Tale of the Killer Jellyfish

As part of their 24/7 togetherness plan, Adrianne and Ernesto decided to go swimming last night. Now, I know neither one of them has a working 'voice of reason' but I thought Ernesto's Belizean heritage would make it a no-brainer that, if you have a choice, swimming in the pool is preferable to swimming in the sea at night. Apparently I was wrong. So, despite the fact they can't see what may be sharing their swimming space, they head into the sea for a refreshing dip-in-the-dark. Suddenly Adrianne yells 'I've been stung!' Now Ernesto's Belizean heritage kicks in (better late than never, I guess) 'Where?' He yells back. (He's trying to decide how serious it is - foot or ankle means stingray; higher means jellyfish) Adrianne, in the throws of pain thinks he has asked 'When?' 'Just now!' she yells back. Now Ernesto is confused 'What?' Adrianne, still in immense pain, has decided Ernesto has lost control of his senses. 'What!!!???' She yells back. The where/what convo continues for a few seconds till they reconnect and Ernesto ascertains it is a jellyfish sting and helps Adrianne back to the house. I am very excited. I know what to do for a jellyfish sting (no, I'm not going to pee on Adrianne)! I grab the vinegar and head Adrianne, still fighting the tears and the pain, into our bathroom so I can pour the vinegar over the sting. That done, I expect she will be immediately relieved. No. Now she is laughing and crying harder and kinda screaming. 'I just shaved my legs! Get out! I'm having a shower!' As I am now collapsed on the floor in convulsions of laughter, I crawl out of the bathroom. Note to self - vinegar + freshly shaved legs = pain worse than jelly fish sting. Now we know. And for those of you that haven't had the opportunity to visit us ... here's a picture of the players taken later in the night. As you can see, she survived her brush with the 'killer jellyfish'.

April Showers?

We didn't have many but we did have a couple of drizzles. That's more than the usual Belizean April gets. What else happened in April? Here it is:

The worst hike I've taken since we got here. The hike to Ben's Bluff. It's no harder than any of the others we've done and easier than many. The problem is that a lot of the hike is in the sun. And, of course, we hiked it in the afternoon. The reward is the view. You can see the entire cockscomb basin. Truly amazing.

Yet another trip to the zoo. We know the zoo very, very well. We have been visiting Junior (the jaguar) for a year now at regular intervals. He is growing up and changing. When we first started seeing him, he was five months old and his favorite toy was his red ball. Now he has developed a love of water bottles. They aren't safe for him so we didn't give him ours but he sure tried to convince the kids it was OK. Made for some great pictures with the kids and Junior separated by about 12 inches .... and a fence.

This month my 'other' daughter, Adrianne's best friend Courtney, came to visit. It was fun to have her and we spent some time at the ruins at Cahal Peche.

Then we got to go to Five Sisters with our 'adopted' kids Todd and Ashli. The scenery was beyond gorgeous!

This is the highest waterfall in Central America. The 1600 foot falls. This is the first falls in Belize that we have visited but couldn't get to or swim in.

Well, that's it. I feel like these month ends are getting a little repetitious and boring but, hopefully, next month will be better. Our next adventure is a weekend in Mexico. Explain to me again, after taking one last look at these pictures, how it is that I want to go back to living in Sherwood Park?

Tourism Belize

We are just back from another tremendous weekend playing tourist in Belize. We spent the weekend at the Five Sisters Lodge in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forrest Reserve. It was a blast. Let me tell you a bit about it:

Some of you have teenage girls, were teenage girls, had sisters that were teenage girls so you will understand what I mean when I say 'horses'. Now my girls are old enough to have passed thought he totally insane horse crazy years but enough of that remains that when we are anywhere that offers horse back riding we are pretty much obligated to go. And we did. We were driven out of the park and to the stables where we met the owner, and guide, Jose. Having been in Belize for awhile, my mind automatically notes the ethnicity of new people and clicks the correct accent translator on so that I can understand what is said. Jose is Mayan. The translator kicks in. Then Jose starts to talk and I discover he is not your typical Mayan. He is a Mayan with a cleft palate/lip and a hearing problem. The translator kicks into overdrive. I can understand him if I focus all my concentration and energy on the translator. (This will be important later in the story.) Now that we are acquainted we meet our horses: in an ironic twist of fate, Adrianne is paired with Rocky; Brynn has Humpty Dumpty; Kori is on Caramia; Alfred has Romeo and I am given Jason. Yes, our horses are Rocky, Humpty Dumpty, Caramia, Romeo and ... Jason.

