Thirty Day LA

That night I dreamt of drowning rooster dogs and Chinese-speaking Latinos until I was interrupted by the sound of Randy’s alarm at 6AM. Thankfully, I did not feel feverish from plague-infested mosquito bites. Daniel was immediately dressed and geared up while the rest of us struggled to get out of bed. Fortunately, the sky was clear and bright, as if Belize had finally decided to open up its land and welcome us. Our guides at Mayawalk had told us we would be swimming through a cave today, so I left my camera behind, donned a sleeveless athletic shirt, and put on an old pair of Adidas tennis shoes that I didn’t mind getting dirty. All of these decisions proved to be the wrong ones.

According to Martin’s lengthy description, Actun Tunichil Muknal, or the Cave of the Crystal Sepulcher, is the most spectacular Mayan site in all of Belize. We thought that he might have been hyping it up excessively for our benefit. Brandon and I had done some preliminary research back home on what activities to do in Belize, and Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) was more of an afterthought. We were more concerned about hitting up every Mayan archaeological site we could in our limited time. As far as ATM, we had no idea what to expect, nor were we prepared for what we would see.

We waited at Mayawalk for half an hour until everyone was ready to go. Our guide for the day was Runan, a stout Mestizo man in his 40’s with a strong lisp. We had no idea what happened to Martin. Another tourist joined our party – a middle-aged white man named John who was traveling through Central America by himself. He offered us lollipops when we got on the bus, and then hurled them full force at each of us. The drive to ATM was just as bumpy and difficult, but at least we had a real bus instead of the Van of Death. At one point, we had to cross what looked like a shallow river, but it was actually a small bridge submerged in water. The scenery was even more beautiful than what we saw in the Mountain Pine Ridge. There were large expansive plains adjacent to tree-covered mountains stretching towards the horizon. When we reached our destination – an open area of gravel lined with towering trees – we got out and saw the same Indian couple from yesterday there with their own guide. Runan took all of our gear and stuffed it into a giant waterproof bag that was almost two-thirds his height. Slinging it over his shoulder, he led us into the jungle.

Immediately I knew I should have worn my hiking shoes instead. Traversing a narrow trail covered with tree roots, leaves, and mud, I was constantly slipping and soon fell behind the rest of the group. After I caught up and then almost fell on my face, Runan pointed out the pink woman’s tennis shoes he was wearing and said he didn’t care how they looked because they had great traction. After ten minutes, the path seemed to come to an end at a clear, shallow river that snaked through the jungle. Runan jumped right in and waded through the water, and we hastily followed suit. Brandon and Randy stood in the middle of the river for a while taking pictures. After forty more minutes of constant slipping and another two river crossings, we made it to an opening in the jungle. There were several tables and benches underneath thatched canopies, much leakier than the ones at Caracol. We sat down to take a break, and Runan spent the next hour telling us about the history of Actun Tunichil Muknal.

First of all – the pronunciation. It is pronounced Awk-toon Toon-each-EEL Mook-nal. Emphasis on the EEL. As a Mestizo, Runan began working tours for the cave almost ten years ago when it was first opened to tourists. He had no idea about what the cave meant to the Mayan people, he was just doing his job. Sometimes he would see some local Mayans working nearby the cave entrance, and he would greet them in passing while fully aware of their accusing eyes. After a while, one of the Mayans asked him why he always went inside the cave. They had lived there their whole lives and never once entered the cave. According to Mayan tradition, to enter the cave one had to spend months preparing offerings for their gods. The Mayans believed in human sacrifice, and one of the highlights of entering Actun Tunichil Muknal is seeing a well-preserved human skeleton. To the Mayans working nearby, the constant flood of tourists entering the cave was tantamount to the desecration of a sacred church. While Runan didn’t believe in their gods, he acknowledged the unfortunate reality that he was making a living off the religious holy place of their ancestors. He told us this so that we would have a greater appreciation and understanding of Actun Tunichil Muknal as more than just another tourist spot.

