip from Placencia, BZ to Puerto Cortes, Honduras, we took an even crazier adventure in a taxi cab from Puerto Cortes to Tela. I don´t have much time to go into detail now, but let me say the ride included 5 people in a small car, lots of luggage, buckets, and a box and other items strapped with twine to the roof of the car. Windows rolled down - it was an extremely hot 2.5 hour trip that would have been much faster if the driver didn´t have to pull over every 2 kilometers to restart the car because it would pop out of gear...no kidding we stopped at LEAST 25 times. We thought we were going to never make it, but 12 hours after leaving Placencia we checked in at a hotel in Tela. More about Tela and Honduras in general, later.

Hasta luego amigos!

Today is our last day in Placencia. Tomorrow we board a boat to Puerto Cortez, Honduras. It's been a good time here. We did some kayaking, road bikes up the peninsula, and read books. while all the activities have been interesting, none so much as the kayaking adventure. We rented a two-person kayak to paddle out to Bugle Caye to do some snorkeling. Dave, the Belizian who set us up in the kayak, said this was about a 1.5 hour trip to the Caye. He said, "you can't see the Caye from here, but once you paddle up this canal, head east and you will see the caye with the lighthouse on it. That is where you need to go." So, we load up our gear, Brian gets in the back, me in the front; we put the skirts (to keep the water out of the boat) and take off. Approximately 20 feet off the shore I hear a loud crack. Brian had popped the pedal off for the rudder. Dave is laughing and calling us back to the shore. He fixes us up again, only for the same thing to happen several hundred yards from the shore. (He can't help it, these kayaks aren't built for his long dancer legs!)

Now, if you have never kayaked in a two-person kayak before, you might not appreciate how much a rudder can improve the kayaking experience. For non-expert kayakers (like us), kayaking is a true test of marital stability, requiring communication, patience, and compromise. This should truly be the first course in premarital counseling. ("So, you guys wanna get hitched? Get in this here kayak and go to that Caye 3 miles away and back. If you both return with no battle scars or blood, we shall proceed with this process to matrimonial bliss.")

Without the rudder, paddles are flying everywhere - one person trying to turn one way while the other is trying to turn the other - people being whacked in the head and fingers. Not pretty. Finally, we found a new place to dock and switched places - so I was in the back controlling the rudder. Then, the true fun began. As we headed east from the end of the canal, we saw Bugle Caye - very, very, far away with a long distance of choppy turquoise water in between.

It was a long ride, and we finally made it. The snorkeling was exquisite. By far the best I have done without the aid of a motorized boat. We even made the trip back to the peninsula. I'm not sure an ice-cold Belikin ever tasted so good. Now, some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Caye Caulker to Placencia

Its day 6 of the trip and now we are in Placencia, Belize. The trip from Caye Caulker to Placencia took most of a day and was chock-full of central american experiences. We boarded the water taxi out of Caye Cauylker at 7:30 am bound for Belize City. Our brief (i.e. terrifying) cab ride a few days before had been through the "nice" part of the city and we were in no way prepared for the not nice part of the city. After getting to the water taxi station we crammed into a mini-van with a few other travelers and headed for the bus stop.

The bus stop is located next to a canal in one of the sketchiest parts of one of the sketchier cities you can find yourself in. Running through that part of town was a putrid canal that collected all the trash and waste from the surrounding neighborhoods. When we stopped in front of the bus station, it was apparent that even the taxi driver did not want to be there. All of a sudden we were being rushed (in a country not known for rushing) out of the cab, given our bags, and change for the cab ride in a blur of about 15 seconds. It was like being in a movie with one of the shaky hand-held cameras as we grabbed our stuff and bolted for the (at least perceived) safety of the bus terminal. Once inside though, we calmed down and gathered ourselves a bit and the people were actually very friendly about helping us find a bus. Turns out we had missed the bus to Placencia, and not wanting to wait around for an hour in that particular location, we caught another bus headed to a town where we could make a connection.

The best term to describe buses in Belize is "chicken buses". As you bounce down the road through the country-side, the bus is constantly stopping to let people in and out carrying everything from bikes to buckets to 50 pound sacks of grain. The first half of the ride they were blasting reggae, songs we had already heard about 50 times (when they like a song here they aren't scared to play it several times in a row just to get the point across). Bree has taken to referring to several songs as the soundtrack to Belize.

