Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Belize
Since I last updated this blog, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died. This is a travel blog and not an obituary, but his death, in particular, is worth mentioning. The title of this blog -- "...and so on" -- is plagiarized directly from his novels. Read a couple of his books and you will find that he sprinkles this combination of words throughout quite a few of them. "...And so on" works well as a title to a travel blog, I thought, and beyond that I really just like the way he uses it: often times "and so on" is used abruptly and flippantly at the end of a sentence, when more information is expected, or when it could even, in fact, be useful to the reader. My use of this as a title was an in-joke that I imagined very few people would understand (probably none), and I also used "and so on" directly in a couple of my entries, ending a few sentences in much the same way that Kurt Vonnegut does in his novels. (Or I attempted to, as the case may be.) I had planned to mention all of this in passing as I wrapped up the blog -- as a recent university graduate, not citing sources makes me feel guilty and fills me with shame -- but this is a better time than any. Surely I am joining others in saying, "God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut!" You wrote enjoyable fiction.
My meeting with Joe Barolo at the airport in Belize City was somewhat stressful. Like a good 20's-something traveler, Joe had given me the absolute minimum of information necessary to meet him at the airport. "I arrive around 10 AM," he had written in his last e-mail. It was the Saturday of Easter weekend, and had I not been able to find Joe at the airport, I am not sure how we would have found each other; nearly every business in Belize City was closed for the weekend and neither Joe nor I had phones. After walking circles around the airport to find him, then trying to obtain passenger lists from a Continental airlines representative, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. "They lost my luggage," Joe said, and indeed they had.
Fortunately, Caye Caulker, Belize is one of the better areas of the world to not have one's luggage. A small island in the Caribbean, there is not a single paved road on the island. Walking too quickly around town will result in constant admonitions from the locals to "Slow down, mon!" , and all transportation is via golf-cart. For the approximately 72 hours that it took for Joe to finally receive his luggage, nobody appeared to notice or care that he was not wearing any shoes.
The main attraction to Caye Caulker is its status as the launching point for diving the world-famous "Blue Hole," which Joe and I, in fact, dived (dove?). We had heard from a couple of people that it was an "okay" dive, and expensive for what the experience actually entailed. Joe and I completely disagreed. The site takes divers immediately down to 130 feet, where it begins to get quite dark and nitrogen narcosis sets in for approximately 50% of the divers (me!). The Blue Hole was formerly a cave, so at this depth divers can swim through giant, overhanging stalactites and look down into what appears to be an unending wall of dark, blue water. This is unlike any dive I have ever experienced, and, as Joe said, it feels as if you are in outer space. The ascent took us through two schools of 8-10 foot reef sharks, lazily swimming above us.
While on Caye Caulker we also took a snorkeling trip and did a hike around the north part of the Caye, where we spent approximately 30 minutes watching a stand off between some sort of injured Belizean hawk and a dog that was mildly interested in ending the injured hawk's life. Joe and I rooted heavily for the dog, but both animals ended up walking away from the confrontation.
Anecdotes never tell the whole story, but I will include one as an example of life on Caye Caulker. Joe and I had picked up breakfast to go -- eggs, beans, and tortillas -- and decided to eat it at the picnic table of the hostel where we were staying. Suddenly, from the side of hostel the proprietress of the hostel piped up: "Young man," she yelled to Joe, "the old man wants to give you some fish." "What?" Joe asked, confused. "The old man wants to give you some fish!" she repeated, and pointed to an old man at the entrance to the hostel's sandy courtyard. There stood a shriveled, hunched-over, nearly toothless old man, and indeed he had two small fishes in his hand and was beckoning Joe. Joe rose from the table, trying to assess logically where this situation was leading. He walked over to the man and had a 5 minute conversation with him. It was a conversation where Joe understood, as he put it, "about 20 words." The man was an alcoholic, and what Joe did glean from the conversation was that the old man wanted to trade the fish for rum. What luck! One of the other hostelers had left a nearly finished bottle of rum on top of the refrigerator, which we happily traded away for the two fish. Naturally, Joe and I had no idea what to do with these fish, so we wrapped them up in an old cereal bag and placed them in the refrigerator with the intent to later barbecue them. We never managed to accomplish this, and unless someone has since cleaned the refrigerator, they are probably in the first stages of decomposition. Oops.
