Going to the mall would have been so much easier. But since Belize does not have a mall, I did my holiday shopping in the next best thing...Guatemala.
As the crow flies, I live about 35 miles from the Guatemalan border, but of course I am not a crow and sadly cannot fly. Instead, we (being Jeff and I) woke up at 5am and biked 4 miles to a junction in the road where we were able to meet a bus headed to the border town of Jalacte. 30 miles and 2 hours later (yes, it is a slow ride), we arrived at the border. The walk into the Guatemalan border town of Santa Cruz is about 1 mile of slogging through knee deep mud, crossing a river, and through a cow pasture. Defying all sense of fashion in my cargo pants tucked into my massive rubber boots, I made it across the border with limited mud splatters.
From Santa Cruz we crammed into a min-van with 25 other adults and children and started towards the slightly more commercial town of Chacte, located on the Pan-American Highway. The goal for our visit and the reason that Guatemala is such an enticing holiday shopping destination is the abundance of cheap textiles and other easy to carry gifts and souvenirs. The food is also good. Our trip towards Chacte was delayed due to a cattle truck stuck in a mud hole, but after some walking, we got picked up by another truck and rode the rest of the way standing up in the back with a couple of other families. Chacte was bustling and seemed crowded compared with the calmness that one gets used to in sparsely populated Belize. For lunch we both enjoyed strawberry milkshakes, and then continued our shopping. We both picked up some great Christmas gifts and then headed back.
Hitching a ride in the back of a truck once again, we arrived at the still stuck cattle truck, walking around and climbing into a mini-van headed towards the border. The driver wasn't in any hurry, though we were anxious to get on our way since we had a bus to meet in Jalacte in order to make it back to Blue Creek. The clock ticked on as our driver watched the attempts to dislodge the truck using another truck, palm fronds, and lots of shovels and dirt. An hour and 20 additional passengers later, we finally started. I was skeptical about us reaching the border in time for us to make our bus, which if we missed would mean sleeping on the floor of another volunteer's house and catching the morning bus at 3:30am. Twenty minutes before our bus out of Jalacte was scheduled to leave, we arrived in Santa Cruz. Jeff, being the fitter of the two of us, sprinted his way through the mud and water to meet the bus and convince it to not leave us behind. I jogged/walked as fast as I could with a backpack and oversized boots on, trying to avoid falling into the quicksand-like mud. Sixteen minutes later I came stumbling up the hill on the Belize side of the border. The bus was just coming up the road. I had barely caught my breath before I climbed on.
On the return trip to where our bikes were parked, we were delayed by a police search looking for "contraband." Thankfully I hadn't bought any alcohol, drugs, or fireworks, but that didn't stop the police office from looking skeptically at my stash of fabric and a lone apple. As the sun set, we arrived at our bikes and peddled the final 4 miles to Blue Creek. Mud up to my thighs and exhausted, I immediately subjected myself to an ice-cold shower before curling up to a hot bowl of rice and a pirated copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on DVD.
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