Elective attempt 1: Cayo

 As much as I hated to, I left Caye Caulker on a Saturday so I could make it to my elective. After sharing a delicious iced coffee and granola with the awesome Tatyana, I trudged to the ferry to start the next adventure. What a joke. I arrived in San Ignacio, a beautiful rural ‘city’ in the middle of the lush green jungle. Cayo, as everyone calls it, is the gateway to adventure, known for amazing caving, rafting, trekking, horse-riding and many ancient mayan ruins to explore. It is also the place to be. I arrived as Prince Harry left after completing a visit for the Queen. If it’s one thing the Belizeans love, it’s the Queen(it was called British Honduras once). If it’s one thing the Belizean women love, it’s Prince Harry. Ninfe, the hotel owner of the place I stayed, informed me with glee of how she’d shaken his hand. Others talked for weeks about sightings and photos they got and how Prince Harry had ‘tried to dance with them’(look it up on youtube). A few weeks previously ghost busters had filmed with the brother of my co-ordinator in some of the ancient sacrificial areas. The annual San-Ignacio to Belize city canoe race was also going on one weekend we were there with many people coming into compete. Very popular right now.

The annual San Ignacio-Belize Kayak race

My Hotel

My restaurant

I was informed on arrival that I would be staying in a private room at ‘Nefry’s Retreat’, a proper hotel with my own bathroom, cable TV, wifi and the comfiest double bed. All my meals would be provided at one of the restaurants in the area up to the value of $12 a meal(awesome!) My first night the hotel owner Ninfe offered to take me out. After taking one look at my skirt and top she produced a slinky black dress for me to wear(shorter than anything I own) and  she and four of her girlfriends took me out. Belizean women dance crazy and wear killer shoes. That night we went to the Casino club where a Jagermeister party was happening. Picture free shots followed by rounds of tequila shots, cocktails and rum. The night pretty much turned into Ninfe’s guy friends attempting to dance with me, saying ‘you don’t dance often do you?’ followed by a tutorial in the proper Belizean style; guy behind, butt wiggling, girl in front, butt wiggling, add appropriate amounts of grinding but do not face the person unless you have kissing plans. I have never felt so embarrassed! We finished up the usual time for Belizeans, 4:30 am!

On Monday I met up with my co-ordinator, Nancy, who informed me Clinic wasn’t on that week and I would be starting Friday. It then started raining for 4 days straight-talk about timing! I spent my days running in the rain, exploring the steamy ruins of Cahal Pech, working my way through the menu at Maya Walk Tours, watching endless movies on cable and waiting for Bernie to get back so we could hang out. I was going Crazy! Finally, Friday came around and I could check out the clinic. 

The Good Shephard Clinic

The Good Shepard clinic isn’t associated with anyone, religious or otherwise. It is run by Nurse Margaret, a saint who came over 38 years ago to be a midwife from England. She returned multiple times and eventually met her husband and made a life here. She runs a free clinic and arranges for multiple missionaries and specialist to come down and see her patients. She started out in a little shed with no proper doors but now she has a proper, beautifully tended building with her own chapel. The day starts with morning prayer, my first prayer ever, followed by dressings. The rest of the day depends. Friday was antenatal clinic where I was given my own room and expected to manage my own patients. The next week a urologist came from Virginia with a group of missionaries. We’d see urology patients in the morning and travel to surrounding towns(including one in Guatamala) and test the kids for strabismus. The experience involved 4WD through the jungle hillside, crossing rickety bridges where we placed bets on who would fall first, getting caught in afternoon showers and travelling to crazy towns where one side is in guatamala and the other in Belize. 

A casualty

The poverty was bad, the state of nutrition worse, the schools lacked glass for the windows and the library had about 100 books from the 80's. Despite this, the kids and teachers alike were cheerful and friendly and still managed to make the place function. After 425 children being tested I can say 20% had a VA over 20/40 and none could afford glasses.

That will be the missionaries next challenge. It was so fantastic working with this team. In the afternoons I got roped into helping them rebuild and paint a new community centre. What a team, it was almost finished after 1 week!

The community centre/church I helped rebuild

They were so lively and fun and it was just nice to be needed somewhere. We did some really good work for people who needed it and I really hope we can follow through with the sight problems

My nights in Cayo were spent doing Karate at the Karate club I joined, catching up with new and old friends for drinks and, of course, eating cake and icecream. I will remember Cayo always for its cakes and icecream. Sweet ting is one of the best bakeries in Belize and ships out to all the surrounding areas.  The cakes were phenomenal: pecan pie, peanut butter silken pie, chocolate raspberry torte, oreo cheesecake-the list goes on and I tried it all! This was a good meeting spot and late night retreat.

