Bittersweet Meandering

Our last night in Hopkins was sublime. By that point, the “storm” we had timed our snorkeling trip around had made landfall. There was a light tropical rain that perfectly set the “last night of the trip” scene. The occasional New Year’s Eve firecracker off in the distance also provided some delightful ambiance. But the holiday also meant that all of our hotel’s golf carts were in use, so we walked into town for dinner. It was a delightful and bittersweet meandering through the homes and shops we had seen all week. But in the rainy twilight, it all looked just a little bit different. It’s not like those golf carts were breaking any speed records, but the slower pace of the walk let us take it all in one last time.

Dinner was at another one of the beach shack restaurants hanging off the back of so many homes in Hopkins. That’s night’s one was just as delightful as every other we had been to that week. 

In classic Hopkins charm, the fish and chips that the kids ordered was simply a whole grilled fish surrounded by plantain chips. I pictured the chef seeing the order, shrugging, and saying, “I guess this is what they want.” It was clearly on the menu just for tourists.

Our kids, now quite comfortable with the Central American coastal life, didn’t even seem to notice the difference. They went to town on the dinner, still famished from that morning’s snorkeling adventures.

Aimee took me to the cute little ice cream shop in town for my birthday desert (we never actually did find a bakery). Also in classic Hopkins fashion, they had closed 30 minutes earlier than their posted hours. This was not surprising to us at that point in the trip. But thankfully, the owners (who lived adjacent to the shop) let us grab some prepackaged pints and eat them on the front porch. It was perfect.

Our flight home the next morning was at an infinitely more manageable time than our flight there. So we had a leisurely breakfast in our rental as we packed our bags. The van ride to the airport was easy, the outgoing customs and immigration checks were a breeze, and we begrudgingly boarded our flight to Miami. Although the lunch I ordered at one of the airport cafes took 45 minutes to arrive (again, not a surprise at that point), we made it on board with minimal excitement. But the thought of missing your flight out of Belize is an absolutely stressless situation. My only worry was that we might actually make the flight. I’m sorry to say we did.

Our layover in Miami was scheduled to be 4 hours, which would have been plenty painful on its own. But the holiday traffic ended up extending out the layover to a 5th hour. We were exhausted, but completely fine. There are far greater challenges than hanging out in the Miami airport all evening. The only real story from the layover was a gate agent who gave off the energy you’d expect at 10:30 pm from a gate agent who spent the day working a major holiday. She was in no mood to hear that Aimee and I were in an exit row, which is a no-go when traveling with kids. (The kids themselves were seated 8 rows ahead of us, but I wasn’t particularly concerned about that part.)

With a very heavy sigh, and a “You’re just telling me this now?” she clicked a few keystrokes into her computer and paged a couple of passengers who appeared to be in their early 30s.  She asked them, “Do you two want to sit in the exit row?” They of course jumped at the opportunity, which made even more sense as Aimee and I saw where their seats were. Well, I should say that Aimee saw. I was seated up front with Mimi in her original seat, while Aimee and Quinn kept walking back. And walking. And walking.

She finally took her seat in the last row of the plane. It’s never a joy to sit ten inches from the lavatory, but having a seat that didn’t recline while about to embark on a red eye with a 5 year old did not close out our vacation the best note.

We commiserated with each other for a bit over text messaging until the flight attendant announced that the door was closing. The second we turned off our phones, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the gate agent (and subject of the letter I had been composing in my mind for the previous 10 minutes). “Call your wife! Tell her row 13! Someone didn’t show!” By that point, Aimee’s phone was off, and I couldn’t catch her eye from (sorry, Aimee) our pretty solid seats at the front bulkhead. So the gate agent went back to tell her. I saw the tears forming in Aimee’s eyes as she gathered up her stuff and hurriedly walked up the aisle with Quinn before the gate agent could change her mind. It was a New Year’s miracle!

We slept as well as anyone could on an overnight flight with two small children. Once we landed (around 2:30 am), we grabbed our bags and went off to the hotel I had already booked. Even before the extended layover, I knew we wouldn’t be in any condition to drive back to Flagstaff that morning. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed 4 hours of sleep in an airport hotel more than I did that day.

We grabbed some breakfast, picked up our dog from my mom, and gradually made our way back home. The fresh snow waiting for us was a stark reminder that we weren’t in Belize anymore.

I’m already looking at return flights.

Three Hour Tour

This vacation was originally planned to celebrate Helen’s 75th birthday, but because of the passport issue(s), the actual trip dates fell over mine. My birthday was our last full day before we flew home, and we decided to spend it snorkeling a few miles off the coast.

Belize is dotted with about 450 islands cayes connected by the world’s second longest barrier reef. Most of the islands are tiny, but there are a handful that support local populations and/or tourist resorts. We obviously preferred using a sleepy fishing village as our home base, but we aren’t above checking out that scene for a day. So we arranged to have a little boat meet us at the local pier around 8 am that morning.

Our decision to go out to the islands that particular day was only partly because it was my birthday. A bigger reason was that we were threading the needle between two “storms.” They were really more like cloudy days with a bit of wind, but the climate is typically so perfect in Belize this time of year that the town has a pretty low bar for what constitutes bad weather. And that morning was characteristically delightful.

As we got situated on the boat, our guide and captain introduced themselves: Tough Love and Sexy Dawg (he didn’t clarify the spelling, but I got strong “awg” vibes). I had no problem calling them their chosen names around my kids. It was all lost on them. But I’ll admit that I did blush a bit whenever I had to say that around Aimee’s parents. 

