Inquiring Minds Want to Know ...

How did we dare undertake a journey to Mexico and Central America by ourselves? Lest anyone think otherwise let me make it abundantly clear: We felt the fear and did it anyway. Luckily, Frances and I have different fear tolerances. So, when Frances felt fearful I usually felt OK, and vice versa. Consequently, we were never totally stopped--only slowed down and sometimes slightly detoured--by our trepidations.

One of the most difficult times during our trip was when we first arrived in Cancun. It was Frances' first time on her own in a Spanish-speaking country. My Spanish--last spoken in college and a brief foray to Cancun--was 30+ years old. Everything was unknown; we were total neophytes. Thus, we were suckers for the man who told us his sad tale about being mugged. As the story went ... He stopped to give money to a beggar and another man came up behind him and held a knife to his throat. He'd lost everything, he told us, including his shoes. He needed to pay his hostel for another night's lodging in order to receive a call from his parents who were arriving the next day. With no money or ID, he was homeless and helpless.

Later, of course, we heard from others that this was a common fiction created by young Americans not ready to return to the United States. At the time we heard this story, we sat on the steps outside a grocery store in Cancun. I was in an insulin reaction and we were both eating to raise blood sugars so that we could continue our adventures. Giving Mike money seemed like the easiest way to cope with the situation.

Border crossings were another fear-inducing time. When we reached a border, we never knew what hoops we might have to jump through, what fees we might have to pay, how long the crossing might take.

Public transportation was another unknown. Just how well-maintained were those water taxis we took? Our first high-speed water taxi from Corozal to San Pedro, Belize had engine trouble midway through our trip; our speed declined considerably as we motored slowly toward our destination.

Bus drivers, too, drove like race car drivers. We survived best when thoroughly engaged in the scenery so that we could ignore the honking horns, the dangerous passing, and the rapid stops. Flash, our pickup truck taxi driver from Puerto Cortes, Honduras to Guatemala, had a leak in his gas tank. The gas station attendant had to rock the truck from side to side to allow gas to flow through the neck of the tank. Heck, Flash wasn't totally honest with us from the beginning. We were 15 miles down the road before he told us that we were crossing the border into Guatemala to find another water taxi.

In Honduras and Guatemala we were often surrounded by men holding rifles. They stood outside our hotels, outside banks, and along city streets. That took some getting used to as did the razor wire, barbed wire, iron gates, and iron bars skirting fascades, windows, and doors of various hotels along our route.

Later, we found ourselves taking risks that others may not have taken. Still, we could usually sense when a situation or person felt reasonably safe. Often seemingly risky situations were no more than one person's creative way to make money. And I have to say that people were very creative. Rather than become annoyed or disturbed by this I was impressed with people's cleverness.

Of course, some money-making strategies involved telling lies or half-truths or misleading a potential client in order to get a desired outcome. The taxi drivers at the Cancun airport were one example. When they mobbed us at the exit and we told them that we were waiting for a city bus, they responded, "Oh, you just missed a bus. There won't be another for an hour ... oh, no, two hours." We persisted and stepped onto a city bus a mere 20 minutes later.

When traveling, you realize how much your safety and success depend upon the assistance of others. And, of course, traveling--like anything else--takes practice. I'm more knowledgeable than I was at the beginning of our trip. I'm not sure whether that means I'll be any less fearful the next time around, but I'm willing to try ...

From Spanish to English and Back Again

We´re in La Ceiba, Honduras now ... arrived here accidentally on Sunday, Jan. 4. We paid for bus tickets to Tela but didn´t realize we were at our bus stop, a pull off point along the road where we expected a bus station, and we just stayed on the bus. No one told us we were at our destination. All buses have a ¨conductor¨who collects fares along the way as people board the bus. On other buses in Belize that conductor would have told us when to get off. No big deal. We planned to be here soon since this is the jumping off point for the Bay Islands.

We´ve been on the road three weeks. We started in Mexico with mostly English and a little Spanish to communicate, then stayed 10 days in Belize which is English speaking. It was a relief to not have to struggle to communicate. But now we´re back at it. This time most of our communication is with lodging, restaurant, market, and bus employees who know no English or very, very little. So it´s up to us to find a way to express ourselves.

I think often of Dora Kling from Washburn who told me that when she goes to Mexico each March for a month of vacation, she speaks Spanish and when that doesn´t work, she acts and points. ¨Why, once I performed an entire three act play,¨she told me, ¨They still didn´t know what I wanted.¨

We also met a young Canadian man on our water taxi to Caye Caulker, Belize. He had traveled extensively in Mexico and Guatemala and told us that several times he ended up spending an additional night or two at his lodging because he didn´t know how to tell them that he wanted to check out. Whew. We´re doing fine. Steph´s 30 year old college Spanish classes and Spanish dictionary are helping tremendously.

Traveling across borders from one country to the next typically means a long, stressful day. Our experience getting from Belize to Honduras is a prime example. First we boarded a bus in Placencia, Belize at 545 am for a two hour trip to Dangriega. Then we took a taxi to the water taxi meant to deliver us to Puerto Cortes, Honduras. Here we were told to give up our passports for the water taxi company to fill out their manifest. They assured us that they´d been doing this for over 20 years. Then they loaded our luggage in a truck and about 32 of us in various vehicles for our trip to immigration where they took our passports out of a plastic bag for the immigration officer to stamp.

We reboarded our vehicles for a trip to a dock in the middle of nowhere where we waited for over an hour for a boat to arrive. The immigration officer got on the boat and called our names one by one from our passports indicating that we should board. Three hours later we were at Puerto Cortes. Here we had to ride a cab to the Immigration Office in Honduras which was closed. A sign on the door indicated a number to call for assistance. Here we waited over an hour in blazing midday heat for our immigration official to arrive. Again, our passports were handed back to us in order for us to fill out a form to present to the customs´agent. After a long line, and an additional unexplained $3 US fee, we were done.

Frances and I were the only members of our boatload who stayed in Puerto Cortes. Everyone else just wanted to get the hell out of there. Heck, the cab driver told us he had lived there his whole life and there was nothing to see.

But we were exhausted and unwilling to travel any farther. We´d already put in a 10 hour day and needed to rest. We walked to a nearby hotel with a fence all around and booked a room. Chickens must have been living immediately behind or underneath our room because we heard crowing and clucking the rest of that day and all night. There were even small chicken feathers on the floor of our room and in the shower.

Again, what an adventure....

We're Off!!

This winter Frances and I are leaving the northern tundra for the tropics of Mexico and Central America ... and none too soon. While "tundra" may be an exaggeration, right now we're in the midst of our first major winter storm with whiteout conditions, tumbling temps, dangerous windchills, and nonstop snowfall. We drive to the Twin Cities tomorrow to catch our 6:00 AM Tuesday morning flight. Our fervent hope ... that the weather accommodates our travel plans and we arrive safely in Mexico on Tuesday afternoon.

First stop: Cancun. Then we're off to parts unknown. Our only agenda is to spend time in Mexico, Belize, and Honduras with occasional bouts of snorkeling when opportunities and coral reefs present themselves. From subzero to 80 degrees plus will take some adjustment but we're confident that we'll acclimatize ourselves to the warmth and sunshine.

We'll keep in touch through occasional stops at internet cafes along our route. So revisit "Under the Forest Canopy" in the coming weeks--seven total--as we travel to seashore and jungle, Mayan ruins, and ?? Adventure awaits us ... Hasta luego!