Travel Journal (Week 1)

22MAY2011

For me, Placencia diving means Splash Dive. Patty is great and she runs a great dive center. She and her staff always go above and beyond. Today I went on a whale shark dive with Keith and Doug. Prince, a dive master I have gone out with for several years now, was in charge of the dive and all went smoothly and was fun. There was not much to see on the first dive, but they are blue water dives so there are not many reef fish and whatnot about, just whale sharks and huge shoals of snappers. The snappers spawn and the sharks feast. We did see a whale shark though and a few snappers, not even a dozen. It was cool, as you never know if you will see one at all. The second dive we found a huge shoal of snappers. Prince said there were easily more than 10,000. The basic game is to find the snappers and stay above them and hope some of the whale sharks come up to feed while you are there. I wish a bunch had, but only one did. The literature says that most of the sharks in this area are young solitary males and the two we saw were no more than 40 ft long. The can get to 60 ft or more. I have done dozens of reef dives so I figured I would take a shot and see if we could get out and dive with some sharks and it paid off.

As well as the whale sharks there was a snapper that had been hooked and broke the line swimming with the school that we rescued. I am not sure if the bull shark that showed up at the same time we ran across it was looking for it or us, but it kept its distance and once we let the snapper off the hook the bull shark swam off into the blue. It was big and cool to see, but I was happy that it was a short encounter; they have a reputation for being aggressive and dangerous.

Last night we had dinner at Rum Fish, which was excellent and a nice night out with Clair, Ethan, Doug and Keith. Tonight we are going back with a bunch (20ish) of USC students. It will be pretty zooy, but I will have fresh whale shark adventures to regale the kids with. The food is excellent, I had poached fish with onions and peppers and a nice eggplant side. It rocked, I am not sure what I am up for this evening, but I know it will be good.

Tomorrow it is over to Mango Creek on the Hokey Pokey and the bus to Big Falls. I am sure I will get shit for missing work on Monday, but I think everyone knows that they will be having a better time than me. For now, I am sitting at De Tatch, inches from the sand, feet from the see, and worlds away from the cares of the world.

21MAY2011

Palm fronds rattling in a stiff onshore; Belizean Creole spoken in a thick accent by a couple of women enjoying a Saturday afternoon a few chairs down the beach; the rhythmic crash of small, wind-blown rollers on the sand; salt on my lips and the coolness of wet clothes against my skin after a swim; no sweat, no stress, no where to be, no things to get done; Placencia.

20MAY2011

I went back out to the settlement group I worked in my first day. We cleared off tree small structures, laid out a 1-m by 6-m axial trench, put up a tarp over the excavation unit, and got through most of the first level of excavation. The buildings are small (4 m to 5 m on a side) and little more than a jumble of rocks on the surface. There was not much in the first level; maybe a dozen small sherds of pottery and a small chunk of chert. You never know, but it is unlikely that anything spectacular will come out of the small house mounds in the settlement portions of the site. They were mostly just farmers that were living there.

The fifth annual Toledo Cacao Fest wine and chocolate party kicked off the weekend celebration at a seaside hotel in PG Friday night. It was a swanky affair with plenty of wine and chocolate for all. I was not in a particularly social mood for whatever reason, but I still managed to enjoy myself. Lots of the townsfolk turned out in their finest, although it seemed decidedly like a gringo-fest rather than a local shindig, but what you going to do. Confections seemed the mainstay of the chocolate theme, as well they should, but there was an interesting cacao wine made from the slimy stuff around the beans when they are fresh in the pods. It was sour and a bit citrusy and fairly enjoyable, but didn’t have much chocolate in the background. There was also some cacoa liqueur, which I avoided. There was a good fireworks show at the end too, but a chunk of one of the misfires hit Amy in the face. No damage, but a little scary.

19MAY2011

I worked in the site core today. It was a much easier hike, which was a good thing on such a hot day. I think all the days are going to be extra hot, which I guess means they are not extra, but just regular hot. I had a crew of guys from the village clearing off the side of a building next to one of the ball courts at the site (pictures were taken, but I am too lazy right now to figure out how to add them). The opposite side of the building has some of the best intact architecture at the site (yah yah, pictures; whatever). The side I was working on appears to be totally blown out. A few days of excavation should get that figured out.

Excitement for the day was some border dispute action involving a few young punks from the next village down the road who were all in a huff about some work that was allegedly done in land for San Antonio, but all that know the score seem to be sure is actually for Santa Cruz and the kids are just causing trouble without any real cause. Someone from Santa Cruz, the village where the site is located and who the project has been working with for the last seven years, is going to go talk to the Alcalde in San Antonio tomorrow to get it straightened out.

Don, Becky, I had a nice visit after work, although it was a bit short as showing was needed badly after my day in the field. She is the lead cultural anthropologist on the project and I wish she could spend more time, but she has a new baby and is all about raising her kind. Becky is great and I always regret not paying more attention to what her research is. At least she was here long enough to buy me a couple of beers. I had hoped to return the favor this evening, but she ended up stuck ate Jimmy and Fancisca’s because Jimmy tore apart the front seat of the truck to see if he could get it to slide back. Electric connivances on vehicles don’t stay convenient very long in Belize and the switch moving the seat back and forth is stuck with the seat all the way forward. He couldn’t fix it, but at least he tried. I will just have to catch up with Becky more the next time I see her. She is leaving tomorrow and won’t be back until August when I won’t be here.