Which reminds me, the unofficial cocktail of Belize is the Panty Ripper. It was unfortunately quite delicious, so we had to resort to euphemisms quite a bit (“Could I please have the unofficial national drink of Belize?”) to minimize the number of awkward conversations at the dinner table.

But back to Tough Love and Sexy Dawg. They got us loaded up and asked if everyone was a good swimmer. My kids shouted, “yes!” after a week of killing it in the 3’ section of our hotel pool. So I then followed that up by subtly asking if there were life jackets the kids could wear. My Arizona-raised children were blissfully unaware of the differences between splashing around indoors and keeping afloat in choppy water 25 feet above a coral reef. Tough Love assured me that there were without actually taking them out (yes, I’m foreshadowing), and we set off on the one-hour journey to the cayes.

The conditions were still delightful as the morning progressed, but the wind had picked up enough to cause a bit of chop on the water’s surface. It wasn’t much, but neither was our boat. The fiberglass 15-footer was getting tossed around, and of course, so were we. Our kids were loving it, but the bruises on their upper arms from Aimee and I clamping down on them still haven’t healed. It was extremely reminiscent of our Cham Island trip, and I tried to tell Aimee with my eyes, “I’m sorry for doing this to our family (again).”

I can’t say it was the most pleasurable cruise I’ve ever been on, but we eventually made it. But all was forgiven as he gave us an orientation as we looked around the incredible surroundings.

He then handed out the lifejackets (they had previously been doubling as seat cushions, so at least the boat would be fine if we capsized). He gave one to Quinn that easily reached down to his knees. I asked Tough Love if there were any smaller ones, and he turned to Sexy Dawg, “Do we have any smaller life jackets?” 

Sexy Dawg: Nope.

Tough Love: We really need to get some smaller life jackets, bruh.

Oh boy.

But after some heavy strap adjustment, we made it “work.”

The first of two snorkeling sites was a quick and easy one. Tough Love just wanted to gauge our swimming ability. Once we got life jackets on half our group, we did great. Until then, it was very much touch and go.

That first site was picked for convenience. It was the beach pier of one of the of the smaller island resorts. So there was enough sand and shore for everyone to get comfortable snorkeling before we headed out to open water. After dialing in straps and goggles, we floated over an artificial reef built by the Smithsonian as part of their conservation projects in the area. The only tricky part was not stepping on the fragile but important seagrass growing nearby. To be honest, I didn’t see much of the aquatic life during that part of the trip. Most of my attention was focused on keeping Mimi and Quinn’s comically oversized gear from destroying critical habitat. 

It’s hard to find much good news about the oceans these days, but the Belizean reef is actually doing relatively well. It’s shielded from some of the bigger temperature shifts affecting the rest of the oceans, and the Belizean government has done a remarkable job protecting the natural preserves. In fact, Tough Love warned us that we might be stopped by a Coast Guard ship at some point on our journey to have our permits checked. “Don’t worry, they look like pirates, but they’re not.” Quinn and I were both a bit disappointed they weren’t around that morning.

After another round of strap tightening on the kids’ life jackets, we headed out to open ocean. We were about 25 feet above the reef at that point. The chop had picked up a bit more, but it was still easily swimmable, even with a 5 year old suckerfish perched on top of Aimee and/or I for most of the trip.

The first big sighting was a 3’ reef shark. It was the perfect size. Large enough to captivate the kids, while still being 3’ short of making the morning any more terrifying than it needed to be. The rest of the swim was delightful.

We floated around looking at a huge variety of tropical fish, as well as a giant lobster pointed out by Tough Love. He was extremely knowledgeable about everything besides children's life jackets, and it was a delight to learn from him.

The boat ride back was a bit less delightful. At no point were we actually thrown from the boat, but there were a few times that were a bit closer than I would have liked. The ever-increasing wind on our wet bodies also took a toll. I was almost, almost a bit relieved when our boat stalled out halfway back to shore. But thankfully(?) it was only because of any empty gas tank. Once Sexy Dawg refilled it from the red can in the back, we were again underway. But I don’t think our kids’ upper arms will ever recover.

Drums with a story

Fresh off our chocolate high, we wanted to dig into the other major culture in the region. And drumming plays a big role in that. But not just any drumming. Drumming with a very interesting backstory.

Hopkins plays a unique role in the Belizean cultural mix. It’s one of the main settlements of the Garifuna people, an ethnic group of around 100,000 people living throughout the Americas, most typically in fishing villages along Caribbean coast. Their origin legend is that they’re the descendants of two capsized Spanish slave ships going from Western Africa to St. Vincent. Modern historians surmise that the arrival wasn’t quite so dramatic, and probably involved the gradual blending of Indigenous Caribs and escaped West African slave communities. Either way, the population is distinctly its own and fiercely independent. Like the Hopi people closer to home, the Garifuna culture survived wave after wave of European colonization and is very proud of its traditions. One of those traditions is their captivating polyrhythmic musical style. It’s based around several characteristic drum beats that weave in and out of each other with gourd shakers and vocals over the top.

We took advantage of a rare cloudy morning to walk the short distance from our rental to the Lebeha drumming center. It’s a local collective of drummers who teach, perform, and otherwise work to preserve the musical style. We, of course, loved everything about that.