Jo and Fiza checking out the cakes of the day

Down the road from here was Cayo twist, non-dairy, soy icecream- the smoothest, creamiest icecream you will ever have. Everytime you went, there was a massive line of locals and tourists alike and the peanut butter blizzard was incredible! The largest markets in Belize are in San Ignacio so when Saturday came around, we were there. There was such a selection of street food, fruit, veges, spices and handmade goods and we had a great time browsing and trying the different, crazy selections(from salty banana chips to tamarind sweets-yuck).We also headed to the same ruins Prince Harry was at the weekend before, Xunantunich! This was a beautiful, impressive ruin that, from the top, you could all the way to Guatamala. Getting there involved a hand pulled drawbridge across the river. It was amazing!

From the top of Xunantunich

 I also spent a lot of time at our English medstudent friends, Jo and Fiza’s, house. Here we worked our way through their 3L bottle of sugary, cheap rum, baked cakes and watched movies. This was a social haven and super safe with its big walls, 3 locks and two Rottweilers. Needless to say, we had an election day lock-in after 6pm to avoid the most violent part of the day and managed to miss the parades and fighting.

6:30 am at the river watching the race

The entrance of the ATM

A big Mayan offering pot

Spending two weeks here and not doing some kind of adventure tour would be a travesty.  One Sunday we spent trekking through the famous ATM cave. This is an ancient, holy Mayan sight of sacrifice-their ‘church’ for Chuc, the Mayan god of Rain. After 45 minutes of hiking through rivers in the jungle you swim into the cave and wade through water for about 2 hours.  You do some climbing and end up in the most spectacular chamber, with the most beautiful column formations. After passing through this grand, ball-room type chamber, you climb some more and end up in what is a perfectly preserved Mayan museum. The room is a place of offerings with 14 sacrificial remains untouched in the area(from babies to the elderly) as well as many perfectly preserved pots and plates. When it was discoverd in 1988, the people decided to leave the area untouched. The cave is exactly as the Mayans left it over 1000 years ago. The whole experience was fantastic and one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. 

After two weeks here, I was told the clinic would be closed on my last week. My urologist offered to set me up with a group of paediatricians in Belize city. It was a risk and I would lose out on money but I think we’ve established already that Kaya volunteer can’t organize anything and takes your money without doing their job. There was no real elective for me in Cayo anymore and all my friends were leaving. Plus, all the cake was making me fat! For these reasons I decided to just do it. I packed my bags a week early, got into a van with a group of missionaries and hitched a ride in to Belize City.

Belize: Go Slow

Chilled island life

Belize, unlike Mexico, feels like the Caribbean again. My first impressions have been beautiful black Caribbean men, reggaetan and crazy drumming, long bus rides with blaring trance music and beautiful beaches and jungle. It is also rum country again, a nice change after the over consumption of tequila.

When we were heading to Belize with our new friend Dave we agreed on one thing, we did not want to spend a night in the notoriously dangerous Belize city(surprisingly not the capital of Belize). After a few missed buses and a ferry we ended up in Belize city for a night. The taxi driver took us around till we got accommodation for no extra charge because he didn’t feel right leaving us out in the street. My hostel owner wouldn’t leave the hostel which was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Against the recommendation of everyone, the three of us headed out to find food on a Sunday. Everything was closed but one little shop so a picnic on the balcony was a perfect and safe way to spend the evening. It was only after we left that I realized we were staying on Front street, one of the worst areas for muggings. The next morning we were on the first ferry out of there and off to San Pedro, Ambergris.

Burger bar

The Belize Flag

San Pedro used to be a layed back town in the island of Ambergris. It   has since grown to a resort town with an overflow of shops, golf carts and resorts. It is no Playa del Carmen but, while it retains a layed back feel, it was too expensive and touristy for me. Bernie started her placement here and so the next couple of days our friend Dave and I explored the Island. San Pedro is a surprising place in that it just keeps going. Crossing a bridge at the end of the town we found private condo’s with amazing bars and pools, cafe’s and a brilliant burger bar owned by an Autralian-american couple with an even more amazing deep fried snicker bar: my first and probably my last but unbelievably good. 

