Tulum

Yesterday I visited the Tical ruins, near Flores, Guatemala - they are the largest of the Mayan ruins and from the tops of the pyramids you can sit back in the shade and cast your eyes on miles of jungle in every direction.

That evening I took a half an hour boat ride around Flores, which is an Island.  I had awful luck with transportation yesterday - I actually swore out loud in English for the first time since I left the US. This morning I was supposed to wake up early to find my way to the bus station and figure out how to get to Belmopan in Belize...but I overslept. I was just about to leave the hostel when a guy walked in and said "bus to Belize!". As Westly Snipes ones said: "Even the sun shines on a dog's ass some days". I just crossed the Belizian border and am riding in a minibus, in my favorite spot - the front seat.

Top 5 comments about my visiting Belmopan, from various Latinos and foreigners alike:

1 why would you want to go to Belmopan?
2 there's nothing there!
3 all they have is a marcado
4 why would you want to go to Belmopan?
5 where?

At any rate, Belmopan is the capital of Belize, and I'm going to spend a day there on my way north.

I've had two month now to reflect on the challenges and strategies of traveling through Latin America. It is not always easy to find experiences that are meaningful to me. The most common budget traveler's strategy is to go from one tourist destination to another, staying in hostel dorms and seeing sites. I like to do this occasionally but get tired of it quick. Another option is to stray from the beaten path, to visit smaller towns and villages (capital cities?) and to wiggle your way into less conventional and usually more interesting situations and to meet people from that place. I tend to prefer that way but it can really wear you out and involves more risk - I spent about half of my time here with one health problem or another, partly because of my risk-taking. This two-pronged approach has done me well, it's been an incredible and eye opening few months. It's kind of the same as my radio-listening strategy at work: I start with hip hop and street humor on JAMN 94.5 - when it starts to drive me crazy (so sexist some times) I switch to NPR; when I can't take that white liberal voice anymore I go to conservative sports radio. When I've had more Obama bashing than I can take...I sing to myself and then repeat the cycle.

In spite of my fears that I wouldn't learn much Spanish, I am now a semi-proficient speaker. Just in time for Belize...where they speak English!  It was a British colony. But soon I'll be back in the Spanish speaking world of the Yucatan in Mexico.
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The Next Morning

After a full day of traveling (5 busses, 2 taxis and a good 3 miles on foot) I am now in Tulum, Mexico.  Oy!  Belmopan was great - I was litterally the only tourist there and took a packed local bus with students and people returning from their work day both ways.  Then I tried to find a hotel to camp out in Belize City for the night...but they were really hard to find!  And I was starting to look like an easy target to the local hustlers, I got a lot of attention as the sun began to set.  I ate three fantastic things in Belmopan: a cup of soursop juice (sour, sweet, refreshing), a scoop of ice cream from a fruit I've never heard of (creamy, fruity) and a plate of stew beef with rice and peas, potato salad and pickeld onions.  It occured to me that black Carribean food is a lot like Persian food.  Rice dishes, stew dishes and pickels.  The only thing missing is the yoghurt.  I know in some carribean countries there are big Indian (from India) populations, Indian food shares roots with Persian food.  From what I could tell, Mexian and Guatemalan food was not terribly influenced by Spanish culture.  I read once that early conquistadores almost exclusively ate a salad of avacado, tomato and bread crumbs - they couldn't manage much more.

The tourist bus station had closed for the night by 6PM so I hopped on a 3 hour local bus to the mexican border (packed to the gills with people going back to their houses, isles filled with people.)  At midnight I crossed the border back to Mexico (and got royally ripped off in crossing charges by the border guard; I suspect late night oppertunism), then got a taxi to a bus station just across the border that happened to have a bus leaving for Tulum (a beach town 2 hrs south of Cancun) at midnight.   I managed to find a hostel that let me in at 4AM, caught a little sleep and enjoyed a cheap crepe this morning.  The family that runs this place is really awesome, it's nice to be off the road.  I think I'm going to take them up on their offer to rent a bike and snorkeling gear for 100 pesos.

So far I've only seen the town but the beach is supposed to look like this: