Pre-Christmas adrenaline rush

Warning: mom, you may not want to read this one.

Jungle instinct dictates that when traveling by foot one must consistently scan the ground 5-10 feet in front of you, rather than looking absent-mindedly ahead, to the sides, or up. This ground-scanning behavior stems from the constant threat of snakes. According to my Rough Guide to Belize, there are 60 kinds of snakes here, only (only?) 9 of which are venomous, though, the book continues, you are unlikely to see any snakes at all. I’m not sure where the writer to this guide was hanging out, but it was certainly not in the southern-most part of the country where I pass my days.  Two days in a row now I have come within 2 feet of stepping on a deadly snake. Before you have a heart attack, I’ll admit that both times the snake was less than 2 feet long, baby snakes. The first one I came across was a coral snake, recognized by its broad black and red stripes, with thinner yellow strips and a yellow mark on it’s head. Ipod on, mentally preparing for a run, I was a little surprised when I noticed the small, colorful serpent making its way across the road, not far from my house. I trying to kill it, but then I thought, who am I to put an end to the life of another creature. So I kept my distance and continued on with my run.

At this point I should emphasize that in Maya culture it is considered bad luck to see a snake and then not kill it. The people in my village would tell me that now the snake would come looking for me, and I should have just killed it. Despite being averse to silly superstitions, I generally take village lore semi-seriously, and continued to think about that coral snake, hoping that it would recognize that I spared its life and in turn spare me mine. The next day I again set out for an evening jog. Just as I arrived at the exact spot where I had met the coral snake I again saw a small slithering form crossing the road. This time it was not the non-aggressive coral snake, but was instead a very deadly Fer-de-Lance. I will now defer to World Book Encyclopedia for a description:

Fer-de-lance, pronounced fair duh LAHNS, is one of the largest and deadliest of the poisonous snakes. It lives in tropical America, and on some islands in the Caribbean. It has velvety scales, marks of rich brown and gray, and a yellowish throat. The fer-de-lance lives in both wet and dry places, in forests as well as open country. Young snakes eat lizards and frogs, and adults feed on birds and small mammals. There may be more than 70 young in one brood. The baby snakes have fully formed fangs and can give a poisonous bite. A fer-de-lance strikes swiftly. The snake may grow to 8 feet (2.4 meters) in length. Its name is French and means lance blade.

No doubt by now some of my snake-phobic readers are getting a little woosy, but the story didn’t end there. At this point I figured that seeing two deadly snakes in the same spot, at the same time of day was not a good sign.  I decided to ere on the side of the Maya and kill the snake. Unfortunately I don’t generally take my machete with me on my runs, so I chose as my weapon a fist-sized rock.  Standing above the Fer-de-Lance, but not close enough for it to reach me, I hurled the rock down with some force. I hit the snake in the middle of its back, injuring but not killing it. I am not a cruel person, so I couldn’t allow it to lay there dying.  I chose another rock with the aim of crushing its head. Still not wanting to get close, it took a couple of tries before a rock hit the target and the coiled snake ceased moving. I felt a little bad, but as I made my way down the road I comforted myself with the thought that if someone in the village had fallen victim to a snakebite, I would have felt worse.

Christmas Shopping

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.