Aimee and I sat down with the kids in front of some of the characteristic drums while our teacher, Jabbar, taught us some of their more basic rhythms. 

Within about 15 minutes, Mimi was starting to be more drawn to the Garifuna cooking class going on behind us. Within another 10 minutes, we had lost Quinn, too. But Aimee and I continued to enjoy the lesson as we dipped into some of the more advanced rhythms, or at least as advanced as an hour lesson for tourists could be. And by hour, I mean really more like 45 minutes, at which point Aimee and I decided to call it a win before our kids fully joined the family behind us. I can’t blame them. The food smelled fantastic.

The Garifuna people are just one of several communities with interesting and surprising backstories. A close second place is the Mennonites. I’ll be honest, it’s a striking sight to see a bunch of very, very white people in full length clothing and leather boots walking through the Central American jungle as if it were Western Pennsylvania. 

Our guidebook said that those particular Mennonites never quite found a home in the United States after being exiled from Europe over a century ago. Generation after generation kept heading south until they eventually settled in Belize, a country already comfortable with a heterogenous cultural mix and happy to have the hard working families contribute to the growth of Central America’s youngest country. They continue to make traditional furniture for the region, and play a big role in Belize’s surprisingly good cheese selection.

I’ve already talked about the biggest (and original) ethnic group in Belize, the Mayans. But there’s also a big community of American and Canadian ex-pats taking advantage of the tropical conditions and relatively low cost of living. The Canadians, in particular, have a very easy transition, as Belize remains a part of the British Commonwealth. Belizeans seem to enjoy their current balance of autonomous governance and Crown protection. In fact, a recent referendum for full independence was rejected by the country’s voters. One of our van drivers told us that it was because of the ongoing border dispute with Guatemala. It’s still a labile situation, and the Belizeans feel that losing British protection would be an open invitation for partial encroachment.

Speaking of Guatemala, the other big sub-population is farm workers immigrating from other Central American nations. Minimum wage in Belize is US$2.50 an hour, and under the table farmwork pays even less. I don’t think I can look at $0.49 bananas the same way anymore.

Alright, that’s enough of that. I’m not going to fix the structural injustices behind mass migration in a blog that’s 60% stories about me having diarrhea in foreign countries.

Which, now that I think about it, hasn’t happened in quite some time. (The diarrhea, I mean, not the migration.) I can probably attribute that to having kids. It’s not that they directly prevent my questionable decisions (I am “prone to adventurous eating,” as the CDC so wonderfully puts it), but they do inspire me to make less of them. I now pause for an extra half-beat before making any food decisions, wondering how many upset stomachs I’m prepared to manage. It’s got to be some really amazing street food now.

But traveling with kids does have a few additional costs. Or really, cost. Aimee and I have never been much for bringing trinkets back home. We’ve never owned suitcases large enough. But try telling that to a 5 and 7 year old. It was a non-starter. So instead, we tried to corral their excitement into responsible souveneiring. I’m not sure how well we did, but we were able to make it through our only overcast day of the trip with nothing more than a few handmade bracelets and a small, loosely jaguar-ish carved stone. Could have been worse.

The Best Medicine

I intentionally didn’t do a ton of research about this trip. I didn’t want to over schedule (or schedule, period) ourselves. We wanted the easiest of easiest-paced vacations. But a couple of activities caught my eye when I skimmed the travel guide ahead of our trip. One of them stood out as a clear must-do: Chocolate farming.

I told myself, “You know, for the kids,” but I know Aimee and I would be just as into it. Maybe even more so.

The Mayan district of Central Belize is a major chocolate producer. But you could easily miss the thousands of acres of farms hiding in plain sight. Cocoa trees like shade, so they’re usually hidden banana trees or simply natural forest growth.

Both cocoa farming and cocoa touring are big business out here, and we were more than happy to play a part in that. So we arranged a van to take us 10 miles inland from Hopkins to one of the bigger plantations. It’s the Che’il Mayan chocolate farm. The name loosely translates into Wild Mayans, and it pays homage to one of the several world-altering contributions of the early Mayans.

Current farming practices have changed remarkably little since those days, and the collection of cocoa seeds remains extremely labor intensive. Learning about that was the first stop on our tour. We went out with local farmer, Darcelio, into one of his fields (among 3,000 acres in total). While he animatedly extolled the incredible health benefits of “doing the chocolate,” which he defined as consuming anything above 75% cacao. Diabetes? Gone. Heart disease? Fixed. Anxiety? Over.

I don’t remember hearing it exactly that way in med school, but I wasn’t going to argue.

Then he took us a few steps into the forest to see the pods in their natural environment. He pointed out a handful of ripe ones, but the harvesting season is several months long and Darcelio typically harvests seeds up to 9 times a year to catch the pods at their best.

With a couple of pods in hand, he took us back to his classroom/hut to show us how he opens them. He then proceeded to bang a wooden stick against one of the pods, rotating it between blows. This approach was not just a show for tourists. Despite having modern resources available to him, his technique was nearly identical to what his ancestors perfected 5,000 years ago. Anything mechanized or using a blade would risk damaging the nearly-priceless pulp and the cacao seeds within it.

He then let us pick out a pulp-covered seed to try for ourselves. He advised us not to chew it, but let it just sit in our mouth. It had a remarkably sweet, melon-like flavor that tasted nothing like chocolate. The characteristic chocolate flavor comes from the bitter innards of the seed, but Darcelio warned us that they’re quite unpalatable raw.

