At 10:15 local time (CST) I finally landed in Belize! The airport was, as Dad predicted, minuscule. Coming in to land, we could see nothing but trees—the little boy behind me was actually seriously concerned about how we were going to land with all those trees. Truly though, the landing strip was prettymuch cut out of the jungle. A little less than one commercial flight an hour lands there, in addition to a couple private jets. ‘Customs’ is two guys sitting behind desks stamping forms. So tiny!
I met up with four other people from my project who had arrived at the airport at the same time and we set up camp on the benches out front. The weather was the same gray-skied, muggy, 85 degrees all day long. There was a breeze so it was nice but definitely a bit strange because you can’t really track the passage of time. …which turned out to be a good thing because we ended up waiting at the airport for six hours as the rest of our project showed up. We bonded.
The bus ride to San Ignacio was about two hours long and FANTASTIC! Belize looks like a mix of Louisiana and the Caribbean as imagined by Disney in Pirates—all ramshackle, Technicolor shacks on spindly stilts in the middle of the swampy jungle. I cannot imagine what would drive anyone to say ‘I know, lets clear this crazy jungle and build a temple here!’ but hey, apparently they did. And I get to go dig them back up!
Our ‘resort’ is also pretty awesome, but I’m super tired from traveling all day so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Oh, and confession time—I forgot my camera! What and idiot! So you’ll have to see pictures too.
Love,
Elise
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NO CAMERA! What?
ReplyDeleteFIRST OF ALL the title of your blog is amazing.
ReplyDeleteNext, I'm so glad that I can keep up with your adventures. I'm so used to people going to remote places and then being completely unreachable for months! Way to go.