Border Jump

Trip to Belize - Day One




3:40AM is a great time to get robbed. But the four o'clock shuttle is our best bet to get to Livingston before dark. I've gotta hop the border to renew my Guatemalan ninety day tourist visa. So I wait outside in the cold until it arrives. I hide behind a nook in the cathedral entrance on the one-way street, seen only when I want to be seen. My ride is late. I'm last on a list of about twelve people to buy my ticket, so I know I have plenty of time for an early morning spark session. *SHIKSHIK - PHOOM - HHHOOOP - PAHHHH*. 4:30AM and I got out of work three hours ago. Two months' work. No days off... Time to get into the holiday spirit.

The paddy wagon shows up, the driver hoists my bag to the top of the van and I cram in between eleven bobbing heads. I kick off my Chacos, spin sideways and jam my toes into the gap between the seat cushions. I curl into a tiny ball and rock with the sharp turns - forty-five minutes to the capital. We tumble out at the terminal. Taller travelers stretch their cramped up legs. I just smile and walk away. It's good to be travel size.

We jump on the massive coach bus for a lengthy bus ride up to Rio Dulce. I'm impressed at the quality of transit my two hundred Quetzales has purchased (about twenty-five bucks), but even more impressed with the land speed records our driver, Steve McQueen (apparently) seems to be breaking. Slow down, Turbo. One near miss with an oncoming semi was a little too close for comfort.

A few catnaps and short philosophical convos with my travel buddy Omar, and we're waiting for our water taxi. Due to Dale Earnhart's lead foot we're pretty early, so we post up in a cantina overlooking the bay. Nothing like two or three beers at ten thirty en la mañana to thoroughly drop you into "day off" mode. Next stop: Livingston.

We throw our bags in the front of the "lancha" and scramble for the seats nearest to the outboard; those give the smoothest ride. We push away and wind our way through two hours of absolute paradise. But before we do, we pass some of the most expensive real estate in all of Central America. Martha's Vineyard - Guatemala style. Mansions. No. Castles. With palm-thatched roofing, giant windows, guest houses, private marinas and massive shiny unused boats. Just one more reminder to the rest of us that rich people have nice cars. Wealthy people have nice yachts.

Our captain swings us south towards the narrowest opening in the sound. The east shore creeps up from the lake bottom into a proper swamp. Unnavigable. The west - steeply, and in the shape of an ancient fortress. One last bastion guarding freshwater Lake Izbal from real life pirates of the Caribbean. Built in 1644, it seems ridiculous by today's standards, but the stronghold closed a gap of less than 500' and was more or less effective against pirate raids throughout its lifetime.

On to the fun part, we flip a bitch and plunge north back into the jungle. Two curvy lefts and a right and we're very far away from civilization.  The water is smooth. The air is clean. THIS is the Garden of Eden. Everything wreaks of life. Gulls, hawks, and pelicans splash their targets from above. Herons and egrets turn their long necks to watch us go by. Cormorants pop up like prairie dogs. Kingfishers dart between the creeping banyon roots and vines. There is no shoreline, no sign of human footfall, just trees on top of trees on top of trees that grapple out into the water. The calibrated hum of the motor groans on.

We fall through a wormhole. A loophole in space and time. The deeper we go in, the further I feel from everything I've ever known. Yet certain things trickle back in. Blips of two-legged existence start to flicker on the radar screen. We are not alone.

I see a floating Clorox bottle. And then another. And another. And right before I get upset - I realize that this isn't pollution. This is the workplace. The office, if you will. Connect the dots. The scattered bottles trace a circle, and the circle holds a fish net. A slightly different type of cubicle. No perks, no Christmas bonus, but a hell of a nice commute. No road rage. No honking. No smog. The only traffic is the wind.

We come upon a water village of sorts. Every house/store/shed/outhouse is punched up on stilts. One boat buzzes by with a load of long timbers. A red rag flutters off the protruding ends. We stop at a small tienda to stretch our legs, take a leak and refill on beers. You can even buy more mobile phone credit. "Recarga Aqui! TRIPLE SALDO HOY!" Unbelievable. 

There's a small hot spring off to one side of the dock. Tiny fish smile and wag below the steaming pond. No one's in it so I give it a go. MAN! That's hot! But only at the surface. Heat dribbles out where the ripples lap the shore. From there it spills across the quickly deepening water, but never more than two or three inches down. This explains the very much uncooked fish swimming below.

Back in the boat. 

On the way out a young girl brushes her hair, naked and kneeling on the dock; the setting sun glimmers off her chest. I trace the light above. Two herons and six pterodactyls hang in front of cotton candy Monet clouds. I nudge Omar to take a look. He's on Facebook. I guess he bought some Saldo.

Enter: more boats, more nets, and more houses on stilts. I catch eyes with a local woman and her daughter. Being in utter vacationary bliss, I smile and wave trying to be polite. But I immediately realize I've made the wrong move. This is the tension between the inside and the outside worlds. They don't want to be my friend. They want things the way they were. Sometimes I forget. That even though we're pretty far off the beaten path - we're still beating it. We splash on.

Suddenly the river opens up to a parabolic horizon. Warm fresh air collides with cooler salty air. The same happens with water below us. Bienvenido, Atlantic Ocean. 

Livingston is an island off of the Guatemalan coast. We land at the dock greeted by Spanish speaking African descendant with dark black skin and bright blue eyes. “Wherejoo frum? Yoo ess ay – Ooooh Kay.” He takes us up the hill and points out the cheaper hotels and where we need to go to buy our lancha tickets for the next morning. We give him ten Quetzales for the trouble. This is his career.

Omar and I get our passports stamped at Immigration. We pick out a room with two hard beds and a door. Good enough. I grab a very bad sandwich with fake ketchup, watch the creeping darkness drain the twilight, and promptly pass out. Day One. Long. Hard. Awesome.