18MAY2011

First day in the field started with a 5:00 AM alarm, which I was awake to hear. I was glad I had taken the time to unpack and get my field gear together so I just had to get dressed and fill my water bottles. I went down to camp where people were still waking up and made some breakfast; scrambled egg sliders with cheesy salsa eggs on left over diner rolls with a bit of greens and tomato from last night’s diner salad (salads are a treat and I was lucky to have some). We drove off to the field and I steeled myself for the jarring ride down the very rough road back into the Maya villages from the Southern Highway. It is now under construction, which will improve the road and even half built is an improvement, it made my stomach turn to see construction start. I have known it was coming since the beginning of the project in 2005, but somehow hoped Belize would screw it up and they would put the Pan-American Highway through Cayo and the Belize Valley. The road through the villages now ends at the boarder and while locals cross illegally on foot, there is no vehicle traffic; it is a road to the villages. Now it will be a through road with an official border crossing and traffic and development will change everything in Toledo. I have written enough culture histories to know with improved transportation comes wholesale change. I don’t begrudge the Maya their chance to get a better crack at the world and move away from subsistence farming. It is coming road or not, but the dust and machinery just seem to make horrifically real what I was able to pretend was not inevitable as my kidneys took the beating on that so familiar stretch of rough road.

Excavations were nothing spectacular. It was a long hike and coming back out to the road about did me in. I sat the truck with the AC on and had a hydration packet and the nausea soon passed, just to return as we drove out through the construction. My legs are sore and I am glad I have been reassigned to a different part of the site. I liked working with Clayton of Boarder Taco fame. He wrote a poem about a bad taco experience coming back across the border from Guatemala to Belize, which was later set to music a performance of which ended up on YouTube and facebook. It is good to see him return to the project, but the hike up the farmer’s road to Group B in the Site Core is much more manageable in this heat. After a week or so I will be fine, but it was a tough first day hike.

17MAY2011

Got up and decided to try and do a travel journal. I don’t actually have high hopes for it working out, but what the fuck. Donna is not up and I kept my computer on to chat with her before heading off to see if I can’t actually get to Belize today. So here I sit, stale hotel coffee in hand writing about yesterday and contemplating today’s adventure. I have no idea how I will be getting to camp from Belize City. Presumably my ride left yesterday with everyone I was supposed to be meeting there and I am on my own to make arrangements. I know how to get there and several routes I can take. However, there is also the significant obstacle of getting past Placencia, which is on the way-oh so temptingly on the way. The Siren call of the beach has sucked me in on every previous trip. I know that there would be time to fly there stick my feet in the sand and eat something then catch the Hokey Pokey water taxi across to Mango Creek and catch the bus to camp. We will just have to see how the day progresses.

I made it to Belize and caught a nonstop to Punta Gorda (PG), circumventing the Placencia conundrum, and of course had a few Belikins at Jets. Jet is a tiny man, who with his son runs a small bar in the airport. It has been there since I first came through and will probably survive me. A place of some local renown, he serves cold beer, strong drinks, and bad bar food to the gringos passing through to other destinations in Belize or heading home. After a brief stop in PG I took the local bus to Big Falls and arrived at camp just in time to watch the truck leave about an hour and a half early to come get me. Much hugging and catching up ensued.

Don is a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon and a hell of a guy. He has provided space for researches in Southern Belize for going on half a century now. A British ex-pat, former liaison with the Maya Indians in Toledo for colonial government, retired citrus farmer, ardent do-gooder hater, it is always great to see him again when I get here. I stay at his house, which it just up the hill from camp, as we have known each other for fifteen years or so. He runs it as a guesthouse for friends mostly now I think. I gladly pay him the meager sum of $50.00 a week. Having my own bathroom is more than worth the price of admission and putting a bit of extra money in his pocket good.

I got my phone working, found that high-speed Internet was at one of our favorite local bars, which had reopened after closing for a couple of years, contact with home was secured, beers were had, more catching up ensued and then dinner and to bed after a discussion of the merits and drawbacks of screening dirt with respect to efficiency and archaeological rigor. Sleep came easily.

16MAY2011

Got up very early, snarfed leftover frittata from Sunday brunch; a potato-heavy, bacon and horseradish cheesy delight that sat in my stomach like led in a good way as I figured on little food options for quite a while. Turned out the early start was a bit later than it should have been, but I made it to the gate in time and was off. Just before getting to Miami the captain announced that if we looked off to the left of the plane, fortunately the side I was on at a window, we could see the space shuttle taking off. It was the first launch I had ever seen live and although seeing it from that vantage point was cool, it was way more cool than spectacular-mostly because it was way fucking cool! The canceled flight to Belize City on the other hand was neither cool nor spectacular.

I wasted the rest of my day contacting the friends I was supposed to meet to get a ride to camp with. Facebook worked surprisingly well. I shot off a group message and before I could send an email to Keith, who I was pretty sure would not get the message through facebook, I was getting responses. Keith even got back to me although he did insist I contact him by phone in the future, as Internet access in Toledo can be problematic and is spotty at best.

Sadly I must say that I wasted my night in Miami sleeping. I took a nap, got some Pizza and beer while hanging out at the hotel bar. The pizza was surprisingly good along with the equally surprisingly Yuengling that was available, chatted with Donna, and pretty much just hit the sack after deciding that the two days I spent in South Beach about a decade ago for Art Deco weekend was a sufficient experience of the place. Had I decided at that point to try and do a travel journal I probably would have made more of an effort to, well travel around a little and find something to write about.