Peenie Wallie

In the morning, I wake up at the Spendrift Inn on Ambergis Caye, in Belize, and post the photos that I've not been able to post for the last three days.

Wander down to the snorkel place in front of the hotel.

No one else is signed up to snorkel today, so they send me down to the next pier.

At the next pier, they're going snorkeling at Hol Chan and Shark Ray Alley. I'm like..fair enough...I'm all in.

They fit me for a pair of flippers. I brought my own snorkel and mask, if you can believe it. And we take off on a boat for Hol Chan. I'm with a family from Longview, Texas. They came here before 20 years ago, and can't believe how developed it is now.

They're telling me about this place where they went cave tubing near Belmopan. And that I should go to Takil in Guatemala. But I don't know, really. I'm thinking about going down to Punta Gorda and catching the ferry into Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. Bypass Belmopan altogether, I figure. I like the idea of putting my motorcycle on a boat. It's fun. It's manly. There's something romantic about going where there are no roads. Plus, the ferry ride is a time to relax, take notes, catch up on my blog. Otherwise I forget everything.

We tie off to a buoy in the protected marine sanctuary of Hol Chan, and swim around the reefs for a while. They're doing a good job of protecting the reefs down here. Like, you don't drop anchor. You tie off on a buoy. This is huge, of course. But also, he tells us not to touch the reefs, or the turtles, etc. The reefs look much better here than what we saw in Cozumel back in March. In Cozumel, the reefs were just hammered. Raped. Nothing to see but sea urchins and sting rays. Here, there's healthy shoals of fish. Among the largest I've ever seen. The water is clear. As clear as Hawaii. But still not as clear as the Bahamas. I'm sorry. It just isn't.

But nice, of course, and we snorkel around the reefs for a while, checking out the reef, lobsters, sharks, sting rays, grouper, snapper, and sea turtles. I swim up to a sea turtle and try to ride it, and when I surface, the guide admonishes me. But, he illegally collects sea shells for the girls on our trip. No tip for you, buddy.

We pull up anchor and go to the next place, Shark-Ray Alley. The place is just crawling with sharks. They're chumming nurse sharks when we pull up. Giant sting rays. 12 foot long 200 pound nurse sharks. So, I go up to where they're chumming the sharks, and grab the big nurse sharks by the tail and pull them apart just to mess with them. They won't bite, of course.

He says we can touch the sting rays also, so I'm petting these giant stings rays. They feel really rough, surprisingly, and they don't sting me. Someone actually drew this big stick figure with their finger on the back of this enormous sting ray. It was hilarious.

So, then, we get back in the boat, and head back into shore at San Pedro on Ambergis Caye.

I take a shower to wash off the salt water, but the shower water tastes like salt water also, so it's hard to imagine what I'm washing off, really. Maybe sunscreen, I guess.

I lay in bed after my shower and think..."why am I leaving this place? I'm laying in bed in a cool room, relaxed, refreshed. Why on earth would anyone with a brain go climb onto a dirtbike and race across the country in the heat of the day?"

Paradise Costs

Every person you encounter has something they can teach you. Even more so down here, I think. Because I have zero information about this place. And the people that live here, know it like the back of their hand. So, there's this huge information disparity. And all you have to do is introduce yourself and start talking. Not even in that order.

I'm sitting in the shade of a cabana drinking a cocacola light and this guy next to me....he looks like a character....i want to shoot him...but instead I start talking to him...Nice fellow...born and raised on the island. Works construction.

I start asking him about the road to Punta Gorda.

"I was thinking about taking the road to Punta Gorda. What's it like?" I ask.

"Well. I dunno. It gets washed out pretty bad," he complains.

"Is it paved?" I ask.

"Parts of it are."

This is not promising. Does not sound good. I mean, the main road through Belize isn't much. The Northern Highway is a toll road, but they don't collect tolls on it, because they say the governor is waging war on them if he collects a toll. Kind of absurd, but this is Belize, after all. So, they don't collect tolls, and they have no money to fix the roads. And so it goes.

But, I'm trying to imagine what a dead-end road down the coast to Punta Gorda would be like. If it's anything like the road I was supposed to take from Tulum Mexico down the coast down to Punta Allen, then I'm not going. That dirt/limestone road was a nightmare of potholes.

"Maybe you should take the main road to Belmopan, then there's a road that goes down from there. It's a much better road." he offers.

I'm sure he's right. But of course I want to take the ferry and be like Indiana Jones or James Bond or whoever it is that I'm trying to emulate. I'm not clear.