Deep Fried Snickers

 Every hour at San Pedro is happy hour and there is a place for everyone. There were cheap deli eats for me, ice-creameries and even a coffee/rum factory with many free samples. Our accommodation was incredible, a hotel room with a pool, wifi, hammocks and a bar. After a long day we would all meet at the pool for a swim. The sunsets were beautiful and the days long and warm. Despite this, I couldn't wait to get away. The place was busy, the golf cart traffic hour dangerous. I splurged on a diving trip(that’s what tropical islands are for right?) and my regulator stopped working mid-dive!! A little scary but luckily my primary(that was tucked away after I’d had problems with the mouth piece) still gave me enough air to get by for 30 minutes. The dive probably wans’t worth the trauma with a few stingrays and a single turtle spotted. I was told that if I didn’t have accommodation at my next location, I wouldn’t find any and there was only one hostel to stay at because the others were terrible(it was booked out for the whole week). Needless to say, I was willing to take the risk and caught a boat the next morning, no accommodation booked.

Beautiful ocean

 

Caye Caulker

Lazy Split days on the beach

Cake Lady: the love of my life

Fresh Fish

Happy hour again

Snorkelling the Caribbean

  Caye Caulker is one of the most wonderful, relaxed and fun places in the world. I got off the boat with two very religious Americans who helped me with my backpack(it takes two people to put it on). Twenty minutes later I was sharing a room with a Russian girl in a hotel next to two Canadian guys. The ex-Russian, Tatyana, is actually an American, owns a bar in St Louise themed solely around bikes and has an aim to make people have fun. Definitely the kind of person I want to bunk with. Caye Caulker is a relaxed, small island with dirt roads,  few golf carts, beautiful beaches and a constatnt sea breeze. My first hour found me seated on a plastic chair with two locals, learning how to play dominos and bantering. This relaxed fun pretty much sums up Caye Caulker. We swam, listened to reggae, ate fresh fish and drank cocktails. I did some of the best snorkelling of my life one morning. We got taken out to the reef and a guide showed us all his favourite places. At one point he attracted a whole lot of nurse sharks and manta-rays which swarmed around him like a pack of dogs, and proceeded to pick up his individually trained ones for us to stroke and feed. Animal cruelty maybe but the animals kept on  coming back... I also spent time bike riding with new friends, drinking the local panty-ripper drink and dancing it up in reggae bars.  

Final Breakfast in Paradise

To sum it up, Caye Caulker is one of the most fun and chilled out places I’ve ever been.

 

 

Tequila sunrise and Mayan chocolate

I’m sitting in a mosquito net tent surrounded by paintings of Hindi gods, buddah, the word love and listening to Mexican new age music. I’m surrounded by jungle, a cenote and cabins. I am in the hippie new age town of Tulum in Mexico.

 

 

 

After staying in Cuba, the craziest developing country ever, Mexico was a shock of Western culture. We flew into Cancun and took a bus to Playa del Carmen or Playa del America I should say. Think McDonalds, Subway, Gelato, big lights, lots of shops and advertising. It was a stark contrast to everything that is Cuba.

Our Captors

We got off the bus, looked at our map and stepped into the street straight into a carnivale parade. Think twirling dancers with masses of brightly coloured feathers, sparkles, brass bands and decorated cars. What a shock; the streets were packed and the place was loud, crazy and full of life. We waited a while then decided we needed to get to a hostel and find accommodation. Thinking we’d sneak up the street we ended up caught up in the parade, surrounded by dancers and not being able to leave. Yes, in Playa Bernie and I were an accidental part of the carnival parade. Luckily there was a room free and the whole shenanigan wasn’t for nothing. Our hostel was amazing-bunks, toilet paper, toilet seats, HOT SHOWERS, a kitchen to use and INTERRNET!!!! Hurray for capitalism!!!

Pretty puch my impression of the nights

We wandered the streets and ordered our first tacos (questionable as it was not from a touristy place and vegetables didn’t make it to the menu). We strolled past the crazy American stores and tourists eating tacos before heading to our hostel for free drinks at our bar. That night we had in depth conversations with Argentinians in Spanish(it got better as we had more free drinks-amazing). The rest of the night was a blur of clubs and bars, all with crazy entrance fees that our bar friends got us out of paying and even crazier dancing. When it felt like 12:30 it was actually 3:30 am and we finally bailed. Playa is a party town where time gets lost.