After recollecting the seeds to prevent any wayward trees from sprouting up in his teaching area (the land out here is beyond fertile), he continued with his discussion of how they became the chocolate we all know. He told us that the seed/pulp mixture is collected in wooden boxes and covered with leaves to let wild yeast and probiotics ferment the pulp sugars and mature the seeds. The fermentation is a critical process and takes a week or two. From there, the seeds are slowly dried to a specific humidity level over about 6 days and then sent to the same production facility where we were headed next.

On the drive back, Aimee and I kept listing the health benefits of pure dark chocolate. Bad vision? Restored. Broken leg? Set. Bald? Check again. The possibilities were endless. It reminded Aimee of the hucksters she used to see on the busses in Nicaragua. They’d hop on and see if anyone wanted to buy their herbal cures for everything from arthritis to AIDS. These cocoa pods were probably no more effective, but infinitely tastier.

At the production facility, another local expert took us through the next steps. The fermented and dried seeds are roasted to perfection, then the seeds are crushed and pressed. The extracted oils are separated from the ground seeds and will naturally solidify in a day or two to become cocoa butter.

The remaining roasted seed pieces would be then sold as-is (cocoa nibs), further ground and dried (cocoa powder), or turned into bar chocolate. That’s the part we were doing. Our teacher had all of us process the seeds by hand on the type of grinding stone that our guide informed us is in every single Mayan households, passed down through the generations. This particular one was nearly 200 years old, predating the automobile and even the first steam locomotive in the Americas.

Some cocoa butter was then added back to our ground seeds and further worked on the stone for another 3-4 minutes. He said the chocolate they sell is ground for 3 hours to make it super fine (the only mechanized part of this entire process). He asked us what degree of dark chocolate we wanted to make (the group decided on 80% to ward of digestive problems, migraines, and COVID), and then added the corresponding amount of cane sugar (also grown on site). He poured the oily mixture into a rubber form and then put it in the fridge for a few minutes. As we waited, we tried the traditional Mayan chocolate beverage where it all began. It tasted like a more dilute hot chocolate with cinnamon and a few other spices added. No surprise, it was delicious.

Our host joked that this wasn’t like a cooking show where the chocolate forms are put into the fridge and then the finished product comes out at the same time. So we small talked for another couple of minutes until the bars were ready. He then pulled the form from the fridge and popped out a dozen or so bars for everyone one the tour. Despite the short production time and the amateur helpers, the chocolate was, hands down, the best I have ever tasted. By orders of magnitude. Nothing else comes close.

As any reasonable person would do, we then proceeded to buy a considerable amount of professionally made chocolate bars to take home. The staff said that even though they were producing massive amounts of cocoa seeds from thousand of acres of rich farmland, they barely have enough to keep their own on-site store stocked. They have a primo location on the entrance road to the popular Coxcomb sanctuary, the world’s only jaguar preserve, so they get plenty of tourist traffic. I can’t imagine anyone who goes past this place leaves with anything less than 5 bars, so I’m not surprised there aren’t any left to send elsewhere.

I can’t really think of a way to wrap up this post. We toured a cocoa farm, we made some chocolate, we ate it, we were cured of all diseases. Not a bad day.

Just look to your left

 In true Stone family fashion, we had been planning our days purely around food. To that point, my only blog note for Wednesday was about our lunch. We rented a golf cart (the primary mode of transportation in Hopkins) to cruise to the other side of town for a meal at one of the restaurants our hotel recommended. 

I should have known that the hotel staff may be used to recommending restaurants for perhaps a different type of traveler. As far as I’m concerned, the beach shack fry fish like what we had the day before is essentially the pinnacle of human experience. The restaurant we were sent to that day was a bit more polished than what I would have sought out, and didn’t have much in the way of local fare. It was a vaguely Asian restaurant run by a seemingly Russian expat. But somehow, in the cultural melting pot that is coastal Belize, that felt completely natural. (Which reminds me, I haven’t even touched on the Mennonites yet. I’ll work that in at some point.)

The meal was solid, and I’d easily go back if there weren’t so many other places worth trying, but it was nothing to write home about. The real memory (and the focus of my sole note today) was the scene a table over. A group of three women in their 60s who looked as if sunscreen hadn’t made the cut on their packing list (ever) were talking relatively loudly about some stresses and whatnot. Well, really one was talking and two were acknowledging. I didn’t really catch much more than the occasional swear word while trying to keep my kids’ hyperacute hearing focused on the conversation at our table. I didn’t want to get into any awkward explanations.

But at some point, a woman sitting at the only other table in the restaurant stood up and said, “Excuse me. I couldn’t help overhearing (tell me about it), but you have somatic trauma and you need to release it from your body.” I looked to Aimee, who had heard the same thing and had a smile on her face that said, “We’ll be talking about this for years.”

As our attention turned back to them, the conversation had moved on to trauma management strategy. “You just need to turn your head to the left and look out as far as you can before going to bed.” 

Now, I’m a very receptive audience for how to manage generational trauma. It’s what I do for a living, after all. But I won’t be taking that advice back to my patients. Although, maybe the joke’s on me, because within minutes, all four women were standing up, hugging, and fully sobbing. I’m not sure if the multiple empty beer bottles on the table had anything to do with the degree of sobbing, but hey, a breakthrough is a breakthrough.