Now, Carrie is texting me again. Telling me we were never engaged. If someone could please, for the love of God, ask her to quit contacting me, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm happy for her and gorilla arms. I truly am. I just need time to be left alone to heal. And her psychotic diatribes are not helping me any. I don't need them. They're truly interrupting my healing process, and they're not helpful. I have moved on. I wish she would move on. She has gorilla boy. Pleave, for the love of God. Stop.

The boat pulls up to the dock and I bid my friend at the restaurant farewell. Still not sure where I'll go.

I climb up into the tuna tower on the boat for the ride back to Belize City.

The boat captain has been a captain for 7 years, making this run.

He points out an unimaginably small island.

"See this....this is Romantic island. A man had an island, and he was married, but he had a girlfriend. And he got in trouble with his wife. And so, he signed the island into the girlfriend's name. And she stole it from him, you know." And so it goes.

We go by another island....it was a golf course development by a man named Ashcroft. It oost $1,000.00 a night to stay there. But it went bankrupt, and so the bank took it over. Now, the bank owns it. We are picking up a man here that keeps up the greens. Not, like he just mows it. Not like that...he knows the grass. It's a mixture of Bermuda Grass with some other grass that has a tolerance for the salt. People still can come out here and play. It's an 18 hole course. It's the only course around, apparently. It costs $150 Belize dollars to play, I think.

The boat shakes, like the propellers aren't balanced. I ask him why.

"The other driver yesterday...he said he hit a manatee," he explains.

"Do you believe him?" I asked.

"I dunno. Maybe he hit a manatee. Maybe he hit something else. Who knows?"

We talk back and forth, changing between English and Spanish freely. It's hard to be in a country where they speak multiple languages because, I'm leaning in, trying to understand what he's saying. And the first thing you have to figure out is what language he's speaking. Then, you've got to try to understand what he's talking about. And, it's difficult because, in all probability, he's talking about something about which you have zero knowledge. You don't know the names of the town, the governor, the mayor, the ruins, the rivers, the laws, the history. Everything they have to say is brilliant because, you're going into completely uncharted territory. It's fascinating. Like a study in cultural anthropology.

I ask him about the Chupacabra we saw north of Belize City yesterday.

"What is this animal...about this big...runs across the road with a tail this high...it's black and brown..."

"Oh yeah. It's a raccoon."

And, I want to tell him he's wrong, but I think about how absurd that would be. For me, a foreigner from another land, to come in here and tell him that what he thinks is a raccoon, really isn't a raccoon. How absurd. How ethnocentric. So, I don't correct him. I hold my tongue. If they call it a raccoon, then it's a raccoon. That may not be the scientific name, but it's certainly what the locals call it anyway.

Now, I ask the guy from the golf course what he thinks about the road to Punta Gorda. He says it's fine...like a well maintained paved highway. I'm leaning more towards catching the ferry from Punta Gorda to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.

It's partly cloudy today, so I'm not just completely roasting in the tuna tower.

The whole country of Belize is about 300 miles long, apparently.

Get back to Belize City, catch a taxi back to the hotel. On the way, I tell my taxi driver about my clever plan to catch the ferry from Punta Gorda to Puerto Barrios.

"How big is your motorcycle?" he asks.

"I dunno. It's pretty big. It weighs 466 pounds."

"Then they cannot take it, man. It's a passenger water-taxi. It's not a ferry for cars. You can't go that way."

Bummer. I'd missed this. I was told initially that it was a "ferry", which is different, in my mind, than a water taxi. Like, it doesn't rise to the level of "ferry" if it doesn't carry vehicles. But what do I know?

So, bummer. This totally changes my plan. If the road to Punta Gorda is a dead end, then I have to go back to the drawing board. I pull out my map of Belize back at The Bachelor Inn. This means, I have to go west, through Belmopan, San Ignacio, and cross the border into Guatemala. After that, no clue. I don't have a map of Guatemala. Hmmmm. Hmmmmm.

I decide to ship some dead weight back to the Untied States. So, I drive up to the local FedEx office in Belize City, since I know where it is now. And the same girl is there that royally fucked me and sent me out to the airport for a package that was in the office the whole time.

I ship a package back to Monticello via FedEx. Just a bunch of garbage I'm carrying around that I don't want to have with me, but it's too expensive to throw away. This is a genius move on my part. So nice to be able to downsize mid-trip. She's gives me a 40% discount because she screwed me so bad on the last deal.

Then, I strike off for Belmopan, and I'm immediately lost in the slums of South Belize City. Stop a few times and ask for directions at the gas stations. Finally, I'm following signs for Belmopan along the Great Western Highway.

