Amendments

First of all, a bit of explanation. We're posting these entries from Marcus's blackberry, and so, we have a lot of typos and a complicated process of attaching pictures. Thus, the forgotten/wrong pictures. That dog is not the Belgian, as we may have lead you to believe. :-P That's actually Toti, the dog at the Spanish school in Antigua. I'll upload a picture of Rob later, if I still have it. Otherwise, you'll have to use your imagination.

At the moment, we're in San Ignacio, Belize, after a VERY long 1.5 days of buses and hiking. I have to echo Marcus's story about the run-on-gas in Antigua/Guatemala City. It was absolutely nuts. We drove from one city to the other (about 1 hour away) and saw dozens of gas stations with either mile-long lines or no gas left. The bus ride, therefore, was simultaneously amusing and worrisome, as we had no idea if we were going to make it to our destination or not. (Shuttle bus drivers here do their errands, like filling their tank and attracting extra customers, while you're already in the van.)

In the end, we did make it to our overnight bus, which, though it was called a "luxury bus" was still somewhat worse than a Chinatown bus in the US. We payed to have a bathroom, movie, snack, and air-conditioning... but, of course, there was no toilet paper, paper towel, or water in the bathroom. And of course, there was pee everywhere. Before we even left the station. I had asked this German kid some questions in the bus station about when we'd board the bus, and he was an asshole from the start. When we were boarding the bus, I had to pee right away, like I always do, and found that the state of things before we left the gate. So I went to ask the driver outside the bus if there was any toilet paper. He gave me some but was uninterested in the lack of paper towels or water. The German kid took the opportunity to yell out some implication that I had unrealistic expectations for this bus ride. Though, his friends thanked me for asking for toilet paper for everyone. Still, I was basically ready to have it out with this guy for the rest of the overnight ride... which was also freezing cold, with no working lights, and with a movie on at full blasting volume. (I should also mention that the German kid brought the movie and made a request to watch it, which we did. It was Apocolypto... which one might find interesting to watch while driving through the Mayan jungles... but one might also find offensive when you're on a bus full of Mayan people and also very small kids who probably shouldn't be watching such a gruesome movie.) Point being: I still want to have it out with that kid. :-P

Several buses and much exhaustion later, we were in Tikal... saw monkeys, racoon-sloth-things, and some R.O.U.S.s (Rats of Unusual Size, if you recall). Tikal was great, but also exhausting. And even with my sunscreen and bug spray, I'm burnt and bitten. I had to strip down to my pajama shorts (hot pants) that I had under my jeans just to not pass out. But felt a little ridiculous hiking around in them.

Afterwards, Marcus and I got dropped off on the side of the highway from our shuttle bus and caught a chicken bus to the Belize border. To make a long story short, we basically can't do a single thing on this trip without having to enter into annoyingly long negotiations over price... and constantly trying to get people to let us alone and that we're not going to buy whatever it is that they're trying to sell us. Not surprising, but endlessly frustrating. Of course, we get ripped off constantly, and we have little power not to be... But I'd rather everyone just be honest about it instead of lying. Just say "we're going to charge you an exorbitant rate because we think you're a rich foreigner" and then we can be done with it. Of course, that's not how it works, and it just ends up making me angry.

The chicken bus was a fun experience, except that the dust from the gravel roads was so bad that it covered our bags on top of the bus with soot and added a layer of dust on top of our unshowered, sweaty, exhausted selves. At the Belize border, we were scammed by the Guatemalan immigration staff, of course, and made to pay a fee to exit the country. We argued for awhile that there was no fee, but finally gave in. It was only $3, but it ruined my good mood from the chicken bus ride, because it was blatantly a scam.

All around the border crossing, we were constantly hassled by people who wanted us to exchange money with them, etc, etc, and always the taxi drivers. So aggressive. On the Belize side, we had to go through migration again, but this time ended up in line behind a bunch of American girls from Chatham who were in Belize doing a work-study social work trip. Since we appeared to be with their tour group, we didn't get hassled by the Belize border patrol.

Outside the customs office, however, the taxi drivers were there again. Attempting to charge us triple the typical fare. So we said "no" and went to find a bus again and ended up stumbling on the Chatham tour bus. They offered for us to come with them, so we squeezed in their bus, which would have been great except that this is Belize. The taxi drivers came flying over in a group and started screaming at the tour bus driver for taking us away from them. About 6-8 men yelled at each other for a good 6-8 minutes, and the taxi drivers decided to report the tour bus driver to the transportation authority. Something about tour bus drivers not being allowed to provide taxi service to random people. The Chatham professor got involved, too, of course, and everyone was screaming about whether or not the Chatham girls knew us or not. They kept yelling out the window that we were their friends from Pittsburgh, but the taxi drivers didn't care, of course. In the end, we got a free ride and the tour bus driver probably got some sort of citation. We felt really bad, but none of the Chatham people or their guide wanted us to get back off the shuttle bus. I think they were as sick of all this corruption as we were.

Now we're winding down for the night, and I'm trying to stop being pissed off at all of Belize. If I could possibly avoid getting in one more taxi or bus or crossing one more border for the rest of the trip, I certainly would. I get the poverty issues and I get that some of these people really ARE desperate... but I'd prefer someone to ask me for money instead of trying to scam it off of me. Taxis, stores, hotels, border people, buses, and on and on. It's really hard to like people that lie to you at every other sentence.

Alas. I'm keeping Marcus up. We've got an 8am caving tour. Hasta manana!