He led us to the entrance of the cave, and it was just as beautiful as he had described. From the mouth of the cave flowed the river that we had crossed several times on the path through the jungle. The cave entrance was about 40 feet tall, in a symmetrical shape that faintly resembled the shape of a canine skull. The water was cold, and we were reluctant to get back in after having already dried off. Runan led the swim into the gaping maw of Actun Tunichil Muknal. There were about 3 people in our high school who failed the swim test, and Daniel and I were two of them. With vampire bats flitting overhead, we did our best not to drown and swam 30 yards through the 10-feet deep pool onto a small rock shore inside the cave. Runan had us look back at the gorgeous view of the river flowing into the jungle, bordered by the silhouette of the cave entrance. Then we turned forward and headed into the darkness.

Nearly an hour later, after half-swimming and half-crawling through narrow limestone passageways, trying to avoid touching the sacred stalactites and stalagmites, occasionally looking up in awe to the towering heights of the cavern roofs where our shadows could barely reach, we reached a stopping point.

“0.3 miles,” Runan said. We had only explored one-tenth of the cave’s interior, already bewildered by the amount of obstacles we had to traverse to make it to this point. “We are not allowed to go any deeper into the cave. Now, we go up.”

Runan hopped on top of a large boulder with sharp crags, pulled himself over a small ledge and disappeared above us. Daniel, who had been steadily in the lead the entire time, climbed up after him. We followed closely behind. There was a small bank in the limestone that lead to what looked like a large opening in the cave with sweeping ceilings. Runan had us take off our shoes. We were entering the area where the Mayans brought their offerings to their gods. We would have to tread carefully to avoid damaging any artifacts.

We climbed up into an enormous chamber. We were stunned by its size – as large as one of the numerous cathedrals Brandon and I had visited in Europe a few years ago. Unlike the courteous silence we adopted when we entered those cathedrals, the silence we shared here was out of sheer awe. Curved lines flowed through the rock floor to form a pattern that resembled limestone intestines, and stalactites glistened in the ceiling. I imagined the absurd image of small Mayan children running through this chamber with delighted shrieks, easily hopping from one floor segment to the next. Pieces of pottery, tools, and weapons littered the floor, some of them even half submerged into the stone. As we carefully walked through the chamber in our socks, Runan stopped us and pointed out the partial remains of a human skeleton.

“An offering,” he said.

I wanted to stay in this chamber and let my imagination run wild. Runan had a handheld floodlight that he would use to point out objects of interest. I saw the outlines of predators, mountains, waterfalls, food, and Mayan people in the shadows that flickered across the walls. However, we soon had to move on, as this wasn’t the highlight of the trip.

After a shaky climb up a rickety ladder and several more minutes of hiking, we had come to the end of our trip. Lying on the floor before us was the complete skeleton of a 20 year-old Mayan girl, sacrificed to the gods, her arms at her side and her legs slightly askew. She looked particularly vulnerable in that position, and as fate would have it, she would forever remain that way. I wondered why they would choose to sacrifice a young girl at the prime of her life. She could have been someone’s devoted wife, a mother even. Everyone took out their cameras and snapped pictures of the skeleton. For the first time inside the cave, I was glad that I didn’t have my camera with me.

The trip back out was no less exhilarating. I had foolishly jumped down from a ledge into the water, thinking it was shallower than it actually was, and smacked my hip against a rock. At one point, I didn’t recognize the landmarks that we were passing, and got excited at the possibility that we took a wrong turn. Randy was smiling the entire way back. Brandon looked around at the complex lines of the cave walls. Daniel followed closely behind Runan, never falling more than a few feet behind him. We passed by several more tour groups going in the opposite direction, and Runan asked all the guides in rapid-fires Spanish if they knew who had left all the garbage at the tables outside the entrance. Finally, we reached the small stone shore at the entrance of the cave. We had made it through Actun Tunichil Muknal, the Cave of the Crystal Sepulcher, and back. As we jumped into the water one-by-one, I felt a pang of disappointment. I wished that our trip wasn’t over. But all good things must come to an end, no matter how hard we try to make it last.

We ate lunch, thoroughly exhausted but thrilled with the awe-inspiring journey. John had many questions for Runan, surprised that a place so sacred to the Mayans would be so accessible to tourists. Runan told us that Belize was undergoing dramatic change through the expansion of the tourist industry. In just a few years, Runan predicted, there would be a steady stream of tourists entering the cave, every day of the week. While the economy of Belize might flourish, the intimate isolation of the land would undoubtedly be tarnished. Places like Actun Tunichil Muknal would likely become what Runan had spent an hour earlier trying to prevent, at least in our minds - another tourist spot to be taken for granted.

As we hiked back, I realized that the bug repellant we had applied in the morning had washed off when we were swimming through the cave. Mosquitos were feasting on my sleeveless arms. I had a red, swollen welt on my left arm the circumference of a golf ball. Along with the constant slipping in the mud, it was a miserable hike back to the bus.

After a quick change behind the bus, we got on board and headed home. The sun was setting on the valley before us. Brandon put his head between the headrests and went to sleep, despite the bouncy road. The rest of us fell asleep shortly after.

Back at Mayawalk, we dropped off our gear. Randy expressed our sentiments best when he smiled from ear to ear, shook Runan’s hands and exclaimed loudly that the trip to ATM was amazing, one of the best things he’s ever done. Runan had set the bar for tour guides even higher than David had, and it wouldn’t be reached again.

One of the reasons people like to go away on vacation is for the scenery. Scenery not in the traditional sense of the word, like sunsets and beaches and clear blue skies, but in terms of people. Specifically, good looking people. Inhibitions fly away while on vacation, and as such the urge to hookup runs rampant among tourists. Not only is the best thinking done away from home, so is the best recreational sex. Partners can be found oftentimes in other tourists, sometimes prostitutes, possibly even locals. Normally, a group of five mostly single guys going away on vacation would be included in the classification of horny tourists. However, coming from a culture where pale white Anglo-European beauty is the gold standard, we thought we might be conditioned against appreciating the scenery in Belize, except in the traditional sense of the word. So it came as a great surprise to Daniel, when we finished dropping our gear off at Mayawalk, when a young, well-proportioned, attractive Belizean girl hopped out of a van right in front of us.

“Ohhh nice!” Daniel said, out loud.

We all gave him a look. It didn’t seem to register to him that he had said it aloud. The girl didn’t seem to hear Daniel and she walked into Faya Wata Bar and Grill next door. We quickly walked off in the opposite direction, back to our hotel.

Later that night, at around 9PM, we were in the mood for post-adventure beers, so we decided to check out Faya Wata. Daniel could possibly run into Miss Oh Nice again and run some game while we relaxed with some ice-cold, napkin-wrapped Belikins. When you order beers in Belize, they will serve it to you with a carefully folded napkin around the bottle opening, instead of just taking the cap off like lazy American bartenders. We sat down at the corner table near the front of the place. It was mostly empty. There were soccer games on the televisions and a couple pool tables in the back. The big bartender talked in low tones with the two white customers seated at the bar.

We spent an hour relaxing with our beers. Brandon, Randy, and I could not stop talking excitedly about our trip to ATM earlier that day. We agreed it was one of the most awesome things we had ever done. Daniel, however, didn’t care to join in the conversation. He seemed preoccupied, sitting in prime viewing position of Miss Oh Nice, who he had spotted on the back balcony. Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone – she was getting cozy with her boyfriend. Daniel sat there quietly for the rest of the night.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vacation ostensibly provides the weary capitalist an escape from the interminable routine of waking up early every day to slave away for arbitrary deadlines. However, should one of these capitalists be weary from utter laziness instead of hard work, vacation is the time to buckle down. Brandon serves as a prime example of the lazy-capitalist-slash-dedicated-vacationer. On trips planned by Brandon, sleeping in is not tolerated and walking slow leads to abandonment. On our eight-day visit to Belize, he had planned three day-trips to Mayan sites from San Ignacio and two snorkeling excursions from San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, leaving only enough free time for transportation in between. Our first trip was to the Mayan ruin site of Caracol in the Mountain Pine Ridge.

We woke to the sounds of dogs howling and roosters crowing in the middle of a torrential downpour. It was still dark at 5AM - two hours before we needed to wake up - but I couldn’t fall back asleep. I remained in bed and stared at the ceiling. At least the mosquitoes hadn’t gotten to me through the sheets. When the sun rose over the forest of trees to the east, the rain stopped and skies cleared. As we got ready to leave the hotel, Randy noticed the chair in the living room was wet. We looked up to see that there was a leak in the roof. That put a slight damper on our overall appreciation of Martha’s Guesthouse, but it was only a minor annoyance at the time. We could only hope that it wouldn’t rain anymore, even though an online weather service predicted rain for the entire week.

We stopped in Mayawalk and sat around waiting for our ride to show up. The British girl running the office, Angela, introduced us to Evril, our tour guide for the day. Evril slumped into a chair next to Angela’s desk and barely managed to nod towards us in acknowledgement. His lack of energy was in stark contrast to Martin’s enthusiasm. I overheard Evril and Angela talking about Evril’s ex-girlfriend.

“I finally met her the other day,” Angela said. “She’s cute.”

“She’s crazy,” Evril replied.

“All women are,” Angela offered.

A few minutes later, another Mayawalk employee came in the office and handed us our bag lunches. Evril asked us if we were ready to go. We all stood up, flinging our backpacks over our shoulders. Evril sized us up.

“We’ll see if we actually make it,” Evril said to Angela.

Angela told us with a heavy dose of sarcasm that Evril was their most optimistic guide. I asked Evril how long the drive was to Caracol, hoping it wouldn’t be as long as our ride the night before. He said it was only two hours. Oh well. We piled into an old blue Ford van, and after a loop around town through the narrow one-way streets we were off to Caracol.

Not only was the drive to Caracol as long as the trip to San Ignacio, but it was even more insufferable. The Van of Death was the scariest part – it had no starter, there was a towel in place of the gearbox cover, and fumes would occasionally fill the cabin. The road through Mountain Pine Ridge, past countless acres of beetle-denuded pine trees, was one of the bumpiest I had ever been on. At first, it seemed like the weather would clear, but then the clouds started rolling in. The rain from the night before had hollowed out some serious potholes in the dirt road. Without any seat belts, I was able to get a couple inches of air on some of the bigger bumps. At one point, Evril stopped the van, opened the hood and went outside, then came back in.

“OK guys, I checked the engine and everything looks good,” Evril informed us. “If we make it past this next hill, we’ll make it to Caracol.” I didn’t want to ask what would happen if we didn’t make it.

Evril kick-started the van on the downslope and gunned it as we approached the massive hill that stood before us. As we went up the hill and our speed started to decrease, Evril began spinning the steering wheel back and forth in order to gain traction in the muddy road. We started sliding through the mud. Brandon and I looked at each other with huge grins. Even if we weren’t going to make it, having a random Belizean driver attempt to drift upwards through a muddy mountain road was unexpectedly exciting. We kept sliding and Evril continued to calmly spin the steering wheel back and forth. The van was decelerating quickly, and just when it seemed we wouldn’t make it, we reached a dry spot near the peak of the hill. Evril accelerated over it and into the clear.

When we reached a rest stop near Caracol, we had to wait for a military escort to take us the rest of the way. Apparently the local bandits are fond of ambushing tour vans along the road to Caracol. Luckily for us, the British army still has training grounds in Belize, only a few hundred yards from the rest stop. However, it was the Belizean army that would accompany us for the rest of the trip. For some reason, having soldiers with M-16 assault rifles around just so we could visit some Mayan ruins didn’t concern us too much. We were more interested in the colony of large leaf ants that appeared to be constructing a bridge across a shallow pool of rainwater.

An young Indian-American guy who was part of another tour group came by and told us that the ants were gathering leaves to take underground so fungus would grow on them and they would eat the fungus for food. When he left, Randy and I agreed that he was full of shit - the ants were making a bridge.

After we reluctantly got back into the Van of Death, we made it to Caracol without further incident.

Evril informed us that another tour guide, David, would be taking us through the grounds of Caracol. I ditched my heavy camera bag and brought my rain jacket, hoping we wouldn’t get caught in some heavy downpour. Evril went inside the visitor center and brought out a giant rainbow colored umbrella for us to use. I claimed it first so I could use it as a walking stick. Warning us to stay on the trail to avoid deadly poisonous snakes, David then led us, along with the Indian-American guy and his wife, into the entrance of Caracol to witness our first ever Mayan ruin site.

Caracol is the largest Mayan archaeological site in Belize. It lies at the foothills of the Maya Mountains at an elevation of 1500 feet above sea level. At around AD 250, during the Classic Era, Caracol was an urban epicenter with a population of over 140,000, which is a greater population than modern-day Belize City. To support this many people, the city architects of Caracol built an immense agricultural field system and laid out numerous living and work structures in a radial pattern over 65 square miles. Caracol was considered to be one of the most powerful lowland Mayan cities because they were constantly engaged – and successful - in war. They defeated neighboring Tikal in AD 562 and Naranjo in AD 631, experiencing an unprecedented explosion of productivity and development in the years that followed. Caracol was discovered in 1938, and subsequent excavations in 1951 and 1953 were conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. Today, the majority of Caracol still remains unexcavated under a millennium and a half of forest undergrowth.

A few minutes after David had led us into the entrance of Caracol, we caught site of the remains of what used to be Mayan residential buildings. There were four of them facing each other around an open square, their relatively low height demonstrating that they were reserved for the middle class. Trees grew out of the center of each one. David pointed us to the hole in one – it was a grave. This was one of many middle class ruin sites throughout Caracol. The Maya of Caracol had an egalitarian system of distributing wealth, as evidenced by the vaulted masonry tombs throughout the city and the presence of luxury items in the residential units like the ones we were looking at. We continued on through the jungle and encountered a towering tree with large, distinctive roots.

It was considered by the Mayans to be a Tree of Life, otherwise known as a ceiba tree. The Mayans believed that the branches of the Trees of Life formed the forest canopy and pointed in each cardinal direction to reach to the heavens, while its roots descended into the underworld and formed stalactites in the caves below. Soon we passed a frond-covered lake that the Mayans used as a reservoir.

This was the entryway into the upper class residences. These buildings were completely excavated and we were able to climb in, through, and around them. David took us to a tree and showed us the cohune nuts that it produced. He cut one open with his knife and milky white fluid oozed out, which was so sticky that young art students used it for glue. Squeezing the white meat out of the nut produced a cooking oil, while its hard husk could be used for jewelry. He also pointed out a line of leaf ants scurrying across the path. They were taking leaves underground so they could feed off the fungus that grew on the leaves. Randy and I shared a good laugh to the confusion of the rest of the group. Then David showed us a replica of a five-foot tall stone tablet with Mayan inscriptions on it. The original had been stolen by the University of Pennsylvania for display in their museum.

Unlike the Aztecs who believed in their sun gods, Mayans believed in gods of rain. Sacrifices were made during times of drought in order to bring life back into the earth. Elaborate ceremonies and lengthy wars were conducted in the name of rain, many within the grounds of where we were standing.

As it started to drizzle, we made it into the main square of Caracol, the palatial residences. There were several large temples, in addition to a ball court where competitors would decide who would win and who would be sacrificed and a work building with a multipurpose sundial room. The tallest structure in all of Belize, the temple of Canaa, imposed its massive presence in front of us. David told us that we could explore the temples on our own, and he’d be waiting for us back at the visitor center. He told us to avoid the little mounds of dirt that were occupied by fire ants. If we stepped in one on accident, our legs would immediately be covered by nasty, stinging fire ants. Their bites would leave painful welts for weeks. With the haste of youngsters, we raced off in separate directions to storm up the steps of each temple. We joined each other at the top of the 136-feet high Canaa, where could see the forest canopy of Guatemala in one direction and in another, the entire main square and the archaeological research area behind it. Daniel and I soaked in the views for a while, as well as the rain, before it was time to head back to the park entrance. We had reached the end of tour of our first Mayan ruin site, and it was spectacular.

Under a thatched canopy that leaked less than our wooden roof at Martha’s Guesthouse, we ate lunch and harassed a local boa constrictor one of the guides had found along the entrance pathway just a few minutes before we returned. A nice American who was traveling with his family offered all of us - military escort, guides, locals, and tourists alike - some watermelon. We eagerly accepted and tore into our one slice with ravenous thirst. Soon it was time to go, and we hastily said goodbye to David, not realizing that he would be one of our best guides on the whole trip.

The drive back was no easier. We made a stop at the Rio On Pools and took some pictures before heading back.