The second half of the ride was through the stunning mountainous region of central Belize. The hills around the area were blanketed in thick jungle, with all shades of green occassionally interrupted by the reds, blues, and purples of flowering trees and bushes. Along the road, the jungle was beaten back to carve out room for massive citrus groves. As the bus had no A/C, the windows were down, allowing the cool mountain air that smelled of orange blossoms and citrus to cascade through the bus. The bus eventually returned to the coast to the town of Dangriga, where we briefly considered stopping before deciding to move on all the way to Placencia.

A few hours on a bus and another boat ride later, we finally arrived in Placencia. As the boat navigated through the mangroves, we both got the feeling we would like this place. Placencia gets a bad rap in some travel books for being overly commercialized or overly toursity, or overly-whatever, but so far we've found this place to be far more relaxed than Caye Caulker.

Our impression of Placencia is no doubt enhanced by the cabana we have rented on the beach for $45US per night. So far, we've alternated between laying in hammocks in the sun, laying in hammocks in the shade, swimming, and walking up and down main street in Placencia (a 4 foot wide sidewalk about a mile long). As I keep reminding Bree "I really like this island." To which she responds "Its actually a peninsula." Either way, we really like this island.

We arrived in Belize City on the afternoon of march 18, were ushered quickly into a cab, and hauled to the water taxi station in Belize City. The driver was literally driving 65 MPH on roads with no lines - passing trucks and running down scooters piled three people high. The taxi had not even come to a complete stop when two Belizians threw open the doors, grabbed our bags and started heading into the water taxi station. As Brian paid the driver, i followed them. Now, this is not so much a station like you would consider a bus station. It's a shack with some lawn chairs on the port in Belize. For $35 BZ ($17.50 US) we purchased round-trip tickets on a boat to Caye Caulker. And Georgia, these aren't little speed boats of our past experience (5 years ago). These are boats with covers that seat up to 30 people or more. No more caye-hopping in the pouring rain for us!

Caye Caulker is still amazingly gorgeous, though much more fast-paced than I recall. People still run around barefoot, but there's way more golf carts than there used to be and cars! (Yes Georgia, cars!) In 2004, you would not see one car on this island.

tomorrow we depart for Dangriga or Placencia...have not yet decided.

Counting down...

As the trip approaches, panic is starting to set in. Did we get everything we needed? Did we arrange everything over here like we need to? How are we going to get by in Honduras for 4 weeks with our not-so-great spanish?

The logical approach to allaying these fears is, of course, to go out and buy stuff. So this past weekend we went shopping and spent a somewhat obscene amount of money on things like high-strength mosquito repellent, money belts, travel clothes, a vintage tandem cruiser....

The vintage tandem cruiser is not actually going on the trip. But on the way home from REI we saw this thing at a garage sale down the street (and by garage sale I mean this guy sells stuff every weekend from his garage that I'm pretty sure he takes out of alleys and dumpsters every week - recycling really), and HAD to buy the thing. It is completely non-functional now but should make for an interesting project whence we return.

But I digress.... we think that for now we pretty much have everything lined up. Airline tickets have been purchased, mosquitoe repellent will be applied, the parents are nervous. We leave early morning March 18 & will update our location via the nifty little map we added to the site, so if you get bored at work or erstwhile on the interweb come check out where we are that day. We'll try to keep up with adding photos and whatnot as well.

The Plan

The original plan was to leave our jobs and travel for a year. Well, that was straight out of college before we got caught up in life (including mortgage and car payments). Now our trip duration has been somewhat diminished (to 3 months); however, our excitement has not. Our itinerary to-date includes Belize, Honduras, Bali, and Malaysia. The "good karma" part of the trip is first - several weeks in Honduras working on a water sanitation project with Water for People. After that, it's all fun all the time....kind of a pay and plan as you go sort of adventure. We purchased plane tickets for the first half of the trip, shipped Chloe off to TX (thanks Mom and Dad), and found some wonderful friends to watch our furry feline friend. Now we just have to wait until March 18.

We have set up this blog site to keep friends and family posted on our adventures, destinations, and memories. Takeoff countdown: 16 days.....