Friday, April 25, 2008

cpr and sea horses

Ummm.... so I am like a rescue diver now. Which I think is freaking cool. I spent the last three days hanging out in the water on the bay island Utila in Honduras. This all happened because I keep getting these crazy ideas in my head that I might get my ass back to Koh Tao and spend some months becoming a dive master, or I am just a glutton for waterborne punishment. Honestly it could be either.

The course includes a lot of being shoved under water by a DMT, practicing rescue breaths, and very very very little actual diving. That being said the time I did get to spend swimming with the fishies was pretty awesome stuff. Saw some cool sand eels that look like sea grass until you get up close and see their little eyes, at which point they retreat back into their holes. Saw a very mossy looking sea horse, which was exciting, except that in my head sea horses are brightly colored and shiny and if you are really lucky might even wink at you. I really thought the one I saw was dead, but I guess they just dig on being covered in algae and are slow slow moving.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

ciao mèxico, belize briefly, hola guate


The last days have flown by, I feel like I was just diving in cenotes in Mèxico, and now I am all the way in Guatemala again. The last week has been all about water, snorkeling, diving, canoeing. I`ve been loving it.
Things are going to have to be a random mix of stories and run on sentences... deal with it...
random free diving, chasing parrot fish who did not seem pleased, laughing when they pooped (they poop sand, really!), racing on to the boat from cozumel in my bathing suit and not caring, though i did freeze to death in the air con (air con on a boat, why???)
cenote diving at dos ojos, silvery fish, fossils, haunting blue light, halocline induced blindness, bats, scaring snorkelers, and being complimented on my efficient breathing.
my final ado bus ride, playa to chetumal, rolling into belize full on, hot, dusty, sweaty, throwing the crew on to the water taxi and getting to Caye Caulker in time for the cake man.
snorkeling adventure in hol chan, sharks, rays, turtles that bite ankles, playing in scuba bubbles, scaring scuba divers, diving through a cave, coconut ice cream, loosing my sarong (booo!!!) and being late for the second time that day.
big evening rally at Rasta Pasta, one barrel shots for the crew, laughing too hard to take a shot, hiding below a belizian house with malcolm in a failed attempt to scare everyone on the way to ocean side, causing a dancing ruckus with kilt clad ali, telling my life story to an englishman, and falling asleep to ocean breezes.
midday roll to san ignacio, with a full on nap to belmopan (i think my pax were impressed by my sleeping skills), late afternoon arrival to the jungle. hanna´s burrito quesadillas (i don`t criticize what they name the food, it`s that good) and a failed attempt at playing scrabble.
canoeing on the makal with feliz, swimming in the falls, considering a new career in canoeing.
ok, enough already, i am sure none of it makes sense anyways. pace.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

gringolandia

Wow. It has been a couple of hard to describe days. I had my first visit to Cancun, and been bumming around Playa del Carmen. I have a whole new respect for the restraint of Playa after seeing the total blow out of Cancun. The experience was really topped off by my interactions with four very drunk eighteen and nineteen year olds who were screaming about 3.2 and how the States is the best country in the world to live.
I have been struck by what a blessing and a curse being from the United States is. My country affords me huge opportunities but it is also wrought with terrible stereotypes and ugly foreign policies. I read a fascinating book, ¨Mountains Beyond Mountains,¨which discusses the guilt of privilege, something that I wonder if everyone is conscious of experiencing. It is far easier, way too easy really, in the States to ignore the state of the rest of the world. Tourism creates an almost impenetrable insulation, so that even when the vast majority of my countrymen take the step of leaving the country we still feel at home. I am guilty of it too, I was in heaven at the Playa outpost of American Apparel. But where is this globalization of brands and economy leading? Is the goal to transport all the comforts of home to every outpost in the world? How long until there is a Starbucks in Antartica?
I travel to experience the differences. I do get homesick and want the comforts of the familiar. And many of the things that I love most are fruits of the fusion of different cultures. But I also respect and adore the traditions, the foreigness of things. The way markets smell differs from Thailand to Vietnam to Guatemala. I don`t want everything sterilized and uniform. But sometimes that feels like the world is heading, the ipodization of the world.
Good thing just off the Quinta you can still get a 5 peso chorizo taco at Billy the Kid, that`s the shit that keeps you sane out here.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

cenotes win.




water, cave, bats, climbing huge roots to jump into the water at increasingly higher heights, random horse drawn ¨truck¨rides, lunch with the ladies, important discussions of america´s next top model, lime soup, mexican cold chocolate, chocolate elotes, swimming.

today was good.