My recommendation is to go directly to Caye Caulker and skip Belize City. Although, for me, it was an important stop and I had to be there. But, if you don't, skip it and get a flight to this Caye, pronounced Key Cocker. There are no cars, just golf carts and no pavement, just sand. It's about two miles long and really narrow. We are surrounded by water which is great when it's not hurricane season. Today I pet nurse sharks and rays. They were very gentle. This doesn't seem like a shark, more like a big catfish, very gentle. The rays are also gentle and don't mind anyone.
My best experience in the water so far is when a school of fish encircled me, looked at me, and seemed happy to see me. I think these were snappers and another fish people eat. The difference between this and my Hawaiian experience is that I swam with fish that one would see on their dinner plate. That seems really weird to swim with what you might later eat. I don't know what to make of that. Someone said, "well, that is life." I let it go at that. There was a cat in the restaurant looking to find a scrap to eat. That's easy, it's really like eating outside except they put up a thin plywood wall and call it a restaurant. The floor is the same on the outside, sand. There was a crab that would come out to look for food from the hole at the bottom of the tree that was also inside of the restaurant. We all get linked together by this need to eat and find ourselves in the same place. Cat, crab, human.
I saw a couple of restaurants on the sand, at the shore, who use swings instead of chairs. You sit on wooden swings whether at a table or the bar. You eat and swing. It must be good for the digestion because you get to move your circulation as you eat. Plus it is easy to clean the floor because they hang from the ceiling. Great idea.
I ran out of places to snorkel here so moving on to another island tomorrow, if all goes as planned. I've met some Belize locals that I realize are just like anyone and everyone else. Little things might be different, like some speaking Creole which is like a slang English that shortens everything and slurs them all together. However, people all over the world have similar needs, similar stories, and similar desires. Perhaps it is different for those that live communally, like native people who live with the earth or like the people on the farm that I volunteered at near San Diego. Since they shared everything they were really different. They didn't have the same stories or needs, they helped each other and lived together. Perhaps only those that live in shared ways are the only ones really different than the Westernized cultures who all fend for themselves and run after money. But, then again, I am in a touristy place at the moment - an island full of touristy things to do and the next island has even more of that. But, so it goes when you want to go snorkeling or diving or boating, or jet skiing, it is always for tourists. The tourists are meant to seek Fun and the locals are meant to make money off of the tourists seeking fun. The "Cake Lady" said she was also having Fun though. She had baked cakes for her little push cart on the island for 30 years. A whole life on a small island with no cars decorating cakes.
Later this evening I will go to listen to live music and hopefully see a traditional Belize dance called the punta. The Belizean men I met were too shy to show me, but said to look on youtube - and they call this a third world country. It sounds like a dance to create buns of steel.
I feel like I have the ocean in my head. I am hearing it from the water I see just down stairs and I am feeling it since I spent most of today swaying gently back and forth like a fish. Maybe this is the cure for insomnia.
Poem for today:
Water is for Lovers
I watched a couple today
They were allowing their affection to flow
as they held each other in the water
they allowed the moment to be in the moment
as they were floating, defying gravity
which rhymed with their flowing emotions
And as I shared the same water with them that also held me
I was able to feel their sentiments that were carried on the small waves.
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