Memories

Ok, so the first one that comes to mind is the amount of Marijuana in Belize... where it is supposed to be illegal, but I honeslty thought the guide book must have been wrong or out of date because of it's prevalence. Once, while walking back to our guesthouse, we were offered an entire handful.. no joke people.. an entire handful of weed...! Every coner you are asked if you wanted some.. or any locals you talk to in Belize. Another eye opener for us was when we were walking back to our guesthouse in Belize City from the bus station along with two other travellers, one from New Zealand, the other from Croatia, and we all saw an ice cream parlor. After a long hot day of seeing ruins and on a small river boat, we all thought it best that we treat our selves with a bowl of ice cream. We approached the ice cream parlor with thoughts of suger, but to one side stood a guard with a shotgun leveled at our chests... hmmm, now one mught think this is a tad overkill... and to anyone who agrees with this estimation I wholeheartedly agree! This is place where children come to have a cold treat in the sometimes unbearable and opressive heat. The children hear must be some kind of super crook, because otherwise I can't possibly fathom why a shotgun toteing guard would be posted at a freaking ICE CREAM PARLOR! I covered the most interesting part of our journey from Santa Elena to Guatemala City in my reflections entry, but in San Pedro there were some more subtle memeories that surely were missing from any blogs. The best story comes from a Hippy by the name of John, who I don't think ever stopped smoking up. There were times whe I would wake up to the smell of Marijuana...and we had to be up, eating and ready to go to spanish lessons for 9:00, which meant all this was happening around 7:30 - 8:00. One night while we were cleaning up after ourselves, John came back to the Hippy compound most certainly with a deap down case of the munchies. He had a large can of refried bean paste... and that was it. Who would have know that so much enjoyment could have percipitated form one can of beans. He was eating the beans right out of the can with a spoon and he said to us, "Looks like cat food...(takes a spoonfull and sniffs)... smells like cat food... (eats the spoonful)... tastes like cat food. But its BEANS!" Ever since we have been quoting him and have a good laugh over his antics. On one of the buses to the El Salvadorian I (and I want no one to think that I'm vain, I'm only telling this story because I found it to be quite rediculous) was..shall we say flirted with. The bus was absolutely jamed full of people.. easitly three and sometimes four to a single school buss seat. (You thought your 45 minute bus ride with maybe two to a seat was busy, try all seats with at least three, some with four and the entire isle full of peopel standing.) As we boarded the bus we were all ready to stand and give the available seats to the old ladies and kids, because we are all upstanding gentlemen. I was looking at the people around me and my eyes fell upon a girl that was about our age, who then proceeded to wink at me with a rather large grin on her face.. and patted the small space she had made for me to sit. (I say small because her mother was a rather large lady, and with two other people it made for very tight spaces) I sat down with her eyes continuing to watch me and thought, oh good.. I can barely say hello, let alone have a conversation. It was very awkward, because I wanted to say hello and talk but I knew if I started saying anything she would talk too fast for me to understand and then I would look really stupid. Not to mention everytime I tried to look out the window she thought I was looking it at her and smiled. I'm sure she thought I was a mute until she asked where we were going... whcih I understood! Horay for spanish lessons. I looked up the word for hot, because it was rediculous in the bus with well over 80 people on it an the temperature outside climbing to well over 30, and used the wrong one, because they have so many different words for hot in spanish and we got laughed at. As the bus ride continued it because less and less ful and I was able to escape the continuous gaze and find my own seat. We got our first real experience being a minority after we attempted to cross the Guatemalan-Slavadorian boarder, where we had been told there would be a ATM, but there wasn't. We had to turn back and head for the nearest town with an ATM. We only had enough money because I still randomly had 2 USD left over from Belize. I switched over the cash into Quetzales, and paid for our bus ride to the closest town, with 5 Quetzales to spare. Just to give you some sense of that 7-8 is one USD. It was a little close for comfort, but we made it to this crazy town called Chiquimulilla. (Yeah go ahead.. try saying that!) We were tired from a long day of travel, hungry, and all around in less than perfect moods sinc we were stuck in this very crappy town, in a scary hotel. Walking through the streets of the town we were stared at as if we were aliens, silence flowed in our wake, as people turned their undivided attention to our presence. Then some rowdy teenagers threw (I'm only making assumptions here, since my spanish is terrible) some insults at us from their car, which I'm sure would have been hurtful and demeaning if I knew what they were saying. The next morning was very busy around the banks (don't ask me why) and we had to walk through the crowd of people, who parted for us as if we were the Royal Family. You gain an appriciation for how minorities back home must feel, although I like to think that Canadians are a little more tactful. And with that I'll end the first of the Memories Blogs, there are more on the way for sure.

Enjoy and laugh as we have,

Happy trails,

Ryan.

Miss you all.