Evril informed us that sometimes whole fleet of trucks get stuck on that big hill we barely made it over and bigger trucks have to come and haul them over. As Evril drove us home, with the late afternoon sun starting to cast long orange shadows over the lush landscape, he seemed to relax and open up more. He pointed out the lychee farm that was owned by a Texan. When some workers in the back of a truck full of wooden logs passed us slowly, glaring in our direction, I thought they might be hijackers. Instead they cussed playfully at Evril and he cussed at them back. I noticed how often he would raise a finger in acknowledgement of the drivers going the opposite direction. It seemed like living in a small town, or maybe just in Belize in general, makes it more conducive for people to actually get to know each other. This was very apparent when we made it back in town as well. People stood around in the streets talking with each other, with nowhere to rush off to. Work and leisure seemed to be more closely intertwined in the intimacy of a small town in a small country.

While we scoured the streets that night for our next culinary destination, we ran into Martin, the enthusiastic tour guide, at the taco stand in front of the Cantonese-owned grocery store. He gave his thumbs up in recommendation of the food – delicious and cheap at $1US each. I foolishly dumped a big load of habanero salsa on my tacos, thinking it was regular salsa. This would lead to my first encounter with Montezuma’s Revenge later that evening. We brought our food back to our balcony and sat around the table, enjoying the food and company. Unfortunately, we experienced another setback – Brandon’s expensive work laptop, which he used to edit and store all his digital photos, had been on the table under the roof’s leaky spot, and now it wouldn’t turn on. Brandon was surprisingly calm – I would have thrown a fit and worried about the computer for the rest of the trip. We spent the rest of the night watching Sportscenter in English, maintaining some connection with our usual habits back home. I looked up information in the back of my guidebook about the local bugs. I read aloud to myself some of the more startling information – mosquitoes in Belize may carry malaria and even dengue fever, which can lead to death. The others didn’t seem concerned. I went to sleep hoping for another good day with sunnier weather tomorrow, and that I wouldn’t wake up with a massive fever or a cold spell.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clutching the sharp limestone slivers of the cave walls, we carefully measured every step as we passed single file through the narrow gap underneath the low hanging stone ceiling. Water flowed around our ankles and mist reflected our headlights back into our eyes. We emerged into a massive cavern, latticework stalactites nestled together fifty feet above us. The Mayans believed these stalactites were the roots of the Tree of Life, descending below the earth and beyond the realm of the living. All our worldly thoughts of comfort, money, and career had been left behind an hour ago at the entrance to the cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal, and the idea that we were plunging into the depths of the ancient Mayan underworld felt fully possible.

“If the world had any ends, British Honduras would surely be one of them.” – Aldous Huxley

Belize, formerly British Honduras, lies on the eastern coast of Central America, immediately south of Mexico. I had first heard of Belize when I was working at UCLA and had just turned in my two-week notice. I had a month to kill before I started my new job, so I asked my intrepid coworker, who had just spent the past summer traveling the world alone, where I should go on vacation. Belize, he said. I was thinking more along the lines of Brazil or Peru or Japan, but he recommended Belize enthusiastically. With its diverse geography, including subtropical forest with extensive Mayan ruins and enormous caves, and over 200 island cayes within the second-largest barrier reef in the world, Belize serves as a prime destination for adventure travel. However, it is still relatively obscure as a vacation hotspot, particularly among young people. White sand beaches, warm ocean waters, and beautiful scenery are all part of the package, but it’s not the main appeal. Belize exceeds its third world roots in safety and friendliness while maintaining its laid-back, multicultural identity. It’s a rare place of vast beauty that has up to this point managed to avoid the whitewashed decadence of tourism.

Maybe some day, I thought to myself, I might go visit. Three years later, as my time with the job I had moved onto from UCLA came to an end, my old coworker's descriptions of Belize had somehow stuck in my head. I had to find out what was so great about Belize for myself. On December 1, 2007, I went on one of the best vacations I have ever had.