Hopkins is dotted with quite a few hostels, and seems to be a popular spot on the backpacking/adventuring/spiritual journeying circuit. So I got the feeling that whatever just happened at lunch is a pretty regular occurrence around here.

The advice-offering woman had already been on my judgement radar for about 10 minutes, even before whatever just happened happened. A vanlife-type camper that had seen better days honked spontaneously from restaurant’s dirt parking lot several minutes before the group therapy session. The man sitting with the presumably-unlicensed therapist said something along the lines of, “Should I check? I’ll go check.” He walked out to the van, poked his head around for a minute and came back in the restaurant. I heard him say, “Jack was fully in his thing a minute ago, I don’t know how that happened.” I assumed Jack was either a dog or a baby, and was fully prepared to judge them for leaving either in the van while they enjoyed their lunch.

Fast forward through the recounting of recent stresses, “excuse me,” and the subsequent sobbing, and we were all getting back into our vehicles around the same time. Us into a comically overloaded golf cart, them into their cosmic spaceship/Winnebago camper van.

As we were getting ready to putter out of the parking lot, we saw a nearly naked toddler streak by in his diaper. “Jack! Come back, Jack!” came echoing out of the van.

Thirty years from now, I look forward to hearing stories from my kids’ trip to Belize. “Some guy named Jack was venting about his crazy parents at lunch when a stranger stood up and offered to help him get through his somatic trauma.”

Just look to your left, Jack. Just look to your left.

Hopkins

The next few days were lazy jaunts exploring Hopkins. Most of that exploring was in the 50 feet between the back door of our vacation rental and the beach, but we did occasionally make it into town. 

Hopkins is a delightfully sleepy village of about 3,500 people. It has a fascinating history and ton of charm. But most importantly, it has managed to retain that charm while still opening its doors to visitors. It’s the kind of place where every restaurant is attached to the side of the chefs’ homes, and daily life carries on all around you. Even getting to our vacation rental involved walking through several people’s laundry lines, a cemetery, and what appears to be an expat’s home made from shipping containers.

And then we get here.

Yep. This is daily life in Hopkins. You buy groceries looking at that. You go to the ATM looking at that. Hard to see how anything can get done in a place like this. It’s actually pretty striking to come across something as mundane as a medical clinic or police station. But even those have a distinctly tropical charm.

But back to the view from our rental. In case you forgot:

The dock next to the property could just as easily have been added for ambiance at a more heavy-handed tourist destination. But it wasn’t. Every morning, I saw local fishers using it to cast their lines or unload their boats. It’s a real, actual place. Not a post card. Still having a hard time wrapping my head around that.

We intentionally under-scheduled ourselves during our time in Hopkins to counteract our time at Caves Branch. We normally have a strict one activity per day rule when traveling with the kids, and had some extreme relaxing to do so we could recover. Multiple hours were spent by just watching the kids jump off the end of the pier (with me in the rescue kayak).

This is our kind of place.

It was a full 24 hours before we ventured more than a 100 feet. And even that was just to a charming little beach shack 10 minutes down the beach. It was the kind of place where the “fry fish” plate was just a whole fish fried and put on a plate. It was delightful. 

Further adding to the charm, we had seen one of the local fishers walk ashore and pass his catch over to the cook just before our meal. There was a real chance that we saw our meals get brought ashore. But perhaps the best part was that every meal in that town is served with a couple slices of fried plantain. There’s no food on the planet that evokes a feeling like fried plantains, and it was fun to share that with the kids.

Continuing that pace (or lack thereof), most of our second day in Hopkins was spent just looking for a bakery. And unsuccessfully at that. Since this town is not a major tourist hub, nothing is marked and most businesses are open whenever they want to be. Locals know who the baker is and when they’ll be baking. Everyone else just needs a bit of luck. But we weren’t complaining. That’s why we’re here. Belize has several resort islands that can deliver a very comfortable vacation, but we wanted a bit more diversity of experience. And cruising around in a golf cart on an extremely low-stakes quest for some baked goods to keep around for second breakfast was just the kind of non-experience we were going for.

Dead fish and a smooth Christmas

Our trip took a decidedly slower turn starting on Christmas Day. Begrudgingly packed up, we headed for one last breakfast at Caves Branch, and ran into Belizean Santa Claus!

He’s just like regular Santa Claus, except he also speaks Spanish and Mayan. He also sounded suspiciously like the head server at the lodge’s restaurant. And it wasn’t a voice we’ll easily forget. One of the highlights for Aimee and I each afternoon was hearing him describe that day’s dinner with unbridled excitement. “For! The! First! Course! We’ll be having salad! With tomatoes! The! Freshest! Tomatoes! And the bread! So fresh! We just made it!” Plus, since guests were coming and going each day, he gave the same orientation with the same just-above-dad-level jokes at every single meal. Oh man. We loved every bit of it.

But it was our turn to check out and let someone else hear those jokes for the first time. We were heading off to Hopkins, a sleepy beach town where we’d be spending the rest of our time in the country.

The van ride was about 90 minutes, and we arrived in Hopkins right around lunchtime. Our room was still being made up, so we dropped our bags and set off along the beach to grab some food.

The rest of the day was zero sweat drops. Maybe negative.

The hotel we were staying at had some kayaks available to float around in. I was plenty content to just hang out on the beach, but the water was so calm the kids could easily go out on their own. 

