Friday, March 11, 2005

from the "I'm leaving on a water taxi...." dept.

The final dispatch from Caye Caulker:

It seems like I’ve been here a month. And some times it feels like I just arrived. No matter, the Caye Caulker experience draws to an end in just a few hours.

Yesterday I spent my last day wandering around. I met a retired professor of European History (from North Carolina) and we went for beers in the afternoon. We talked history for quite a long time.

I then made my way over to Wish Willy’s restaurant and finally got my interview with Maurice. And then tragedy: I dropped my MD recorder and it went bounding down a flight of stairs. This has happened many times previous, but this time it was fatal. Bits of electronics went flying. It’s funny: the last near fatal drop actually occurred right here at Costa Maya Cabanas in 2003.

So I’m now in the market for a new mini-disc recorder. The only real drag is that it looks like the interview with Maurice was toasted, as the machine was in the process of “finalizing” the recording on the disc. At least they’re cheap to replace these days.

Last night I fell asleep while reading… and then dragged myself off to bed. I got up with the sun, around 6am.

Around 8 I had breakfast with Don, the American prof. And then came back to Costa Maya to chat with Heather. We took the laptop to her house to see if the wifi network would reach that far, but it fell short.

It’s a cool and cloudy today, but it doesn’t look like it will rain. The agenda is simple: tidy up (done), give away left over food and booze, pay (done), pack (done) and grab the 1:30 water taxi to Belize City.

From there I will walk to Brent’s and then we’ll head to Cayo tonight to stay with Ivan and Katia. I’ll be traveling light, which means no computer. And that means my daily (and more) postings will come to an end for a while.

The plan is to weekend in Cayo, then head to Guatemala and visit Flores and Tikal. These are pretty touristy places – and I’d visited Tikal in 1999. But this will be an opportunity to play with the camera and hopefully get some stunning images.

We’ll return to Belize City on Tuesday or Wednesday and then I fly to Seattle on Thursday.

It’s funny: I am totally into the laid back Caye Caulker mentality. It took a few days, but I am really enjoying the absolute lack of a schedule. But it’s not real life, and it can’t last forever. Maybe if the 6/49 gods smile down one day…

Regardless, I can’t wait to come back!!

Well, I should get back to preparing to leave. Until later this afternoon, or from Cayo…

Cheers!

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