There are only two rules on this ride: 1 - Rocky leads. There is no messing around with this rule as Bryn finds out when she and Humpty Dumpty try and stage a coup. That's right they got rebellious and tried to pass Rocky and Adrianne. Rocky was having none of that so he kept swerving in front of the insurgents. Finally Humpty and Brynn gave up and fell back into line. Coup successfully diverted.

Rule 2: keep at least two feet of distance between your horse and the horse in front of you. Now this rule can be played with a little bit. For example Jason had his nose pretty much up Romeo's bum for long stretches of time when my focus was on 'translator' and not 'rule'. Usually 'translator' requires very little attention and I can do two things at once but as already explained, the translator was in O/D. When I was able to refocus I would slow Jason down and re-distance us. This system seemed to be working for all involved until the proverbial straw broke Romeo's back. Out of nowhere, Romeo braced himself and began to kick. All heck broke loose. These were not your focused aim-and-fire type kicks. These were the scatter-fire-do-as-much-damage-as-possible type kicks. It was chaos and then Jason ans I were standing in a bush and all was quiet again. Surprisingly Romeo missed me all together and didn't do much in the way of dissuading Jason, either. We just got back in line and Jason tried to get right back up behind Romeo ... again. But I am not a slow learner. I decided it was more important to focus on Jason and ignore Jose for awhile.

The ride itself was beautiful. Much of Jose's property is on an ancient Mayan city so we were able to see the ruins of houses and farms. He stopped us at what looked like a water reservoir and we all dismounted. Then he showed us another type of home the Mayans used. A cave. The girls and I went in and we were shown pottery and an alter that date anywhere from 400 BC till about 900AD. We also saw a replica of a carving in it's original place. (The real one is in a museum.) I have a few pics. Take a look:

After the cave we rode to Big Rock Falls for lunch and swimming fun. (I'll show you the pics at the end of the blog.) Then on home. Now here's a word of warning: if you only ride horses once in a long while, 6 hours on a horse is too long. I may never be free of pain, in certain areas, again! I can stand and walk fine but sitting is a challenge. I would not have missed this ride for anything!

The Big Rock Falls. They are about 90 feet high. The girls climbed the rock on the right about half-way up (that's 40 -45 feet for those math challenged among you) and jumped from the cliff into the water. They had so much fun! I just watched and prayed on the sidelines.

Adrianne's adventures in Belize

Adrianne has arriven and is taking Belize by storm. (well, hopkins anyway) Somehow, after a day in town she had already joined a 'group' and they continue to go strong. Yesterday, four of them decided to go canoeing in two canoes with three paddles. (those of you that canoe should recognize the first problem immediately.) Katie and Zoe get one canoe and two paddles. Adrianne and Ernesto get one canoe and one paddle. So basically, Ernesto, Katie and Zoe went canoeing. Adrianne went riding in a canoe. This was actually a good arrangement because Ernesto is used to canoeing alone and could manage the canoe very well with one paddle. Katie and Zoe don't canoe and spent all there time running into the banks on either side of the river. Their canoeing prowess can be explained by the following incident:
Katie: Look at that bird
Zoe: It's so cute just floating there
They stop paddling to look at the pretty bird
Katie and Zoe: AHHH!! Paddle!! Turn!!
Pretty Bird frantically tries to take off before the canoe hits him. Loses a few feathers and is traumatized for life.
Katie and Zoe: oops
At the end of the river, Ernesto spots a baby croc. He's about 18 inches long and just sitting there. Despite the girls' misgivings, Ernesto manages to get said baby croc onto his paddle. As he is swinging the paddle around so Adrianne can see the baby, Baby decides he's had enough and jumps off the paddle .... right into the other canoe. This would be when the screaming and giggling begins in earnest as Zoe tries to do a backward crab walk/scramble down the canoe to get away from Baby. Katie frantically tries to keep the canoe from tipping. Ernesto scrambles from his canoe into theirs and turns into the crocodile hunter. Somehow they do all this without tipping the canoe. Once Baby is safely back in Ernesto's capable hands, he returns to Adrianne's canoe. The girls are all cooing over Baby and petting him when Adrianne has one of her famous (infamous) ideas. She will hold Baby. Ernesto shows her how to hold behind the head so Baby can't bite and hands him over to Adrianne's less than capable hands with a warning "Don't drop him". Baby sits quietly and Adrianne is getting all gooey: "I can feel his heart beating." "I can feel him breathing." "He's happy!" "I DROPPED HIM!!!!"
She grabs a paddle and points it at Baby. She becomes 'calm and assertive' "STAY!" she says. (Apparently Baby doesn't watch 'the dog whisperer' as he doesn't respond to calm and assertive) "I SAID STAY!!!!" Adrianne drops the paddle and curls up on her seat as Baby seeks refuge under it. "ERNESTO! GET HIM!" Of course you can imagine it took some time for the others to collect themselves and quit laughing before Ernesto could "Get him!" But "Get him" he did. The girls managed to convince him to put Baby back and they headed home having accomplished their objective of scarring various river dwellers for life. I have visions of birds that faint at the sight of a canoe and, at least one, croc that collapses in seizures when he hears a girl laugh. Hurricane Adrianne has hit Belize!