An hour and 10,000 calories later, the kids floated their kayak over to some friendly local fishers. The fishers explained that they used a net to catch sardines, and hooked the sardines onto their lines to catch the larger fish. As it turns out, sardines are also extremely effective at catching 5 year olds.

I’ve never seen a kid so happy to hold a dead fish.

Christmas dinner was at one of the local resorts next to where we were staying. The resort’s restaurant advertised live music throughout the evening, which was an easy selling point for us. We caught the tail end of some local Garifuna drummers (more on that later), but the majority of our meal overlapped with a talented but comically stereotypical resort sax player. A lot of Kenny G-esque takes on Christmas classics.

That by itself would have been fine. It fit the moment. But he was turned up to 11 the whole time. Seriously. It was crazy. All I could think about throughout the meal was, “I’m going to lose my hearing to this?!” I don’t know what made me more depressed, the fact that I was spending the last week of my 30s listening to a smooth jazz rendition of Silent Night, or that I was upset it was too loud.

Sigh.

But my depression was short-lived. We were still in Belize, the meal was delicious, and we just took turns rotating out of the restaurant anytime our ears started hurting. 

*Shouts* “MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!!”

Three sweat drops and a lot of history

Tubing through ancient caves is a very hard act to follow. But we still had another day to check out inland Belize. The back half of our trip would be in a sleepy little beach town, so there would be plenty of time to put our feet up then. I had been reading several books on the Mayan history of the region leading up to our trip (which included an extra six months after we rescheduled), so I was excited to check out some temple ruins.

The area that is now Belize was once the heart of several different Mayan kingdoms. The history is fascinating. What I had presumed to be a homogenous and peaceful civilization was in fact a diverse and evolving population marked by shifting alliances and frequent warfare. Despite the ecological richness (or perhaps because of it), the lives of the Mayans were harsh and challenging. So they counted on their leaders to facilitate their very survival. When things went bad, populations rebelled and dynasties were brought to an abrupt end. So to counter this tendency, rulers built awe-inspiring temples (and performed brutal rituals in them) to demonstrate their connection to the gods and inspire a bit of complacent fear in their subjects. Hence some of the largest structures in Belize to this day.

Our Fermin-recommended destination that day was Xunantunich, the second tallest building in Belize. The van ride was about an hour, and a couple other families staying at Caves Branch joined as well. Our guides Alfred and Pedro did a nice job pointing out interesing things along the way. But with all of us still recovering from the previous day’s cave adventure, it was a pretty quiet drive.

The first bit of excitement came up when we were just a mile away from Xunantunich. There’s a hand cranked ferry that shuttles vehicles across the river before they head on up to the ruins. 

But it is highly affected by the river’s water level, so different sizes of vehicles can only traverse it when the conditions are appropriate. That day, our van didn’t qualify. So we all got out and hiked the last mile on foot. 

Like most Mayan temples, Xunantunich was built on a tall hill overlooking the valley below. Or in more immediate terms, our hike was pretty steep. So the guides shared Mayan trivia and pointed out cilantro and allspice plants along the way to keep everyone distracted from the considerable effort. But I was quickly realizing why even a mild sightseeing tour also earned three sweat drops in the Caves Branch brochure.

The hike was immediately worth it as soon as we reached the top. The strength and power of the buildings was immediately evident. 

As our guide pointed out, most of our modern buildings will not be standing in a hundred years, let alone a thousand. But the main temple and the collection of structures around it looked like they could have been in use yesterday. And it’s not like they’ve been protected this whole time. Mayan civilization reached its peak about 1500 years ago, and rapidly declined over a thousand years ago. After that, the major cities were abandoned, and the dwindling population dispersed into other areas. Archeologists and Americanists (that’s a thing) have various theories for why that occurred, ranging from disease to famine to religious taboo/perceived curse. But regardless of the reason, the cities were abruptly abandoned and only rediscovered over the last century (and several just during my lifetime). 

These structures spent the last millennium being lost to the jungle, which is so fertile that trees started sinking roots into the structures immediately after they were abandoned. Those trees dropped leaves, those leaves became soil, and in no time at all, these massive structures were completely buried under full ground cover. Rumors and legends were passed down through generations of Mayans, but the mounds melted so thoroughly into the surrounding hills that they were completely camouflaged. Modern Mayans had been using them as hunting grounds for centuries, completely unaware that the hills they were traversing through hid literally hundreds of feet of history.

Occasionally a hunter would see a stone structure or a clay pot popping out through the soil, word would get out, and the archeologists and looters would race each other to establish a presence. That cycle continues to play out even today. Archeologists believe that only a small fraction of Mayan ruins have been discovered, even at well known sites like Xunantunich. As our guides were discussing that we looked out over the valley and couldn’t help but wonder which mounds were natural and which ones were history. There’s still a ton to explore.

But I’ve gone on a bit. There are lots of great books about Mayan ruins. I won’t keep rehashing them here. But it is such a fascinating history.

Back to the present. The very present, where I’m trying to take in two thousand years of history while trying to keep my kids from falling off of it. Thanks again, Alfred.

By the end of the trip (or really more like 10 minutes after we got there), everyone in our group knew the names of our kids and joined Aimee and I in calling them out whenever they got within about 5 feet of the edge. Getting them some cameras for Christmas seemed like a good idea at the time, but those kids are fearless almost to a fault.

Although in all fairness, it’s not like there aren’t any safety precautions.

Infallible.