From Caye Caulker we headed inland to Orange Walk, access point to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. The ruins are visited by a 1.5 hour river boat-ride, which is equally as, if not more , enjoyable than the ruins themselves. We saw a crocodile (briefly), a number of birds, some bats, and many species of white, sweaty, cruise-boaters doing the same trip as us. Unforunately, this portion of the trip coincided with a five day heat wave that was to break 100 degrees every day. Egad. Even the Belizeans were complaining. Ascending a Mayan pyramid in this weather is not really very enjoyable, but we did it anyway. Later we soaked in the pool of our hotel, where, it appeared to Joe and I, most of the gangsters and thugs of Orange Walk hang out smoking cigarettes and spliffs. The hotel where we were staying had outstanding satellite television, and as this was the first time in months that I had access to such a luxury, one of the evenings saw Joe and I watch six hours of television while laying in bed and drinking cuba libres. Felix Hernandez nearly no-hit the Red Sox, and I was snug as a bug.
After a long day of travel, we reached the final destination of our trip: Placencia, Belize. Placencia is one long peninsula and feels like an island. Once again, island mentality prevailed, and Joe and I adapted ourselves and took things as slowly as possible. We rented a tandem bicycle one day,which resulted in more than a few curious glances, and spent many afternoons relaxing, reading, and swimming. We befriended two young Danish girls, and Joe proceeded to introduce them to the Joseph Barolo brand of American jingoism. After somehow persuading them to perform a duet of the Danish national anthem, Joe laughingly informed them that their national anthem sounded "nice, but is not a real national anthem." Joe began many references to America with lines like, "In America, where we invented freedom...", when such a statement was unecessary or not relevant to the story. One of the girls would explain something about Denmark, and Joe would segue with, "Well, in a real country...." Later, they politely asked Joe where he would be flying to from Belize City, and his response was in good form : "Well, I'm flying back to America, so I guess I'm flying to... paradise...?" Somehow the Danish girls tolerated these statements in good humor. Like a good American, Joe ate 6 cheesburgers during his 10 days with me in Belize. A few of them were eaten as post-dinner snacks.
During one evening in Placencia, the scariest event of my trip took place (an apt reader will note that this must be quite scary, indeed, if it was to be more scary than the incident in Thailand with Gremlin the cat). You know how once in a while you will wake up in the middle of the night and think that you see someone in your room? Quickly you realize that it is not a person, in fact, but not before a quick rush of adrenaline surges through your body. In Placencia, and for the first time in my life, I woke up in the middle of the night to find someone actually standing in my room.
Joe and I had a double room at the hotel, with my bed next to the door. I sleep with ear-plugs, but something roused me enough to cause me to turn over and take a look toward the door. The door was open (very stupidly we failed to lock it that night), and about two steps inside the room was a skinny, skull-cap toting Belizean of about 30 years old. He was staring at Joe's bed, not looking at me, but I quickly jumped up in bed and shouted at him, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?" At this point I was in a crouching position and looking to see if he had a weapon. He responded to me, but with the ear-plugs still in I could not hear his response, so again I shouted "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?" Again he answered, more calmly than I had expected, and after removing my ear-plugs he explained he was looking for "water." He went on to tell me that he was getting water for a couple of Germans, and made an inexplicable flapping motion with his hands. It was then that I realized he was drunk or high on something, and I told him that I was not going to give him my only bottle of water. The situation ended bizarrely. He asked if he could have a sip from my water bottle, to which I confusingly obliged, and he explained that his name was Junior and that we should meet him at a dance the following night. He acted like we were friends, repeated that he hoped to see us at the Tipsy Tuna bar that next evening, gave me his knuckles as a sign of comraderie, and left. What the hell had just happened?
Joe certainly could not answer this question. He slept through the whole goddamned thing! How is this possible, you might ask, with my yelling at Junior? I asked Joe the same question, and he responded that he had simply assumed that I was talking to someone through the screen window. What an assumption! At the time he was actually angry at me for doing this in the middle of the night, and about two minutes after Junior had left -- and while I was still trying to slow my heart rate -- Joe grumpily asked me to lock the door. I slept pretty poorly the rest of the night, thinking all the while about Junior and his unquenchable midnight thirst. The following night we went to the bar and I asked around to find Junior, hoping to explain to him the enormity of his error in judgment. Junior was not to be found.
