Ben Svensson's Blog: My time now - Posts Tagged "belize"

Recently, my family and I traveled down to the lush and beautiful country of Belize; with its gorgeous beaches, good food, and tasty drinkables. If you are one of those who needs to keep active while traveling then Belize has it all. There is diving, snorkeling, fishing, Maya ruins tours, zip lining, and so much more. I am more the type that likes to relax in a comfy hammock while enjoying a refreshing drink and maybe reading a book as I gather my strength for a short stroll along the beach...perhaps finding the next taste sensation at a local beachside restaurant. Ahhh…that is a perfect vacation for me. I don’t need more – just pure relaxation.

In a somewhat weak moment, I was coerced in to participating in one of these “fun” tours that I would otherwise never go on. This one was called the Monkey River tour. “Oh, it will be fun!” they said. “No long hike, you mostly ride in a boat and you’ll get to see local animals like howler monkeys, crocodiles and cute manatees…plus they will serve you some good food,” they said. “You’ll be OK as long as you bring some bug spray with ya – we promise, you’ll have a great time!” they said.

So at 6:00 AM my alarm went off (which, if you ask me, is that not a fantastic time to wake up when you’re are on vacation!) and I took a quick shower, shaved and then went off to get some breakfast. Once back in our room to get ready to go I was told, “Nah, you don’t need long pants for this tour.” Outside stood our ride and one and a half hours later we had reached the harbor. Now I thought that the harbor was at the river where we would be taking our tour…but nooo it was not! Seven people were ushered into a boat that was not meant to carry more than five. No one was handed us a life vest or even pointed to where one was and before we could protest or ask questions our guide gunned the engine and off we went! Fifteen minutes later my shorts were soaking wet from the water splashing over the sides of the small boat as we wave-hopped for 45 minutes along the ocean shore to our destination.

When the boat finally stopped we learned we were only at our first destination. Our guide pointed to a two-story orange building across a field and said, “All of you that want some lunch later or need to go the restroom now should walk over to that big orange house and take care of business.” As we passed several colorful houses (all of which were badly in need of some repair and TLC), I looked up in the sky and saw dark black clouds coming our way. “Oh don’t even tell me,” I thought to myself as I continued walking towards the orange house. Once inside I found the restroom and as I touched the door handle - it almost fell off! After a bit of a fumble, I succeeded to get in and close the door without losing the handle. After taking care of business I zipped up and turned around to leave. This time I carefully touched the handle of the door, twisted slowly and pushed, but the door would not move. Maybe I locked it by mistake, I thought. Nope…not locked. I twisted the doorknob again and pushed harder but it would not budge. “Great, I’m stuck in here!” I thought to myself. How embarrassing…the crazy Swede locked himself in the bathroom, ha ha so funny – not!. Then it hit me! Turn the handle the other way. To my relief, the door opened. I straightened up and tried to walk out as calmly as possible and with a cool voice I told the guy waiting, “watch out for that door – it’s a little bit tricky.” I hoped he had not heard me earlier when I was pulling, pushing, and scratching at the door. I didn’t see any smirks, or hear any giggling, so I think I pulled it off.

After washing my hands and ordering food we were then ushered back outside where, to my relief, our tour guide had acquired a bigger boat. We all took a seat in the boat (once again, no life vests or safety talk) and up the Monkey River we went. One of the other tour guests in the boat had a big camera around her neck and a bag filled with different sizes of lenses; a birder, great! Then there was a teenage girl from New York that apparently did not want to be on the tour. This was evidenced by every time the birder would loudly holler stop when she saw a bird, the teenage New Yorker would sigh just as loudly and counter with “Great, another bird!” Our guide did his best trying to please the gang in the boat by talking about the different plants along the river and telling us about the history of the area. I have to admit that some of the information he relayed was interesting and overall he did a pretty good job.

Without warning our tour guide pointed the boat towards the riverbank and docked and we were told it was time for us to jump out and go for a walk into the jungle. “Now would be a good time for you to spray on some bug spray,” he announced. “I sprayed myself from head-to-toe earlier,” I told him with a smile. “Spray again,” he said with a stern face and I could feel my smile getting smaller. As I started to spray myself it hit me – our guide had on jeans and a jacket. This was not the season for long pants I had been told. Uh oh! “If you see ants, don’t touch them. Also, do not touch any branches or vegetation before looking at it closely. There are many things here in the jungle that are poky and will hurt you, so just don’t touch anything and you will be OK,” our guide announced cheerily. Now my smile was totally gone. Five yards into the jungle I heard the first buzzing of a mosquito. I had on a double layer of bug spray and had more with me, so I wasn’t too worried. The guide took us to a small wooden bridge and as he was talking I saw the back of one of my fellow tour guests being attacked by over twenty mosquitos. Maybe she didn’t spray, I thought and looked down at my bare legs. Ten BIG mosquitos were poised and drilling into my legs! I quickly swept them off and wound up with blood smeared on my legs. “Oh no, not good,” I thought. As long as we were moving it was not that bad, but every time we stopped to look at the flora and fauna we were under attack. It did not matter how much spray I used, the mosquitos kept on coming back for my sweet, sweet blood over and over again.

I could no longer concentrate on what the guide had to say I was constantly swiping mosquitos. Our guide finally found some howler monkeys up in a tree so far from the ground that they looked as big ink blobs. “Great, now let’s get the heck out of here!” I thought to myself. After an hour of walking in a flower pattern around a wooden bridge that crossed over and over again, we finally left the fantastic, mosquito infested jungle and took off back down the river. Half way back to the orange house it began to rain. “It will soon stop,” the guide told us with an optimistic voice, “this is not the rainy season, it will soon be over.” We stopped along the way to allow the birder to get even more pictures and then landed at the dock outside the orange house where food would be waiting for us. I received a plate with what tasted like yesterday’s rice and beans along with a tasty, roasted chicken leg. I was also given some ‘interesting’ strawberry soda to wash it all down.

An hour later the rain had not stopped falling, but I was happy that my dear wife had had the forethought to bring rain ponchos. As we got in the boat, I offered to sit in front because I had my poncho and most of my tour members did not. My dryness lasted all of about 2 minutes. As the boat skipped along the river towards the open ocean, it was like I was sitting in a shower - the water found its way to every dry spot on your body. Thirty minutes into the wettest, most uncomfortable boat ride ever our tour guide cut the engine and said, “This is the manatee zone.” There we sat quietly as the rain came down waiting to see a manatee breach the water. The faces of my fellow tour guests became more and more sour as we sat there looking out over the water. Ten minutes later we all voted unanimously to skip the ‘manatee viewing’ portion of the tour and head back to the harbor.

Our guide raced us back to the harbor as fast he could. We were all soaked to the bone. As I took my first step up on the dock, water ran out of my shoes and so it continued to do all the way to the waiting car. “Do you want some water?” the driver asked me with a smile. “No,” I answered. “I’ve had more water than I need for a week!” After more than an hour of sitting in rain-soaked clothes on the drive back, we were once again at our fantastic hotel on the beach that I had been stupid enough to leave in the first place! We quickly threw ourselves into the hot shower, got some dry clothes on and headed to the bar. Ahh…our vacation life was back to normal.

Here is my advice to all you fun seekers out there. If you ever go on an adventure into the jungle, forget the bug spray…bring a HAZMAT suit!