yoga bliss

it's up and over to the dock for yoga.  i've been really looking forward to this and the yoga class is great - the location perfect.  Kirsten is a wonderful yoga instructor and easily leads a class of varying levels.  

just breathing the clean air is bliss but watching the fish and rays off the edge of the dock make it a extraordinary class.  next up, breakfast, then snorkeling!  Akbol gets good reviews for the breakfast food but they are out of some of the basics like orange juice.  i drove through orange groves two hours away so it's surprising they

don't have oranges for juice.  they have 4 - 6 staff working the breakfast bar and preparing food but it can take up to an hour to get food.  the beach bar serves as restaurant, bar and office.  my impression this morning is that the owners and staff seem overwhelmed by having guests.

it feels so good to have my naked feet in the sand and i snorkel around the dock where there are plenty of fish and I spot two large starfish.  i could spend hours in the water but i need to get my laundry into town.  i usually have easy to wash clothes with me so rinsing out in a sink is doable but the jungle clothes have a thick layer of clay in them and it will take a proper washing to get them clean.  

off to San Pedro we go, it's a two mile walk but we hitch a ride from a passing golf cart.  i find the laundry spot and they are quite busy so it'll be two days before i can pick them up.  being in town in daylight gives me a chance to see how much has changed in the 16 years since i was last here.  it's built up quite a bit but the biggest change seems to be the road that runs tip to tip on the island.  the golf carts make zipping about easier but the town is less pedestrian friendly and i spend most of my energy avoiding golf carts.  we stop in at Fido's for a snack and it feels more like a sports bar in the US then a beach bar in the tropics.  the food is good and after a few more errands around town we head back to Akbol.  

we hang out at our room which is clean and comfortable with great ventilation and beautiful folding doors across the front and semi private front porch area.  although small it's very charming but the proximity to the road makes it very noisy and i never sleep really well.  the golf carts run on the road all day and into the night when the bars close.  when we get back, i notice our towels are gone, thinking that odd i ask a passing staff member for clean towels.  the towels never showed up.  it took me several days to figure out they probably didn't have enough towels for all the rooms so it was hit or miss if you got one. 

i chat up the travelers in the next room over and find them delightful.  they give me tons of information about what they've done and where they've been on the island.  there was a yoga retreat arriving so the entire resort was booked out and the staff was over stressed.  they commiserate about the towel situation and give one of their towels to me.  :)  one guest commented that she was disappointed to find out there wasn't a hammock garden as advertised on the website.  


another way the maintenance and management fails is in keeping the shared bath clean.  every time i went to take a shower the soap caked shelf grossed me out.  the space needed to be cleaned more than once a day as the trash bins including the ones in the toilet stalls with used toilet tissue were always overflowing with rubbish.  just grossed me out.


last night as i was sleeping i felt a bite on my foot which i ignored.  when i woke up today my foot was quite swollen although there wasn't a visible bite mark.  i'm covered with quite a few bites at this point so it's just another addition to the jungle bites.

no tapir

today we are driving back across the Guatemala border across Belize to Belize City to catch a ferry out to the island.  not really interested in another substandard meal at the Jungle Lodge we grab coffee and head out.  we see a coatamundi playing and a strange tiny deer as we drive out of the park.  this area is called the petite jungle because all of the animals are smaller than counterparts found in other jungles.  as for the mysterious tapir, well we didn't see one.  given the amount of time we spent in the jungle in the dark it seems possible that we might have seen a jaguar but we didn't see one of those magnificent animals either.

it's 141 miles from Tikal to Belize City and we leave at 8:30 AM.  with a border crossing a few store stops and lunch we arrive at the ferry after 4:30PM.  i stop for some flip flops because the clay hill destroyed the pair i had.  we also find a car wash because the car is covered up to the windows with mud and clay which would surely be a flag to the rental car company.  

the border doesn't take too long but there is a line getting into Belize and i chat up an Australian couple who are touring Central America.  we lament the fact that border crossings are so unpredictable and you have to be on highest alert as the children and other hawkers crowd you. i give them a lift into the next town over which is San Ignaciao and we stop for lunch.  i buy some spices in the farmer's market and we find some Guatemalan coffee at the grocery store.  then drive on to Belize City to drop the car.  i will not miss it.  that damn alarm went off every single time i unlocked the car.  i did the driving on the mainland and was comfortable doing it.  i was glad to have the flexibility to stop and go as we pleased. it is not however, for the less adventurous traveler and most people acted surprised when i said i rented a car.

Belize City is exactly as described in all the forums and guides.  it's another place where as i do a mental risk assessment i'm sure i don't want to be.  it's heartbreaking to see the poverty and conditions that exist so close to the US. my hope for Belize is they can develop ecotourism in a sustainable way since they don't seem to have any other viable economy. 

we're taking the ferry out to Ambergis Caye and it's dark so that's disappointing and as we arrive in San Pedro the water taxi we need out to the resort is just pulling away from the dock.   i'm tired and cranky even though i celebrated getting rid of the car with a rum/juice cocktail on the ferry.  we get a snack as we wait for the next water taxi which leaves at 8:30.  it turns out to be our last chance to eat as when we arrive at our resort everything is completely dark.  we wander around shouting and eventually find the owners who's welcome is to tell us what a tough day they've had.  seriously, i've been traveling for 12 hours, doing all the stuff you just read about and i'm tired and cranky and they want me to empathize about their day?

Kirsten shows us to our room which has a lizard on the wall.  hey, it's the tropics and i expect bugs and reptiles to show up, it was the half-hearted way she attempted to get him out that was ridiculous.  her dog came in and chased it around the room for a while then it disappeared into a crack.  we never saw it again but we kept our bags zippered so we didn't take any extra critters home.  i like to pack super light when i'm traveling and because the website said they had laundry service onsite i expected to be able to get my jungle clothes washed.  so i ask Kirsten where i could drop my clothes in the morning to be told that wasn't an option.  it's late, dark and our hosts had a bad day.  i'm hoping it's all sunshine and rainbows in the morning but this stay isn't starting great.