Along with my longtime friends from middle school, we agreed on the prices and destinations and set off on our Belizean adventure. Our group included Brandon – the seasoned traveler, Daniel – the workaholic, Randy – the moral support, and Alex – the socializer. Except for Alex, we all worked in the high-tech industry. While the others viewed our trip as a fun little trip to Central America, I viewed Belize as a fatalistic final destination. I would be starting film school soon after the trip, and with the massive loans and unstable financial nature associated with the attempt of filmmaking, I could be broke as shit for the rest of my life. As the only one of my Silicon Valley friends who lived in Los Angeles, I was seduced by the Hollywood dream-churning engine into needlessly throwing away a stable life of financial security and occasional tourist luxury. I needed some space to contemplate my decision, as the best thinking is usually done far from home. By the time December 1, 2007 came around, I was more excited about entering the exotic land of Belize, with its lush jungles and arcane ruins, than I was about starting film school. The people of Belize would be strange and fascinating, and I hoped our interactions with them would provide some much needed perspective.

Our itinerary called for us to spend our first four days in San Ignacio, in the Cayo District on the western border. This would serve as our basecamp to various Mayan sites in the Mountain Pine Ridge as well as to Tikal in Guatemala. Alex would be skipping this part of the trip and meet up with us later. We landed in Belize City after two three-hour flights and immediately hopped on a van to travel another two hours to San Ignacio. We stared out the windows at the barefoot children running in the streets, ramshackle shanties, and unpaved dirt roads. As open-minded as we assumed ourselves to be, we were still the product of upper-middle class suburban society, so the sights of Belize City caused an immediate culture shock.

The van ride was harrowing. Slowing down to 10 mph every few miles for the speed bumps placed intermittently along the highway, we grew weary from the bumpy road and cramped cabin. At one point, when the sun had set and the darkness obscured the views of the Belizean countryside, I almost drifted off to sleep. Suddenly our driver made a startled noise as he swerved left to avoid a pedestrian who appeared in the middle of our lane on the freeway. The driver somehow managed to avoid hitting both the pedestrian and the oncoming trucks in the opposite lane. He slowed down to a near stop, breathing heavily as he took a moment to gather himself. Meanwhile, we all looked at each other with concern. Almost dying on the first day didn’t seem to bode well for our trip.

We finally reached San Ignacio, safely, around 7PM. After crossing the Hawksworth Bridge, we squinted in the lights of the town’s sports stadium, which staged weekly soccer matches. The exterior of its walls were lined with advertisements for all the shops in town. We drove down the main road into the middle of San Ignacio. The intimate feel of the small town contrasted with the urban poverty of Belize City. Here, the cramped streets were brimming with life - street vendors hawking food in front of small shops and restaurants bustling with Belizean locals. To our untrained eyes, the locals were all brown-skinned Central Americans. However, as we watched and listened closer, the diverse mixture of several races became apparent. They included Creoles, Mestizos, Mayans, Garinagus, and to a lesser extent, East Indians and Mennonites. Native Belizeans spoke Spanish with each other, while the different ethnic groups spoke Belizean Kriol, and they all reserved the use of English, the official language, for tourists like us.

We checked in at Mayawalk Tours, the tour company that would guide us in all our adventures from San Ignacio. Martin, one of the guides, spent twenty minutes enthusiastically describing an underground, underwater Mayan cave that he would take us to in a few days. We were drained from the drive and still processing our new surroundings, so we could only offer polite smiles in substitute for actual conversation. We went across the street to have dinner at Eva’s Kitchen. The food was rather bland and similar to Cuban food, with black beans and rice as the staple dish of all the meals. We tried to ignore the mangy dog and malnourished cat that begged us for scraps, except for Randy who fed the dog and was rewarded by having it jumping on his lap to beg for more. Unlike the pampered dogs of America, most of the dogs in Belize are skinny and ignored like street urchin. After we quietly finished dinner, we walked uphill a block to our hotel, Martha’s Guesthouse. From this short walk, we realized that we had already explored a good portion of the town. A pleasant, heavy-set white woman greeted us in the lobby from behind her desk. She was Martha, the owner, and walked us up four flights of stairs to the top of the guesthouse and our room, the first lady suite. We went inside and were greeted by a large, upscale room with wooden floors, two king sized beds, and a small living room with tall wooden chairs and a small TV. For $90 US a night, this was a great bargain. I flung open the doors to the side balcony and saw that our room overlooked the town. Brandon and Randy had already opened the sliding glass door to the main balcony, which was the size of our room itself. There was a hammock on one side, chairs and tables on the other. From first impressions, it seemed we had lucked out big time with our accommodations.

