I'm Back!

Hope that all who may read this update had a wonderful holiday. I must say that I had a spectacular trip back to Chicago. What a great city and what a wonderful time to return (save for a spot of frigid weather during my stay). The trek to and from Chicago was a bit long and tiresome but well worth the effort.

My travel itinerary was not exactly direct. I opted to fly out of Cancun which entailed experiencing a series of buses, cabs and shuttles which slowly transported me from Belize to Cancun. A short synopsis of the route will illustrate the process. First, one climbs onto a bus in Belmopan for an hour and a half ride to Belize City. I may have described the buses before, but let me recap. Most Belize buses appear to be about 30 or more years old. They are like school buses from an earlier era in the US. Often the seats or torn, the aisles are narrow, typically there is no overhead space and two or three of the center seats have a large bump on the floor where the engine (or some mechanism) sits higher than floor height. Luggage is taken to the back of the bus and piled up in a heap behind the last row of seats.

So, to return to my itinerary, after arriving in Belize, I next boarded a bus to Chetumal, Mexico. This ride takes about 5 hours. When arriving at the Belize/Mexico border, all passengers are required to alight from the bus and go through immigration. At that point Belize collects from US and other foreigners an exit tax of $37.50 Belize (or thereabouts). I was the only non-Belizean on the bus and had to explain to the person in immigration that I was a US citizen, but living in Belize for 2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer. This seemed to confuse the individual for a moment, but I did get cleared, albeit a little later than the Belizeans who were in a separate line and who sailed through the process.

Next, everyone reboards the bus and the bus makes its away across a bridge and enters Mexico. On the Mexican side of the border, all passengers must again alight, but this time with all luggage/ packages/belongings. (This actually turned out to be a good thing, as I explain.) The Belizeans go to one side of the little border house and Americans go to the other side. Again, I was the only non-Belizean and of course my forms took longer to complete and were in Spanish. Also, the Mexican official decided to leave his post while I was completing the form and did not come back right away. As a result, the bus left me behind as it had to maintain its schedule. Fortunately, I was traveling with two Belizean friends who had kindly waited for me at the window while I was dealing with forms. We grabbed a taxicab, which fortunately accepted Belizean currency, and traveled into Chetumal, about a 15-20 minute cab ride.

It was quite amazing to see paved boulevards and shopping malls, a sight not experienced for a year and a half. Since I began my travels the day before my flight from Cancun to Chicago and had opted to take an overnight bus from Chetumal to Cancun, I stored my bags at the bus station and hung out with my friends at the mall. This mall even had a movie theatre with features in English with Spanish sub-titles! After my friends left to return to Belize, I took in a movie (Red de Meintras i.e. Body of Lies) before making my way back to the ADO bus station, the transit to Cancun. I boarded the bus at 10:30 pm, a real "luxury" coach bus with padded, recliner seats and a toilet, etc. This bus trek took 6 hours and landed me in Cancun at 4:30 a.m. The only complaint - the bus was like a refrigerator. The air-conditioning was turned so high I was shivering throughout the trip despite wearing a short-sleeved top, two long sleeved light pullovers and a light fleece hooded jacket. Need I say, that I got little sleep. The remainder of the trip was relatively routine. The trip to the airport was short, but the check in counter at the airport did not open for several hours and my flight did not leave until about 2:30 in the afternoon. However, I saved over $400 by flying for Cancun rather than from Belize.

It was so exciting to arrive in Chicago, about 9:30 that night. The weather was rather cold but there no wind and there was light snow on the ground. My lovely daughter had arranged it so that all I needed to do, once I found out the exit door where the car was waiting, was to make a quick dash to the vehicle and jump into warmth. We sorted out coats and winter clothes for me to wear after I arrived at her house as I have no winter duds in Belize. My house is rented and my winter clothes etc. are all in a storage area.

I had a great experience in Chicago. I visited family, saw friends, went to movies, went to a great wine bar which was featuring live music, a ska reggae band that night, hung out a bit in Long Grove (which is north of Chicago and has lots of quaint houses, antiques and great food and other specialty shops), cooked and baked, went grocery shopping at Trader Joes and Whole Foods (my two favorite grocery stores), when to the Art Institute and saw a great antique Tapestry exhibit, etc. I could bore you with a recounting of each and every excursion, but you get the idea. The weather was perfect for Christmas - a bit snowy but not too frigid. Christmas eve was at my daughter's in-laws house, a lovely 2 story condo on Astor street, and Christmas we spent at my ex-husband's house in a town on the Rock River, about 90 miles west of Chicago. I cooked Christmas dinner and my older grandson helped me with making the pecan and apple pies.

