 |
| Yep, right over the Yucatan. |
Inn at Spanish Head - not bad for Plan B
 |
| We thought this plane ride would never come! |
A few days later, we boarded the plane and set off for Mexico. We flew into Cancun and hopped on a bus en route to the Riviera Maya, a strip of land about 80 miles or so between Cancun all the way down to Playa del Carmen. Our hotel was approximately in the middle. We told our bus driver our hotel. "No problema," he said and we sat down for a pleasant ride. By this time it was dark and we could only see our reflections while looking out the window. There was nothing to see as most of this strip is jungle with the occasional entrance to a large resort every few miles. Suddenly, the bus pulled over to the side of the road. "Aquí está tu hotel," he said. "Uhhh...¿dónde está?" we asked, scratching our heads because all we could see was the black of night. "Cruza la calle y van a ver el hotel." We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, grabbed our bags, and got off. "Adios," said the driver. He pulled away and we were left standing on the side of the road in the pitch dark. "Uhhhh...where is it?" we asked each other. Across the road we could vaguely see some lights off in the waaaaaay distance through the jungle. Not having a backup plan, the only thing to do was cross the road, which was actually a highway with cars zooming this way and that with really dim headlights, probably not bright enough to see two Oregonian honeymooners running for their lives. But we dodged the cars and made the long trek to the hotel.
Unfortunately, the hotel only had enough power in its generator to have the main lights on. All other electricity was still off thanks to Hurricane Emily. If you've ever been to Mexico in July you can figure out why no electricity is a problem. No worries, we'll just open the windows and get a nice breeze. "Now, don't go opening the windows because we just sprayed for mosquitos," said the front desk clerk. Right. But what they could do was upgrade us (sweet!) due to our inconvenience of no power and give us 50% off the buffet (the only main restaurant) for the remainder of our trip (sweet!).
With nothing else to do besides sweat, we decided to go swimming which was where all the other guests also were. However, 10 minutes after we dunked ourselves into the water, all power was restored (sweet!) and there was no way we were giving our special deals back.
 |
| Me doing the limbo on stage at some performance thing. |
 |
| Eating dinner beachside. |
We stayed there for a few days. My biggest regret about that part of the trip was not going to see the Tulum Mayan ruins. It was about an hour by bus and we decided we were just too tired and hot. I really regret not going when we were so close. Our hotel, Mayan Palace, was definitly a nice place, but we realized that we are not really the resort type travelers. It was time to pack our bags for our second leg of the trip - Belize!!
 |
| Waiting for the bus to take us to Belize. |
We took a bus to the Mexico/Belize border where we stayed in a little town called Chetumal. It was a really creepy weird town that I would never go back to. On our eight hour bus ride, we met a fellow American who told us all about his drug dealings and how wouldn't it be so cool if we all shared a room at the same hotel? Oh, but first, would we mind holding his bags for him just for a few hours? The hotel he was talking about was the sketchiest hotel EVER that had a drunk guy passed out in the entrance that the guests had to step over to get to the office. There was a sign on the gate that said something like, "It's not our problem if your stuff gets stolen." We told our drug friend we would meet him there later, and then we hightaled it out of there to the nearest Best Western!
After spending the night there, we caught the first bus of the day into Belize City, about a three or four hour ride. A few years prior to this, Belize City was known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world! As we got closer and closer to the city, there were more and more billboards advertising HIV/AIDS prevention methods - not just one or two, but probably half a dozen or more. When the bus pulled into the bus station, all we had to do was get off the bus and find a taxi that would take us to the water taxi terminal. From the bus to the taxi (about 25 feet), we were hounded by people trying to get our money. One lady reached into Jace's back pocket to grab his wallet which luckily he had in his bag. We dove into the sanctuary of the taxi van and rode with the lady driver (I'm not sure but the name "Big Mama" stands out in my head) who drove through the streets shouting in Creole at people out her open window. When we got to the water taxi terminal, things weren't much better. Two women were in a knock down drag out fight and there we were, little newly weds, far from the world we were used to. We finally got on the water taxi and we set off on our hour long journey to Caye Caulker!
 |
| It was a little windy on the water taxi. |
Caye Caulker is everything you'd imagine Belize to be. The cool vibe of the caribbean but with roots all its own, Caye Caulker's motto was "Go slow." We were met with a bare foot, dredlocked dude with a wheelbarrow at the dock. "Anyone need a taxi?" he called out. The official language in Belize is English, but most everyone also speaks Creole, a dialect that sounds like a mix between English, Spanish, French, and African. We found our house that we rented - beach front property, which isn't saying much because the whole island is 5 miles long and 1 mile wide. There's no paved roads and the only modes of transporation are golf carts and bicycles.