I look at my map of Belize, but it's sort of blank on the part that says Guatemala. I ask a few gas stations if they have a map of Guatemala, but no one does.

Also, there is no data network down here for Verizon. Doesn't matter how much you pay, or what the rates are. The network doesn't exist. So, my GPS doesn't work. And my map doesn't show anything but Belize. So, I figure...good enough...I'll find a map of Guatemala once I get into Guatemala.

Now, I'm rolling down the Great Western Highway. It's actually slightly better than the Northern Highway, in that you can tell that the two-lane black-topped road was, in fact, painted at some point in time. Granted, it was probably 40 years ago, but it does bear some faded paint scars.

My goal is to escape from Belize. To somehow roll across the border into Guatemala before dark, check into a hotel, and be in a new country. I make it to Belmopan, and then to San Ignacio.

I pull up to a gas station in San Ignacio, and fill up with premium gas. I start asking the gas station attendant about what it's like in Guatemala. You always try to get some information. You can then choose to act on it, as you see fit. But better to ask than to wonder.

"Amigo...if you roll into Guatemala tonight wearing these cameras, they will fillet you like a fish. They will cut them off of you with pieces of glass, razor blades, knives. You need to hide these cameras."

"Aha. Got it."

I decide to postpone driving into Guatemala until the morning.

So now, I'm circling around San Ignacio, trying to find a hotel the gas station attendant told me about. Apparently, finding a hotel with Air Conditioning AND Internet is just not realistic. I end up taking a room for $75.00 Belize at the Belmoral Hotel. ($37.50 USD) More than I'd wanted to spend for a room with no internet, but it ended up being right on the main drag in San Ignacio, which is a small pedestrian mall, with bars and restaurants on either side.

I sit down, order some sausages, baked beans, potato salad, and bread pudding. I drink about 3 Belikin beers, while I wait for my photos to upload through my magical dropbox/RDP tunnel to the server back in Colorado.

Now, some drunks come up to me in the bar. They're trying to tell me the best way to get to Panama. I'm all ears, because I have no clue. Finally, the guy tells me to use Google maps to plot out my route. If you can believe it, it's something I've never done. Never even considered. Up until tonight, I thought I knew what I was doing. Now, I'm reasonably sure I have no clue what I'm doing.

But the guy at the bar is telling me about this shortcut, and when I bring up Google maps, sure enough, he's right. And he's all excited and hugging me. Now, another drunk guy is telling me that, for sure, I should drive through Guatemala City instead. And the two of them are very close to coming to fisticuffs.

Finally, the first guy leaves. And the Russian moves in to try to coerce me into going through El Salvador. And I"m like...."Yeah....ah....OK....thanks..."

Finally, I get away from him and am able to finish posting my ridiculous diatribe, unimpeded by the drunks at the Mayawalk Restaurant.

By now, my tab is so high, that they come out with a machete and the manager, and tell me to settle my bill if I ever want to see the dawn, which I do.

Above: The marina at San Pedro, Ambergis Caye, Belize.

Above: The marina at San Pedro, Ambergis Caye, Belize.

Above: The marina at San Pedro, Ambergis Caye, Belize.

Above: Unidentified bird outside of Belize City on the shoulder of The Great Western Highway.

Above: Unidentified bird outside of Belize City on the shoulder of The Great Western Highway.

Above: Unidentified bird outside of Belize City on the shoulder of The Great Western Highway.

Above: The barrier reef on the run from Ambergis Caye back to Belize City.

Above: An 18 hole golf course on an island off the coast of Belize City, Belize developed by a man named Ashcroft.

Above: An 18 hole golf course on an island off the coast of Belize City, Belize developed by a man named Ashcroft.

Above: An 18 hole golf course on an island off the coast of Belize City, Belize developed by a man named Ashcroft.

Above: An 18 hole golf course on an island off the coast of Belize City, Belize developed by a man named Ashcroft.

Above: An 18 hole golf course on an island off the coast of Belize City, Belize developed by a man named Ashcroft.

Above: The water-taxi marina in Belize City.

Above: The water-taxi marina in Belize City.

Above: Road work in South Belize City.

Above: Me at the FedEx office in Belize City.

Above: My buddy posing for a photo on my bike at the FedEx office in Belize City.

Above: The slums of South Belize City. A guy yelled at me for taking this picture: "Is this the first time you seen it man?!!!"

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Picture along the Great Western Highway on the way from Belize City to Guatemala.

Above: Photo in San Ignacio, Belize.

Above: Photo in San Ignacio, Belize.

Above: Photo in San Ignacio, Belize.