 

The many tourists and resorts

Cenote Diving

 The next morning we woke surprisingly well and relocated ourselves to the beach. The beach is crazy with massive resorts at every part and every patch of beach taken up by tourists (like Australia day at Cottesloe). The water is clear and the sand white so it was still fun, just really different. The next day we packed our things and headed to the cenote dos ojos for a dive and snorkel.  A cenote is a lime stone sinkhole-in this instance a limestone cave with all the usual cave things but completely underwater. It has amazing visibility(200m) so you don’t feel like you are looking through water, but that you are flying through a cave and can get as close to the roof or stalagtites as you want without the climbing or dirt!  It was also located deep in the Mexican jungle so it was a beautiful drive and walk. My instructor gave me two wetsuits and a hood which I need, it was freezing!! It was pretty cool diving for 600m through tunnels in caves but also scary to think if anything went wrong you were completely screwed. The instructor carried two tanks of oxygen for this reason. On paper it was one of the craziest dives I’ve done but it was stunningly beautiful and so relaxing. From there we got dropped off on the highway and a passing shuttle picked us up and took us to tulum.

 

Tulum

Tulum is a little beach town full of ‘yoga retreats’ and ‘eco lodges’. It is set on the most beautiful, powdery white sand beach with wonderfully temperate water. It is also expensive. We took a taxi to our hostel to get told it was $50 a night!! We pretty much begged them down to $15. This place is completely new age. The showers are outdoor, the water all from the nearby river, a campfire burns even though it’s at least 30 and everyone here are artists or writers or finding themselves. There are only expensive, organic hotel restaurants but we have a kitchen thank goodness. It’s an amazing place but we probably shouldn’t be here. Our first night we spent drinking beers on the beach over sunset(trying the tomato beer-don’t do it unless you like fizzy salsa). We realised we couldn’t afford to eat out so explored the one shop which had about 4 ingredients: lentil nachos it was. That night I managed to roll my ankle on the rocky ground between our cabana and the outdoor, eco friendly toilet. My trip definitely got a lot less active after that. The next day we hired some snorkelling gear and headed out to Akalam beach, the most awesome place ever. Here we took turns(me with one flipper) snorkelling in the most incredible reef. We swam with manta rays, sea turtles and beautiful fish. I even saw a pair of shy cuttle fish!! It was as good as diving(better than some) and there was no time limit! After we’d had our fill of the sea turtles and sunbaking we headed to the Tulum ruins. This was an old port city like freo but dedicated to the worship of Venus. It is now a remnant of it glory days and overrun by iguanas that really do think they own the place. That night it was lentils and nachos again. The next day, after a massive home-cooked breakfast of lentils and eggs, we packed up and realised we couldn’t afford to taxi it to town. This was my first real hitchhiking experience in Mexico. Ten minutes later, thanks to a nice, old American couple and an Argentinean girl, we were in town with tickets booked and drinking coffee at our favourite cafe.

Valladolid

Next stop was Valladolid, a very cool, very Spanish feeling city with colourful Mexican buildings, cobbled streets and many courtyards. The evenings here were balmy and perfect. That first night we checked into a very colourful and fun backpackers, Hostel La Candeleria, and went for a walk. We came across a beautiful chocolate factory where a very enthusiastic woman gave us the entire story of cacao which was the beginning of chocolate(including 9 samples). After a hot chocolate we were sold and departed with our cinnamon chocolate balls. We wandered the winding, cobbled streets, stopping for hibiscus drinks and to check out the old convent of this magical place. The next day we got up early and bussed it to Chichen Itza, the Mayan pyramids. I hate to say it but I was more impressed with these than Machu Picchu. Picture a pyramid so tall and grand with levels, steps and panels all representing a calendar. It was built about 2000 years ago to count down the days to the end of the world  (on 23 Decemeber 2012). This city, the ‘capital’ city of the Mayans, is now overrun with Iguana’s and jungle.  We got up really early so managed to avoid the majority of the tourists and had an entire ancient Mayan jungle city to explore by ourselves. Very Indiana Jones. I headed to the most beautiful Cenote for an afternoon swim. Picture a huge limestone cavern with tree roots almost to the clear water, surrounded by a lush, green limestone wall. Not a bad local swimming pool.

 

Bacalar

 The next few days we weren’t 100% sure of our plans. We decided to get off the bus a place called Lake Bacalar-just to check it out. A taxi ride from the busy, dirty town revealed the most incredible, blue Caribbean lake surrounded by lush green jungle. We were sold and wandered until we found a basic hostel. Bacalar was a strange town, definitely not a tourist destination. It had the beautiful lake for swimming, amazing houses but so many drunk men staggering around-where did they all come from? The next two days we lounged by the lake drinking tequila, wandered the streets and chatted to locals. We got invited to a bar opening pirate party and had a fun night of cocktails, music, tequila and pirate fights. This was our last, seedy night in Mexico. Next stop Belize.