The 1000 Day Holiday

While I was in Belize, I adopted Baby. It seems quite a popular thing to do these days. She didn’t seem to have a home, even less a body. So I picked her up and brought her along for the ride. Shes disadvantaged since one of her eyes can be a bit wonky, so tends to weird people out a little.

Baby watching the world go by

Baby even has her own space in my pack, with a grand view of the world poking her head out from the top of my pack. She seems to spook some people as I walk past, or the luggage loaders on buses and boats when they glance down and see her staring up at them. Sometimes you’ll hear their conversations stop mid sentence, others exclaim and laugh. Its great fun, and generally promotes interaction and and great deal of laughter.

She even keeps an eye on those who have fallen asleep in public places.

This is all leading up to the most interesting encounter Baby has had to date.

We had one guy in my dorm, who after a couple of days said to the others in the room that he couldn’t take it any more, and put a shirt over baby as she was just laying there in my pack.

A day or so later he was talking to the girls in the room wide eyed and says.

“You know that guy with the Baby.. You know that paddling pool is also his?”

“Do you think he bathes the Baby in the Pool?”

Brilliant Idea! Unfortunately I left the next morning so wasn’t able to Bathe baby…

We caught a Linea Dorada bus from Belize City to Chetumal, Mexico. This being an international route, you have to get off the bus and pass through immigration. The benefit of taking an International Bus is that they wait for you to clear immigration and take you onto your destination.

We even get added fun at Mexican border as you get to punch a button which displays a red or green light determining if your bags are searched.

I got though no problem, loaded my bag back on the bus and waited for my travel buddy.

5, 10, 15 minutes no sign, I told the driver my friend was still not there and I was going to look for them. He huffed and puffed a bit. But off I went to find her as he had parked so that you couldn’t see the bus when you emerged from security, and was no longer standing at the corner so people could find it.

5 mins more and still no sign. Finally shes through and I’m telling her to hurry up as the bus driver is getting impatient. I turn around and the bus is pulling out into traffic 100m away!

I sprint after the bus. no luck. Fsck, my bags on that bus and I don’t know if it terminates in Chetumal or continues all the way to Cancun. WTF.

I ran back to my friend and jump in a cab with 2 others who were also left behind.

We get to the bus station 20 minutes later just as the bus pulls in, I bust past security explaining my bags are on there, and then start shouting in my “most excellent” Spanish at the bus driver why the FSCK he left without us and with my bag on board. The only bad bit was that I couldn’t get my Spanish swear words working as they are unpractised.

He didn’t give much of a toss about the situation, but I didn’t get out his face until he had paid our 100 Peso taxi fare ($10).

He then spent the next 20 minutes giving us the bad eye as we waited in line for tickets for the next bus. At least it now had cost him money and that appears the only way he might ever learn his lesson.

Ive seen a lot of animals during this trip.

Big, small, scary, dangerous…Smart and Stupid.

I had the chance to snorkel with Manatees in Caye Caulker, Belize.

While watching them, you really get the sense that there’s not much going on in the brain department. They move extremely slowly and it took them a couple of minutes to turn and swim to us to investigate what we were. They slowly swam up to us, and cruised past. I couldn’t see much movement in the eyes as it swam by.

Being slow and stupid in appearance they may be the weirdest creature of my trip. Yet upon researching them, they evolved from the same family as elephants but went back to the sea, have an advanced long term memory and can learn tasks/tricks much like dolphins.

So I think they win the laziest animal award. It takes dedication to evolve back into the sea, shorten your trunk to a funny shaped lip and basically become a sea blimp.

Maybe they’re the smart ones after all.