Now I am in Guatemala with a friend of mine from Seattle, Matt. I met up with Matt in Guatemala City two nights ago, and now we are enjoying the quaint, colonial town of Antigua. We will travel together for two weeks, ending in San Salvador, El Salvador, the gem of Central America.
My meeting with Joe Barolo at the airport in Belize City was somewhat stressful. Like a good 20's-something traveler, Joe had given me the absolute minimum of information necessary to meet him at the airport. "I arrive around 10 AM," he had written in his last e-mail. It was the Saturday of Easter weekend, and had I not been able to find Joe at the airport, I am not sure how we would have found each other; nearly every business in Belize City was closed for the weekend and neither Joe nor I had phones. After walking circles around the airport to find him, then trying to obtain passenger lists from a Continental airlines representative, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. "They lost my luggage," Joe said, and indeed they had.
Fortunately, Caye Caulker, Belize is one of the better areas of the world to not have one's luggage. A small island in the Caribbean, there is not a single paved road on the island. Walking too quickly around town will result in constant admonitions from the locals to "Slow down, mon!" , and all transportation is via golf-cart. For the approximately 72 hours that it took for Joe to finally receive his luggage, nobody appeared to notice or care that he was not wearing any shoes.
The main attraction to Caye Caulker is its status as the launching point for diving the world-famous "Blue Hole," which Joe and I, in fact, dived (dove?). We had heard from a couple of people that it was an "okay" dive, and expensive for what the experience actually entailed. Joe and I completely disagreed. The site takes divers immediately down to 130 feet, where it begins to get quite dark and nitrogen narcosis sets in for approximately 50% of the divers (me!). The Blue Hole was formerly a cave, so at this depth divers can swim through giant, overhanging stalactites and look down into what appears to be an unending wall of dark, blue water. This is unlike any dive I have ever experienced, and, as Joe said, it feels as if you are in outer space. The ascent took us through two schools of 8-10 foot reef sharks, lazily swimming above us.
While on Caye Caulker we also took a snorkeling trip and did a hike around the north part of the Caye, where we spent approximately 30 minutes watching a stand off between some sort of injured Belizean hawk and a dog that was mildly interested in ending the injured hawk's life. Joe and I rooted heavily for the dog, but both animals ended up walking away from the confrontation.
Anecdotes never tell the whole story, but I will include one as an example of life on Caye Caulker. Joe and I had picked up breakfast to go -- eggs, beans, and tortillas -- and decided to eat it at the picnic table of the hostel where we were staying. Suddenly, from the side of hostel the proprietress of the hostel piped up: "Young man," she yelled to Joe, "the old man wants to give you some fish." "What?" Joe asked, confused. "The old man wants to give you some fish!" she repeated, and pointed to an old man at the entrance to the hostel's sandy courtyard. There stood a shriveled, hunched-over, nearly toothless old man, and indeed he had two small fishes in his hand and was beckoning Joe. Joe rose from the table, trying to assess logically where this situation was leading. He walked over to the man and had a 5 minute conversation with him. It was a conversation where Joe understood, as he put it, "about 20 words." The man was an alcoholic, and what Joe did glean from the conversation was that the old man wanted to trade the fish for rum. What luck! One of the other hostelers had left a nearly finished bottle of rum on top of the refrigerator, which we happily traded away for the two fish. Naturally, Joe and I had no idea what to do with these fish, so we wrapped them up in an old cereal bag and placed them in the refrigerator with the intent to later barbecue them. We never managed to accomplish this, and unless someone has since cleaned the refrigerator, they are probably in the first stages of decomposition. Oops.
From Caye Caulker we headed inland to Orange Walk, access point to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. The ruins are visited by a 1.5 hour river boat-ride, which is equally as, if not more , enjoyable than the ruins themselves. We saw a crocodile (briefly), a number of birds, some bats, and many species of white, sweaty, cruise-boaters doing the same trip as us. Unforunately, this portion of the trip coincided with a five day heat wave that was to break 100 degrees every day. Egad. Even the Belizeans were complaining. Ascending a Mayan pyramid in this weather is not really very enjoyable, but we did it anyway. Later we soaked in the pool of our hotel, where, it appeared to Joe and I, most of the gangsters and thugs of Orange Walk hang out smoking cigarettes and spliffs. The hotel where we were staying had outstanding satellite television, and as this was the first time in months that I had access to such a luxury, one of the evenings saw Joe and I watch six hours of television while laying in bed and drinking cuba libres. Felix Hernandez nearly no-hit the Red Sox, and I was snug as a bug.
