Belize, Swimming with Sharks

6/20/01

Hello everyone,

I’m writing to you from Caye Caulker, an island off the barrier reef in Belize: baby blue waters, palm trees, rastas, and international hangout galore. Today I snorkeled off the reef with neon-pokadotted puffer fish, plankton eating sharks, and schools of stingrays floating two feet beneath me. It was great!

We had planned to go to a language school in Guatemala after this trip to Belize, but now I’m not sure. When we stepped off the plane in Guatemala, it seemed like there was something screwed up about Guatemala. The customs area had a combination of traditional Guatemalan folk music and policeman carrying machine guns with one hand, and holding the leash of a drug-sniffing dog in the other.

We took a taxi to get to a bus that would take us on an all night ride to Belize. There were men outside the bus station with machine guns. We needed to exchange money and asked the bus station attendant if it was safe to walk down the street one block to get money, and he said, “maybe.” Hmm. We had no choice. We walked to a total of eleven banks to find someone who would exchange money. Each bank came with its machine-gun-toting guard.

I had no idea Guatemala was this bad. We got some money, got on the bus, and headed towards Belize. The bus stopped four times in the middle of the night, and each time, a guard got on and looked at our passports.

We arrived here in the safe haven of Belize only to find out that Guatemala was far more dangerous than we knew. There was a high security prison-break two weeks ago in Guatemala. Thirty of the prisoners were captured, five were shot, and fifty remain at large. The police are out in full force trying to find the prisoners. To make matters worse, there was recently a tourist rape/robbery that happened in the ruins of Tikal in the last month.

Sarah, Michelle, and I had to agree what to do for the rest of our vacation with this newfound info. My friend Sarah is one of the few people I know that is more stubborn than a Dulin. She insists on going to Tikal even though it’s so sketchy that some tours to the area have been cancelled. I, like Sarah, am as stubborn as they make 'em and am thinking of changing my plans and traveling to Honduras to see a friend in Peace Corps. I want to play it as safe as possible.

Agreeing on travel plans can be a pain, and at this moment I’d rather be home. That’s traveling for you.

I’ll write soon, Laura