Before leaving for our trip, we had read in our Lonely Planet book, "Be sure to check out the couple of iguanas in the graveyard. They like to bask in the sun." While in Caye Caulker, we walked through the graveyard (it was on the path to the main road, it's not like we sought out a graveyard) and sure enough there they were, the two iguanas basking in the sun. We love Lonely Planet!
 |
| This is on the ground on the boat dock. It's the first thing you see. The rules must be followed. |
 |
| Cruising around the island. |
 |
| These little crabs would come out at night...by the dozens. Once when riding our bikes back in the dark, we kept riding over some really rocky terrain. Bump bump bump. Not until we saw the ground by the moon light did we realize, those aren't rocks we're running over, they're crabs! "Augh!!" yelled Jace. "Eeeeek!!!" I screamed. It was really sad but really funny. |
 |
| I'm pretty sure vacation is spelled h-a-m-m-o-c-k. |
Life is rough in Belize.
We spent our days relaxing on Caye Caulker. One day we took a water taxi over to San Pedro Ambergris Caye. This is a larger island and the main town, San Pedro, is said to be what Madonna is singing about in "La Isla Bonita." (If you don't know this song, it's one of her best.) It had more restaurants and more shops, and not quite as chill a vibe as Caye Caulker. Glad to have went there, but we were ready to go back to our little isla bonita.
Rush hour in San Pedro.
Walking the streets of Caye Caulker, there were the most beautiful conch shells that people would use to mark their property lines on their homes (in place of a fence). They were gorgeous and they were everywhere. (More on conches later)
One of our most favorite memories was going snorkling for an afternoon. Well, the whole story was that we were originally supposed to go for a whole day but the boat was 95% filled up with a big group of Italians. Jace and I were going to make up the last 5% on the boat, but they threw a full on fit (like yelling and calling us names) when they saw us trying to get on their "private" boat. We looked at the boat driver and he looked at us like, "Sorry, it's 25 against 2." We were left on the dock with them yelling at us and us yelling at them. I was so mad at those Italians I vowed I wouldn't eat spaghetti for a year. But it taught me a very valuable lesson - do not save something really special until the very last part of your trip because it might not happen. We still got to go snorkling but by that time there weren't any other full day excursions going so we had to wait and go on an afternoon trip.
This snorkling trip was way better than that stupid full day one, I'm sure. We saw so many amazing things on the reef and even got to swim with and feed little sharks and even touch giant sting rays. (I bet those Italians didn't get to do that.) Then came the best part. While we were all out snorkling, our boat diver had been busy diving to the bottom and collecting conch shells (with the snails inside). Conch is a delicacy where it's available so maybe he worked for a restaurant. Back on the boat, we watched him go through all the shells he'd collected. He'd stab a hole in the bottom of the shell with a big rod thingy, blow into the hole until the snail worked it's way out of the main shell part, grab the snail and put it in a bucket, and chuck the now empty conch shell back in the water. Occasionally he would take a little bite out of the shell and finally noticing that we were all watching him, held it out to us and asked, "Want some?" Why not? We each took a bite and Jace said, "This is the freshest sushi I've ever had!" and everyone laughed. Just as he was about to chuck the empty shell back into the water, I said, "Wait! Can I have that?" He said sure and gave it to me. (I carried it all the way home and it stunk up my bag so badly that I had to leave my bag outside for a whole month to air it out.) That was the best souvenir we could have got.
(I got this picture from the internet.)
We sadly left Caye Caulker and Belize. As we were on the bus, we passed through this town with a lot of unique people. We checked our beloved Lonely Planet book and come to find out, Belize has quite a large Menonite population. Who would have thought?
| Amidst dreadlocked rostas and palm trees. |
We headed back to Mexico with a stop on the island of Cozumel. We rented mopeds and vroomed around the island. It was so much fun!!!
 |
| One of my favorite pictures of us. |
 |
| Safety first. |
 |
| The view from our room. Not too shabby. |
Also in Cancun we discovered the best restaurant ever - Margaritaville. Everything about that restaurant is big - the margaritas (sweet!), the nachos, the music, the blasting volcanoes, but worst were the big pickles (ewwww).
 |
| Biggest plate of nachos in the WORLD. |
Jace and I had an amazing honeymoon that would probably be safe to say was unlike most people's. In college, I heard a professor once say, "However long you plan on going on your honeymoon, go twice that long." We were gone for two and a half weeks and we set the tone for our future travels....
