Belize to Honduras

I've been enjoying this past week sailing on a boat, camping out on small (very small) islands, snorkeling and fishing on the Caribbean as well as relaxing in Placencia, Belize while waiting to catch the ferry to Honduras tomorrow. I should be in the Bay Islands by Saturday!

I have a travel buddy, Gareth, for my journey to Honduras and provided the boys I were hanging out on Caye Caulker hopped on the sailing trip that left Tuesday, I should have even more traveling buddies!

Funny enough, all of them are Brits. I think there is definitely some weird trend going on here. Maybe the Brits just love my shining personality! Gareth is a police officer, Ben is a dentist and I'm still not quite sure what Rupert does but I am definitely the odd person out if you base it on careers. Either way, all of them are traveling south on similar time lines, so once again, I will be in good company for a good period of time.

I forgot to mention in my last entry that I did run into my first Brits, Hass and Richard. They ended up staying at my hostel. I'm pretty sure it's the last I'm going to see of them. Sad times.

The rest of the people from the sailing trip aside from Gareth have left. There were quite a few of us sticking around for the past few days but the girls Imogen and Eve have left to go home to London and Albert has headed back up to Caye Caulker to meet some friends.

The longer I spend in Placencia the more it grows on me. It really is a cool little place. Oh! And I had a celebrity sighting: Shannon Saussaman from A Knight's Tale and 40 Days, 40 Nights. Pretty cool. And no, I didn't get any pictures. I respect the privacy thing that she was probably going for.

Again, I hope to have up pictures shortly but finding a memory card reader is proving harder than originally thought!

I'm Sailing Away

Alright, so I don't have much to add today but I figured I'd throw down something since I may not have internet access for the next week and a half and I wouldn't want anyone to get abandonment issues.

Oh! I actually have a wicked awesome story about an adventure I took the other day. It went a little something like this:

I had been on this island for over a week and still had not seen the entire thing. It's a really small island too. Like a kilometer tip to tip. I decided to rent a golf cart as that is the only mode of transportation aside from the heel-toe express. So I grab some people, some rum and coke and we set off on our adventure. We found the church, the school, the little airport and then...and then...we found this jungle/mangrove area where we were sure we would see crocs. So we're cruising along at a whole 15 km/hr when we see this sign that says "Trail" with golf car tire marks going the same way. Now, this is where it gets tricky because when most people see a sign like that, they take it and it works out pretty well. Not so much for us.

It began with the mosquitoes and not just any mosquitoes. They were more like super mosquitos. So we decided "Screw this! Let's get out of here!" And then we came to a bridge-a footbrige- aka a no golf cart bridge. So we see tire tracks and think to ourselves "Beautiful! There is a way out of this blood donation clinic!" So we go that way for a whole 100 meters before realizing that we can't go any further. And that when we saw "the frogs". They were all over the place. Hopping, scurrying. And I bet you're thinking to yourself right now "frogs don't scurry". This is correct. But crabs do. As we looked to the ground we saw hundreds upon hundreds on crab holes and crabs just waiting to pounce on us and right then, we knew we had to get out of that swamp area. So we turn the cart around and we get going when all of a sudden we weren't moving anymore.

So to recap: we are being eaten alive by mosquitoes, there are freaking crabs all over the ground and a wheel of our golf cart has now sunk into a swampy, marshy sink hole. As we fight over who has to get out of the golf cart to push us out, we realize that we have to get out or fierce the evil wrath of mosquitoes who have not seen a human, let alone four of them for probably decades. After about five minutes of lifting, we finally freed ourselves of the sinking ground and began escape. Until about 5 feet later when we sunk again. This time we sucked it up and moved the sucker as fast as we could. As we tried to escape the clutches of this insane world, hordes of more mosquitoes were coming for the buffet.

After we finally arrived back in the no mosquito zone we accessed everything. Each of us was and still are covered with a minimum of 40 bites (none are small) and the golf cart was a disaster. We took the cart to the hostel to wash away the evidence of our excursion and returned the cart.

I hope you all enjoyed this little story! I'm off sailing tomorrow for the next little while and I'll update when I get back!

And I will try and put up some pictures then but some places don't make it easy.

Hockey, Trivia, Poker and Karaoke...

No wonder I lost my voice the other day.I blame the karaoke though. Because karaoke is evil.

I do apologize for my shitty updating. I could give you every excuse in the book like that I was playing in the sun, swimming, checking out ruins, sleeping and just enjoying being away from all this technology and the need to check in but they are excuses. Real ones, but excuses none the less.

In all honestly, laziness has gotten the better of me. I mean, my hostel is right behind (or in front) of the internet cafe. The swimming beach, bar and grocery store are all farther away than here. I’m also cheap. It’s like $7/hour here for internet. Yes, $7. That almost 3 beers or 6 rum and cokes during happy hour. See what I mean?

If it makes you guys feel better, I haven’t updated my paper journal since the 5th of May. And that thing was being updated like crazy. Oh! And I’ve yet to take any real pictures here. Go me!

The best thing ever: there is a sports bar that shows hockey! Yay for watching semi’s!

San Cristobal

I managed to make my way out of Zipolite. I didn't want to but I did in the interest of time. I should be in Belize by Thursday or Friday and thats mostly because I don't want to travel tomorrow as its 5 de Mayo!

San Cristobal is pretty cool, but its cold here. After spending all that time on the beach, having to wear things like pants, sweaters, socks and shoes are a foreign concept.

Zipolite

I've been playing in beautiful Zipolite, Oahaca, Mexico since Sunday. Yes, I knwo I was supposed to make it over to Playa del Carmen but some wicked awesome people I met while in Puerto Escondido persuaded me to come cheap this place out. And obviously, I love it. I am definitely going to make time in the trip to stop here before flying out of Mexico City in November/December.

As for what I've been doing (since I've been bad with updates this week-but I have a good excuse)...I've been swimming in the ocean, dining by the ocean, tanning, hanging in hammocks and just relaxing and enjoying myself. No sun burn so far but I did come down with a wicked cold that has me hacking quite nicely. Oh, and this lovely little town has no power from 9am to 4pm daily because of some work they are doing in the neighbouring town.

I'm thinking the reformed plan is to head out to San Cristobal on Sunday on thr midnight bus and be in Belize by nexy Friday. Simple enough if I stick to night buses. I save money and time. Go me!

Anyways, I do have to jet because we need to gather wood before dark for our bonfire.