I glossed over our trip to the top of the temple, but there’s definitely a story there. The Mayans are small people. They have small feet. They make small stairs. I don’t have any photos from the way up because I was too busy trying keep my own balance while making sure my kids stayed far away from where the non-existent guardrails would have been if the building was made a thousand years later. Life was tough during the Classical Mayan era. Food was scarce, warfare was constant. Losing a couple of people every year to a wayward step was just a drop in the bucket, especially since things didn’t end particularly well for about a third of the people that made it to the top of that staircase anyway.

Ok. My heart rate has come back down from thinking about our ascent. Now we can move to geography. Aside from being able to see our own potential demise, we could also see Guatemala. The homes over Pedro’s shoulder are just past the border.

There’s a centuries-long dispute about that border, with court cases ongoing to this day. I don’t know enough about it to go into any meaningful detail here, but the short version is that it’s yet another example of colonial powers (in this case Britain and Spain) battling over a rich territory, then leaving generations of problems in their wake. Spain said the border was in one spot, Britain said it was in another. Then they both withdrew from active governance in the area without settling the issue. In fact, the Belizean recently voted to stay in the British commonwealth because they’re convinced Guatemala would march right in if they weren’t. Whether or not that’s true, it’s kept a simmering unease going throughout the entire history of both countries.

Enough procrastinating. It’s time to head back down the temple stairs.

We survived the descent (physically, if not emotionally), and then the tour continued through some classic Mayan ball courts. They were used to play a handball-like game that often took the place of warfare but was equally fatal for the losers. It really was a brutal period.

After that, it was back down the hill to our van. We re-crossed the ferry on foot, and then loaded up the van and headed off to lunch. As I write this, we’re only a few days after leaving the inland portion of our trip, and I’m already deeply craving more of that area’s rice, beans, and homemade tortillas. I could absolutely do just fine living there.

With full bellies, we set off for the other cultural site on the agenda, Cahal Pech. Smaller, but considerably older, the site has roots going back over 3,000 years. However, it’s also one of the more recent discoveries. I was Quinn’s age when excavation began. Our guides told us about several major digs that they personally witnessed as recently as a couple of years ago. Since archeologists have more modern techniques and tools at their disposal (and better governmental protection from looters), the excavation of this site is much more revealing of ancient Mayan culture. Even the 3,000 year old paint is visible at certain places. Cahal Pech also where some of the oldest Mayan pottery has been discovered.

But our focus was not on history at that point. We had one kid squarely in the middle of nap time and another with a full bladder from the glass of extremely fresh juice that has become a staple of our kids’ diet on this trip. So we took a quick lap around the ruins just long enough to find the modern bathrooms, and then fell into a deep, deep sleep on the way back to Caves Branch.

As we had been doing every evening at Caves Branch, we spent the rest of the day lounging in the pool. Lounging by the pool was an easy way to turn into a mosquito feast, but the cold water always felt nice after our adventures. And then with very heavy hearts, we packed up our bags the next morning. Aimee and I have been very fortunate to travel to lots of amazing places, but Central Belize has already become one of maybe three that we’ve already started planning to come back to. We need to see what those 5 sweat drop adventures are like!

Caves Branch

The late winter solstice sunrise was our alarm clock the next morning. But no one was complaining, since this was what we were getting up to.

Caves Branch, our home for the next few days, got its name from being near a branch in Belize’s considerable underground cave network and popularizing their exploration.

The lodge is located on 50,000 acres of protected forest. It’s massive. So there are all kinds of areas to explore. When we checked in, Caves Branch provided a list of a dozen or so expeditions they offer, rating them on a 5 sweat drop scale. But there wasn’t anything on the list with fewer than 3 drops. So the activities ranged from “Extreme” to “How can this be legal?” 

I figured we’d start with Extreme so I talked with Fermin and asked what he thought would be good for our group particularly wide age range. He said Cave Tubing would be perfect. He ultimately wasn’t wrong, but I’ll admit that it did take most of the day for me to see that.

We met our ride by the front desk at 9 am, and I immediately knew that at least Quinn’s needs would be addressed.

[In fact, as I sit here writing this by the pool after we got back (spoiler alert: we survived), he looked over my shoulder and told me to write, “We did a very good truck ride.“ Couldn’t have said it better myself.]

Our main guide, Justo, introduced himself and helped us into the truck. Fermin, who usually works the desk, came along as a backup. “We always send two guides, in case one of them doesn’t make it out.” I was 90% sure he was kidding. Maybe 85%. Regardless, our fate was sealed, since we were underway just a few minutes later.

We drove through one of the two citrus groves in the preserve, stopping at the front gate to receive a quick spray down with an unknown insecticide. As we learned later, several of Belize’s citrus groves are being decimated by an incurable bacterial infection transmitted by a specific type of beetle. It’s a huge deal right now, so I understood the measure. But I’m going to tell myself it was just vinegar and citronella oil in the citrus worker’s unmarked spray bottle.

After 15 minutes of me trying to recall the signs of organophosphate toxicity, we pulled up to the base of one of the small mountains we could see from our room. Justo told us that we’d be exploring underneath it for the rest of the day. He and Fermin handed us inner tubes and life jackets, then led us down the trail.

The dry part of our hike was maybe a half mile to the mouth of a cave with a decent sized river coming out of it. Justo directed us into the water and had us sit on our tubes. 

Although a better description might have been “intermittently flail a limb while trying to stay on the tube and not immediately get swept downriver.” We were going upstream into the cave, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at us. There had been some decent rains that week, so the current was no joke. I cranked down yet again on my kids’ life jacket straps, and locked onto their tubes with my feet.

