Coming Home
Belize, Days 11-12

Day Eleven- 1/1/03 [The New Year]
7 AM Somehow I wake up early and I'm not tired. It's overcast again. Not a good day to go to the Blue Hole after all, at least. I feel a little emotionally hung over after the guilt of being so distant last night. I had troubled dreams of a future life in which Justin and I have three children (2 boys, eight and ten eyars old and a girl of fourteen mos.) and live an empty, affluent life. I'm insecure. I lay awake until Justin responds to me and eventually we talk about dreams, comfort each other, and fall back asleep. After that, I have a few weirdly erotic dreams with the same futuristic theme but somehow they seem more trite. It's still a while before I shake my discomfort.
10:30 AM We crawl out of bed a second time. I feel strangely delerious. We should have gotten out of bed earlier... now we'll have a hell of a time finding breakfast. If anything WAS open, it's closed now. We get stuck at the Happy Lobster, the crappiest restaurant around. EVERYONE on the island is there, as it IS the only place open. The one waitress is an absolute bitch and warns us coldly that we won't get our food for a long time. We don't doubt her but what choice do we have?
12:10 PM Oh yes, we should have gotten up earlier. I'm hungry as hell now and Tim tells us that he's going snorkeling at 12:45 with or without us. At 12:20 the waitress comes but with the wrong order and she takes it away. Don't temp me, I'll KILL you!! It's my low blood sugar speaking.
12:30 PM The food finally arrives. We've been waiting an hour and a half or more. The order is, of course, wrong, but we eat it anyway, and quickly. We leave short change on the table and run out to get our gear. I forget the camera in the restaurant.
12:45 PM Thankfully the camera was still at the restaurant. We get to Carlos' snorkel tours just in time... err... well... we're not really sure why we were worried being that everything here runs on "island" time and he leaves 20 minutes late. The water is calm and there are spotty clouds. A front lies low on the horizon. We leave the island for the reef and I see three flying fish on the way there.
1:30 PM This place is called "Shark-ray alley," I can see why. As soon as Carlos parks the boat there are five nurse sharks and as many southern sting rays underneath us. Justin and I wear our wetsuits even though the water is warm. We get in and touch the sting rays as a guide brings them up for us. They don't look nearly as majestic (and are a lot smaller than) the spotted eagle rays we saw before. They're kind of gnarly and scratched up from too many close calls with divers and boats. We see a ton of fish on this snorkeling trip. It's nice to finally hear what they're called. One large barracuda. At the end, Carlos and his assistant gather the sharks and rays with food and we touch them. The sharks feel like sandpaper, the rays are smooth and slimy. Frankly, I feel dirty upsetting the ecosystem like this (the rays either eat or breed... if they're being fed like this, they're not breeding) but I'm gleeful just being close to sea creatures.
2:30 Hol-chan marine reserve is stop 2. This is where we dove on the second day, a familiar site. Not much to see, really, and my mask keeps bugging me. I almost regret wearing the wetsuit as it makes free-diving much more difficult.
3:30 PM The front is moving in. We make one more stop on the way back to the island at a shallow reef. We see tons of moray eels here: golden-tailed, spotted, and one great big gray one. I find a small, empty conch shell that I take back to the boat with the intent of taking home. The guides let me keep it when they see that it is empty... but after a few minutes of being in open air, a crab emerges from the shell. I throw it back.
4:30 PM Home again to shower. We decide to eat at the Rainbow for last supper.
6 PM On the way to the Rainbow I buy a large conch shell from a street vendor we've passed many times. It's only $10US.. certainly costs more than it took him to find it but I sure haven't been able to FIND a shell this nice. It's worth buying it just because the man offers to sell me Ganja after I buy the shell. No thanks, I say, we're leaving tomorrow so tonight's not the night. But I get enough at home. He laughs.
7 PM At the Rainbow I order conch. I guess I'm feeling adventurous. Tim tries to get another "baileys colada" and fails. The bar here isn't classy enough to know to leave out the pineapple or strawberry syrup. Euugh. I notice that now that I've been here a week, my pace has slowed to the island crawl. It no longer bothers me that it takes 2 hours to get the food. I'm certainly shrugging off things more easily than I did when I got here. I feel laid back and tan. The conch is decent, if underseasoned.
8:30 PM We come back to the hotel for our last night at the bar. We rack up the bill as a farewell to Adrian. He's intent on getting us plastered. I don't really object. He starts us off with mixers, a "Passionate Iguana" for me and a colada for Justin. To our amusement, there's a rather unhappy fellow outside in the bushes sleeping off his drunkness. At least he won't be likely to get hit by a golf cart or run anyone over in the two minutes it'll take him to get home. We do shots. Lemon drops and buttery nipples. Adrian plays my Dave Matthews CD. It's lovely. We meet a strange gentleman named Francisco from San Francisco and he plays the harmonica to the CD while I sing. I sip a tequila sunrise and do karaoke to "Lie in our graves." Last call is 9:30.
10 PM We chat with Dale on the balcony before bed, sprawled out on the railing. We hope the world hasn't gone to war with Iraq while we're away. We certainly wouldn't have found out while we were here. Everyone is going home. Vacation is over... sadness ensues. We decide to pack in the morning and stumble, drunk, into bed. The geckos are quiet tonight.