We hung out for a bit on the balcony as the sun set behind the mountains facing us before going back into town. I felt slightly apprehensive about what we had experienced so far. Even though we were in a remote village in Belize, it didn’t feel as far away from home as I would have expected. In addition to not having to deal with a language barrier, there was also no need for us to exchange our currency, as $1US is exactly $2BZ. It didn’t seem too different from a small southern Taiwanese village, except the skin color of the locals. There were even Taiwanese people living in San Ignacio, as one Taiwanese family owned the grocery store next to the taco stands and another owned Maxim’s, the restaurant right behind our guesthouse. I knew we would have more time to get acquainted with Belize, so I tried to push my apprehension aside for the time being. We went to the grocery store and bought some snacks and Belikin beers, one of only two domestic beers in Belize. Relaxing on the balcony to the sounds of crickets buzzing and the hammock squeaking, we drank our Belikins and expressed our hope for some excitement that didn’t involve potentially dying while simultaneously inflicting vehicular manslaughter on the locals.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A common refrain heard among people in my age group:

“Wow, 2008, damn I’m old.”

Which isn’t necessarily true or false, but it illustrates the mindset of those of us approaching our thirties. We start to question who we are and what we’ve accomplished. For the majority of us – not much. We probably landed a decent paying job, starting saving for retirement, moved closer to marriage. Maybe we’ve found a career track we can stick with, or a city to live in that suits our tastes. For those lucky ones (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it), they might have gotten engaged or even married. But for the rest of us still muddling around in what is supposed to be the prime of our lives, a sort of paralysis sets in. The older we get, the more we define ourselves by the things we haven’t accomplished. And that is precisely what is expressed when we say, “Damn I’m old.”

Normally at the end of each year, I like to do some retrospective introspection. More often that not, I end up depressed. This year, I didn’t spend too much time thinking back on my life. Some of it sucked, some of it was great. I did get to travel all over the world, mostly thanks to my sister and her three wedding ceremonies – one at home, one in Pittsburgh, and one in Taiwan. I went to Hawaii with good friends and ran a half marathon. However, I spent most of last year at work, and between falling asleep at my desk, taking two-hour lunch breaks, and damaging my liver with weekly binge drinking, it felt like a giant waste of time. Originally, I had planned on quitting work and traveling abroad for a couple months before starting film school. Before I could commit career suicide, my former boss presented me the opportunity to continue working remotely while attending school. This would provide me the means to eat and live, something I had grown accustomed to. The most practical choice was to take the offer. After I accepted, I started to look back on my past three years of work differently. I had grown as close as family with some of my coworkers, honed my basketball game in lunchtime pickup games twice a week, and improved my people skills, slightly. I was also able to start this blog, which in turn helped me get into film school, and hopefully that will enable me to devote the rest of my life to exploring LA and the world. But in the meantime, since I couldn’t quit work before school started, I would only have one week of vacation to travel.

So in the beginning of December, I traveled to Belize with a group of high school friends. I will post the recap of our adventures in the following posts. It was one of the best vacations in my young life. Unfortunately, I feel just as mentally unprepared and even more financially unstable for film school than ever before.

Due to the fact that I will be working and attending school full-time, I don’t know if I will have the time to find contributors for 30 Day LA in the coming years. In all honesty, the success of the project resided more in the experiences of the individual contributors than what happened to be recorded in these pages. I am happy that they were able to take part in 30 Day LA, as much as I am grateful for the readers that happened to wander by. I grew up a lot during my initial month on this project, but it opened my eyes to how much more time and experience I had ahead of me.

One of the core reasons why I sometimes find myself disappointed with the direction of my life is my lack of focus. Consistency has never been my strong suit. However, as with every New Year, a foolish resolution is in order. For 2008, I resolve to become more consistent and focused. So for my first attempt at consistency, I will keep alive my tradition over the past two years of saying peace out to the year.

Peace out 2007. Will youthful wisdom find us all in 2008.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)