Belize on Ice

I don't know if this is just in Belize or in all Caribbean countries but here ice is tantamount to a national treasure. If the mint quits printing money, I'm sure ice will be the legal currency. All Belizeans are ice-obsessed. At girls camp we dealt with girls being where they shouldn't be, when they shouldn't be, with those they shouldn't be, but there was no issue greater than the ice issue. It was the one on-going, hardest fought war. The girls were sure there was not enough ice, ever ,and the leaders were hoarding it for themselves. The leaders were insistent the girls had enough ice and should stay out of the ice chest. I know there are those of you in North America who order drinks 'without ice' when you go out. Here that would be a total sacrilege. They have dealt with the 'not enough pop if it has ice' issue in the following way. If you order a Fanta, the waitress brings a glass full (literally full) of ice, opens the bottle and pours in the 2 oz, or so, that fit around the ice and then she leaves the bottle. Just like one of you might order more hot water if you needed it for another cup of tea, here you ask for more ice and the waitress will bring another glass of ice for your drink. When we were visiting the Mennonite village of Springfield (where there is no electricity) the one thing we took to leave with them was ice. They were thrilled. You could probably trade a cooler full of ice for a 50 lb bag of potatoes and everyone would come away happy. The other day I wanted to buy some water bottles at the bakery. When she discovered there were none in the freezer (yes, here it is good to buy frozen water bottles), she didn't want me to buy any. She felt bad that I was buying warm water. She even tried to figure out how to put ice into the bottles (not possible - for reference) I really had to talk to get those water bottles! On the flip side, it is almost impossible to find bags of ice to buy. You can't usually get them at the grocery store or gas station. You have to know where the ice is sold - and no one advertises. Ironic that, in countries where 'ice water' equates to a glass of water with one or two cubes of ice in it, there are bags of ice to buy on every corner but in a country where ice water equates to a glass of ice with water squeezed in around the edges, there is no ice to be bought. There's probably some philosophical life lesson in that but I'm not going to look for it. I'm going to get myself a glass of ice and then toss some liquid in for good measure - stay cool!

Odds and Sods

I've been having so much trouble figuring out what to blog. Everything I think of just isn't enough for an entire blog. It's just 'odds and sods'. So I've put them together for your enjoyment.

1. Friends of our have just moved from Dangriga to Sarrawee village. We were dropping them off after church on Sunday when someone asked what Sarrawee meant. This was the explanation. 'Well, we live in the bush. So we feel bad for ourselves. The Creole for that is Sarrawee.' Translation: 'we feel sorry for we' = Sorry We = Sarrawee
2. One day we were driving down the Hummingbird Highway when we saw the truck in front of us had an unusual licence plate. It was hand written in black marker on a white board. I pointed it out as a bizarre thing and Alfred said: 'There were probably no plates left when they registered the car. If that happens, they just hand write one until the new plates come in.'
3. Recently, a spare tire was stolen off of one of our company's trailers. The workers called the police and the police traced it to a man who was in Pacencia. They then came and asked Alfred if he would like them to go to Placencia and get the guy or wait until he came home. The only problem was that they had no gas so if he wanted them to go to Placencia, he would need to give them gas money. Alfred decided to wait until he came back - the gas would cost more than a new spare for the trailer. That's policing in Belize. If you want it done you need to decide how much it is worth to you and then put your money where your mouth is.
4. Belizean women have close relationships. I'm a little jealous of that. They spend hours braiding each other's hair while they visit on the porch. It's not unusual to see two teenage girls or adult women walking down the road hand in hand or with their arms around one another. Even Mom's with teenage girls will hold their hands when they walk together. It's a closeness that I've never seen before. I like it.

So those are the odds and sods for today. Hope you enjoyed them.