Day Twelve- 1/2/03 [The Final Day]
7 AM We hear Dale and Barbara leave before we get up. Time to pack. I put my things together and Justin reluctantly leaves bed. It's easy to re-pack, just a matter of finding everything and shoving it into suitcases. Justin is almost out of money. I'll have $100 left in travelers checks... enough for sushi and groceries when we get back.
8 AM B-fast at Cindy's. Excellent egg and bagel. Meet a lovely 3 year old named Noah. Take pictures with him and give him a coaster that was in my purse. He proceeds to beat it up rather adoringly.
9 AM Buy the family souvenirs. Enough for $20 departure tax and $50 plane ticket (as well as $100 surplus) left. I sunbathe in a bikini as long as possible and soak up the last sun I'll see for six months.
11:30 AM Tim and I take out a sea kayak for 20 minutes to look at the island from the outside. I really want to go swimming but there isn't enough time to shower. Sigh. When we come back there is a big iguana sitting on the dock to see us off. We change and depart via golf-cart to the airport. Things here are all smiles, even goodbyes. Come back someday, they say.
1:20 PM Our flight is on time. We have plenty of buffer between connections today but are, or course, still leery. On the way from the island to the mainland, the small plane is so full that I get to sit in the copilot's seat. What a cool experience!
2:00 PM Crash at airport restaurant for two hours. Meet Dale and Barb there. The airport was fogged in this morning so they've been moved up to our flight. We browse the gift shops and buy yet MORE hot sauce and shot glasses. We then discover the joys of DUTY FREE LIQUOR. A Litre of Absolut Citron is EIGHT BUCKS and a litre of Bacardi Limon is SIX FIFTY. We buy the citron and later regret not getting the limon. What were we thinking?
5 PM Flight to Dallas on time and uneventful except for STUPID screaming child across the aisle from us. Kill her please. I read the book The Red Thread. It's escape fiction and stupidly sentimental but helps me zone out.
8 PM Customs is a piece of cake. They REALLY don't give a shit. I could have declared a slave-child and gotten away with it. In fact, I just realize that I got through TWO airport security screenings AND customs with a WEAPON in my backpack (a small leatherman). oops. We eat dinner at TGIFridays. Hooray for american food! But, god dammit, I can no longer order cocktails. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Our waitress is on super-overdrive, evilly hyper. SO AMERICAN. I don't know whether to slap her or hug her.
10 PM God, it's still another four and a half hours to seattle. Time to set the clocks back. UGH. At least there's a nice girl next to me. I talk to her and realize suddenly that I'm no longer talking like a Belizian with that strange, lilting anunciation. I guess it's good to be home.

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