After a long day of travel, we reached the final destination of our trip: Placencia, Belize. Placencia is one long peninsula and feels like an island. Once again, island mentality prevailed, and Joe and I adapted ourselves and took things as slowly as possible. We rented a tandem bicycle one day,which resulted in more than a few curious glances, and spent many afternoons relaxing, reading, and swimming. We befriended two young Danish girls, and Joe proceeded to introduce them to the Joseph Barolo brand of American jingoism. After somehow persuading them to perform a duet of the Danish national anthem, Joe laughingly informed them that their national anthem sounded "nice, but is not a real national anthem." Joe began many references to America with lines like, "In America, where we invented freedom...", when such a statement was unecessary or not relevant to the story. One of the girls would explain something about Denmark, and Joe would segue with, "Well, in a real country...." Later, they politely asked Joe where he would be flying to from Belize City, and his response was in good form : "Well, I'm flying back to America, so I guess I'm flying to... paradise...?" Somehow the Danish girls tolerated these statements in good humor. Like a good American, Joe ate 6 cheesburgers during his 10 days with me in Belize. A few of them were eaten as post-dinner snacks.
During one evening in Placencia, the scariest event of my trip took place (an apt reader will note that this must be quite scary, indeed, if it was to be more scary than the incident in Thailand with Gremlin the cat). You know how once in a while you will wake up in the middle of the night and think that you see someone in your room? Quickly you realize that it is not a person, in fact, but not before a quick rush of adrenaline surges through your body. In Placencia, and for the first time in my life, I woke up in the middle of the night to find someone actually standing in my room.
Joe and I had a double room at the hotel, with my bed next to the door. I sleep with ear-plugs, but something roused me enough to cause me to turn over and take a look toward the door. The door was open (very stupidly we failed to lock it that night), and about two steps inside the room was a skinny, skull-cap toting Belizean of about 30 years old. He was staring at Joe's bed, not looking at me, but I quickly jumped up in bed and shouted at him, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?" At this point I was in a crouching position and looking to see if he had a weapon. He responded to me, but with the ear-plugs still in I could not hear his response, so again I shouted "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?" Again he answered, more calmly than I had expected, and after removing my ear-plugs he explained he was looking for "water." He went on to tell me that he was getting water for a couple of Germans, and made an inexplicable flapping motion with his hands. It was then that I realized he was drunk or high on something, and I told him that I was not going to give him my only bottle of water. The situation ended bizarrely. He asked if he could have a sip from my water bottle, to which I confusingly obliged, and he explained that his name was Junior and that we should meet him at a dance the following night. He acted like we were friends, repeated that he hoped to see us at the Tipsy Tuna bar that next evening, gave me his knuckles as a sign of comraderie, and left. What the hell had just happened?
Joe certainly could not answer this question. He slept through the whole goddamned thing! How is this possible, you might ask, with my yelling at Junior? I asked Joe the same question, and he responded that he had simply assumed that I was talking to someone through the screen window. What an assumption! At the time he was actually angry at me for doing this in the middle of the night, and about two minutes after Junior had left -- and while I was still trying to slow my heart rate -- Joe grumpily asked me to lock the door. I slept pretty poorly the rest of the night, thinking all the while about Junior and his unquenchable midnight thirst. The following night we went to the bar and I asked around to find Junior, hoping to explain to him the enormity of his error in judgment. Junior was not to be found.
Now I am in Guatemala with a friend of mine from Seattle, Matt. I met up with Matt in Guatemala City two nights ago, and now we are enjoying the quaint, colonial town of Antigua. We will travel together for two weeks, ending in San Salvador, El Salvador, the gem of Central America.
posted by conor | 1:09 PM
1 Comments:
Nice Job with the fish. Of all the things to leave in a hostel refrigerator. I'm not sure the story would be as good if you actually ate the fish - especially since you bartered with someone else's leftover wares. You simply maintained the hostel's equilibrium.
How are your t-shirts holding up?
I'm glad you survived the rude nocturnal awakening - that sounds like a nightmare... Even though it seems like time and travel proceed in a straight line, I think theres an apt analogy - you never know what part of your life you're going to have to act in next. Keep us posted, and so on.
-z
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