After some comically pointless paddling as we tried to get upstream, Justo swam up ahead, anchored himself to a rock, and tossed us all a rope. 

Until then, I was too exhausted to question our decision. (“Left hand in the water, push, right hand in the water, push. Uh oh, I just lost Quinn. Ok. Got Quinn again. Left hand in the…Ah! There goes Mimi.”) But having a moment to pause and breathe gave me the opportunity to ask myself why I didn’t just book a room in one of the island resorts like every other person traveling to Belize with small children.

But my opportunity for self-reflection was short lived. Once we entered the mouth of the cave, Justo had us dismount on one of the shallow patches for a safety orientation.

Wait. That was the easy part?!

He started with the usual spelunking advice (life jackets, helmets, stay together, etc.), but then he continued on with some guidance that I had never before received on an adventure like this. Gems like, 

“The bats are just going after the bugs that your headlight attracts. They won’t attack you, per se.” Sorry, Aimee.

Or, “Try not to touch the rock walls. The crystals on them take thousands of years to form. (So far, so good.) But in the area where we hike up above the water line, holding the rock wall is the only thing that will keep you from falling 60 feet. It’s ok to touch there.” Got that, kids? Don’t touch, unless you’re going to die. Then do touch. Please. Do. Touch.

Or my personal favorite, “You’ll see lots of spiders, but we also have scorpion spiders in the cave (wait, that’s a thing?). They look like scorpions, but they’re harmless like spiders. They grow six feet (Justo and I have very different definitions of “harmless”). That’s how you know they’re scorpion spiders.” Good lord. I’m paying for this?

After Justo finished the most horrifying pep talk I had ever listened to, I looked over to Aimee and asked her in all earnestness, “Are you ok with this? All of this?” It felt very reminiscent of when we accidentally took her parents (and a baby) on a 3 day hike through Vietnam’s Grand Canyon.

But thankfully Aimee was ok with this. She’s a special person. Although, I was a little taken back when she answered with such a bright, “Yeah!” 

Was it just me? Was no one else even a bit concerned about the 6 foot spiders? The kids clearly weren’t.

With that out of the way, we got back into our tubes and continued our rope-pull leapfrogging with the guides. We gradually make our way another half-mile into the cave, occasionally dismounting to traverse around a (more) hazardous section of the river or check out some interesting natural feature or cultural artifact. There is a ton of Mayan history in those caves, and their relative isolation kept them somewhat protected from looters. We saw engraved pottery shards and obsidian blades dating back a thousand years. Despite having a near-negligible appreciation for that kind of a time scale, the kids seemed to innately understand the importance.

We got back on our tubes and headed a bit upstream to the “60 foot ledge” part of our day. It was mercifully optional, but the kids couldn’t be deterred. “We’re really good climbers!” Not really having it in me at that point to list the differences between crawling around a Flagstaff city park and a prehistoric underground river, I acquiesced and made sure my shoes were tied well. And to that point, Caves Branch has a now-understandably strict closed-toe shoe policy. Aimee actually started her morning picking through their loaner shoe pile after the guides vetoed her Chacos. Until that point, I had been kicking myself for not bringing anything besides flip flops and 6” hiking boots, but was very, very happy with that choice as we set off on the climb.

The rocks, smoothed by millennia after millennia of river flow, were extremely slippery. But Justo knew exactly where to have us step. As they told me, the kids were actually very good climbers. They got a little carried away at the start of the hike, but after Justo led us to a spot where we could look down and see how high we were, they stayed plenty close.

[I don’t actually have any photos of my kids looking down. I was permanently imprinting my grip into the back of their life jackets during that part.]

But it wasn’t just the view. The elevated section had natural formations and historical significance all its own. It really was a great little spot, and more than worth the three years of life expectancy I lost getting to that point.

After we climbed our way back down, the guides set up a charming little candlelight lunch. It felt like the meals on a Colorado River trip. Whether it’s the earned hunger or the surprise of seeing any food at all among such natural austerity, those meals rank as some of the best I’ve ever eaten. This was no different.

As we were chatting over lunch, the scorpion spiders came back up. Justo’s face lit up as he remembered something. “Six legs! I meant six legs, not six feet! My English isn’t great. They grow six legs. That’s how you know they’re not actual spiders.” I had never been so relieved to hear that an insect was “only” the size of my hand.

And despite Justo’s humility, his English actually was great. Most people in the inland sections of Belize are at least trilingual, bouncing between English, Spanish, and Mayan mid-sentence with ease. Justo was no exception. Six-foot spiders haunting my thoughts all morning? Just a slip of the tongue.

The final side hike was a small ledge just above river level. Fermin stayed down with our kids and taught them to make clay and paints from the river stones. 

Some of the history was lost on our kids, but none of the arts and crafts were.

Justo took the rest of us up and showed us some Mayan carvings on the cave wall that were part of a remarkably intact site of ancient fertility rituals. Mayan history has always felt very distant (geographically and chronologically), but walking among the same fire circles where many of their future princes and princesses were made was extremely powerful.

From there, the rest of the journey was easy. We floated back out of the cave, and climbed ourselves back to shore. 

Quinn got another Very Good Truck Ride back to the lodge and we took a dip in one of the nicer pools I’ve ever splashed around in.

Ok, Fermin. You were right.