There were only a couple of days that were truly frigid, but we stayed inside for the most part on those days. My daughter was off from work during most of the time and my grandsons were out of school, so we had lots of freedom to get out and about. I also took care of important errands like getting my eyes examined in order to renew my contact lens prescription.

I could list so many things (over and above family and friends) that I miss and experienced during that two and a half weeks. To name just a few: hot baths, hot water from the sinks in the bathroom and kitchen, a car to travel in. driving a car, movie theatres, sushi, thai food; mesclun mix salad greens with avocado, grape tomatoes, and home-made viniagrette dressing; fresh toasted bakery bagels with flavored cream cheese, good crisp french bread dipped in high grade olive oil and herbs, good wine and a Bombay Sapphire martini with a bleu cheese olive. I had to think long and hard about the treats that I would pack to savor here and which would help me through the next 8 months of service. Top on my list was granola from Whole Foods and trail mix from Trader Joes, plus sewing projects, jigsaw puzzles and a new NYT Times Sunday Crossword puzzle book. I still have a great stash of books, which were shipped to me fairly early on during my stint here. I also collected some of my favorite CDs which I packed in one of those CD cases. Unfortunately, the CDs never made it back to Belize. They seem to have been lifted from my back pack during the trip back. All in all, I was lucky, because the loss would have been much greater had my entire backpack been stolen.

The trek from Cancun to Belmopan was again long but relatively uneventful. Because my flight arrived in Cancun in the afternoon, it was not possible to get back to Belmopan in one day. Realizing this in advance, I did have the forsight to arrange to stay at a small hostel in Chetumal overnight. The hostel was very accommodating in emailing me a map and an estimate of the cab fare from the ADO bus station. This was quite helpful, as I arrived in Chetumal at about 11 p.m at night. I had no problem picking up a cab at the bus station, which has a taxi stand. However, before I had the opportunity to reach a firm agreement with the cab driver about the fare, the attendant at the taxi stand had wisked my luggage into the trunk and the cab driver took off. I had to haggle with the cab driver to turn on his light so that I could check the address of the hostel and negotiate a fare and also ultimately had to forcefully insist upon him stopping the cab to accomplish this. He had managed to go about 2 blocks or so before we were able to have the discussion about fare. Once I gave him the addiress, he insisted that he would only take me to the hostel for $12 US whereas the hostel had clearly stated the fare should run around 12 pesos. He was adamant, but I was more so and he wound up taking my bag out of the trunk and leaving me along side the roadway. Fortunately there were other cabs in the vicinity one of whom stopped for me and took me to my distination for a price only slightly more than what the hostel had quoted.

I arrived back in Belmopan around 1:00 in the afternoon the next day and went directly to the shower, dumped the duds that I had lived in for 2 days, washed off the travel grime and put on fresh clothes. It felt wonderful to be moving around rather than sitting for hours. I hopped on my bike and rode over to NAVCO since my day back was Monday, a work day. I arrived at NAVCO to learn that there had been a break in there over the weekend. Some things were taken, including a laptop and a camera, but the loss was not too awful. However, all the locks had to be changed.

I am now back into the routine in Belize and life has been fairly busy. I went to Dangriga and to Seine Bight a couple of weekends ago, on Saturday to Dangriga to attend a District Assn. Board meeting which was postponed at the last minute, and a little later that day to Seine Bight to spend the remainder of the day and overnight wtih a couple of Peace Corps friends.

At NAVCO, there are lots of meetings and preparation for inauguration of a new building which NAVCO will move into on February 13. Also, the Decentralization Project (described in prior posts) in Belize continues to move forward which will involve meetings, etc.
I suspect that the remaining months here in Belize will go by quite quickly.

I will try to be more diligent in updating my blog in the remaining months. Also, I promise to post a few pictures in the next few days which give a bit of a view of Christmas in Chicago. Finally, I hope all of you who read this update are managing to ride through the financial turmoil which is impacting much of the world.