Belize: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Do I have the story for you!!

To see trip photos click this link and it will take you to the album of the trip! Must faster than loading them on here! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2496561&id=7715716&l=6a8e9fba14

So, before we start down the very bumpy and complicated road that was our trip to Belize, let me give a quick disclaimer – although there were lots of problems and situations, God is Good! We got out of so many sticky situations that would not have been possible without God’s help! So, praise be to God for the many times he saved us this weekend, and for getting us all home safe and pretty much in one piece!

In case your attention is already being lost, here are a few things I will talk about in this email: run in with the cops, a crack addict, getting lost, brothel, run in with the cops, getting lost, run in with the military, Taiwanese hotel, delicious Belizean BBQ, monkey attack, canoeing disaster, high tour guide, stealing, border delay, tire troubles…

So we set off, nearly 2 hours late, but still giddy with anticipation for a wonderful trip to Belize with wonderful friends! First Kristi, then Monica, Angelica, Kari, Nicole, Asher, Tim and Jeff all pile in an 8-seater mini van and we are off! Well, off like a herd of turtles, after stopping at the ATM, gassing up, and grabbing a bite at BK, we hit the road for our 8hr journey to San Ignacio Belize.

Before we even left the outer-belt in Merida, we had our first of many “incidents”. Jeff turned on a short 1-way to get to his exit for the highway were wanted to get on. Of course, there were cops sitting right there to catch this common mistake and boom, its starts.

We are there for 20 mins waiting and praying as Jeff uses his much improved, but still broken Spanish to talk to the cops. He does deserve at ticket, but tells his story of being a poor missionary truly not meaning to break the law and please oh please could they show us mercy (this was the first of many times we used this same story to get out of legal troubles). With 7 people in the car praying, Jeff is let off with a warning, and we are on our way! Thank you Lord!

We make it to the Belize border with nothing noteworthy: a pleasant trip with good music, good conversation, and great friends, and a precious sleeping baby Asher.

We cross the border that says welcome to Belize, but see nothing, no guards, no place to get our passports stamped, just a big casino. We ask a kind Belizean man for clarification and he tells us, we just drive a few more kilometers to the official entrance, get checked, buy insurance, and get our car sprayed to decontaminate.

We reach the official border in seconds and unload our stuff and go inside to get our stamps. Let me just say, the border crossing is NOT a great welcome to the beautiful country of Belize. Not only did it wreck of dead animal, but the workers were severely unpleasant and rude. But, we make it through and were off!

About 5 mins down the road we start murmuring amongst ourselves that we never saw the place to get the insurance or our car sprayed, but we figured, not so wisely, if it wasn’t obvious and forced, it must not be that important.

About this time, the sun is completely down and it is night. We continue on towards the West-central city of San Ignacio, on the northern edge of the Belizean mountain range and jungle. We have directions and a map, but just want to make sure we are going the way we should, seeing as our directions say take “North Highway” but the road we are on certainly doesn’t seem like a highway, much more like a country road. We stop in a sketchy town to ask for directions, mind you, at this point it is nearing 11pm. We see a man walking on in the otherwise quiet and think “score a local to ask directions from!” The thin, tall, and very cracked-out black man rushes towards us and starts talking jibber-jab, of which all we can understand are various cuss words (remember in Belize they speak English). We quickly drive away and nearly knock him over in our attempt to get away from this scary town.

We decide we are on the right road and continue. We continued until the road because so bumpy and we couldn’t drive above 30mph and concluded this could NOT be the right road. We back-track for about 30 mins until we found a pretty decent hotel to ask for direction. It is here that we encounter the first pleasant Belizean on our journey. The security guard gave us clear simple directions and we were on our way.

We followed his directions but after about 30 mins we realized that this again could NOT be right. There were no signs, no lights, on only sugar-cane as far as the eye could see. We decide to look for someone to ask directions for, even though it was around 2am. We say a little 2 story house with the lights on and the door open, there is a big black lady inside milling about. I go in with Tim and Jeff to ask for directions as we marvel how lucky we are to find someone up and sober at what was around at this late hour. As I am talking to this Belizean who only speaks Creole or Spanish, I notice that the only decorations in this empty room besides the loan check -out counter are about 10 nudie calendars. It didn’t take long to realize we were standing in the entry to a brothel. We bolted and continued down the road, still lost and confused.

We continued back-tracking until we make it back to the initial hotel. We talk to the security guard and tell him we got so lost following his directions. His response was this (read in a Jamaican accent): “Ya man, I kno you were gonna get lost. I forgottta tell ya man that about tree jears ago the sign for the highway it fell doawn man and no on put it up man. I am so sorry man.” He proceeded to give us the correct directions. By this time it is past 2am and we are debating whether to continue or stay at this hotel. We decide to stay only to find out the hotel only accepts US or Belize dollars and we only have Peso. We try to make a deal that we will pay with credit card in the morning, or leave a license and go to the ATM in the morning. No such luck, so we are forced to continue.

We finally continue on the RIGHT road and make it an hour before our next problem arrives. We get stopped at the police check point and are asked why we don’t have insurance. Jeff explains our story once again and begs his way out of a ticket. This process takes 20 mins.

We continue another hour or so and get to a military check point. This is much scarier. There are 4 men, all in different UN-uniformed outfits with beanies and guns. Initially we weren’t 100% convinced this was legit. We get the same story about no insurance= big problems. They decide we will be taken to the police station and Jeff held until Monday when he could have a trial. The 7 of us are praying the whole time that God will help change their hearts and let us find a way out of this situation. Finally, after being for mercy, we are let go on the condition that we stop at the first hotel we see and don’t drive again until after we buy insurance at 8am in the small town we will stay in. This process of getting out of the military check point took 1 hour from 3 to 4am.

We arrive at the first hotel, which praise the Lord was not sketchy. In fact it was quite pleasant and nice. The hotel was run by Taiwanese, which later we found out the Taiwanese own 75% of all Belizean businesses and are the biggest minority. Again they only accept US or Belizean dollars. We explain our situation and the manager graciously lets us pay in pesos. We are thanked by the workers repeatedly with bows and “tank ooo”. We finally hit the pillow at 4:45am and are back up and 7am for breakfast before the men set out for insurance.

Jeff and Tim head out to quickly get insurance from the local insurance company that the military told us about. 3 and a half hours later they come back with quite a story. Turns out they were looking for the insurance place and stopped at a gas station for directions. There a friendly Belizean with dreadlocked silver and black hair with a dreadlock coming from his beard and tied in his pony tail offered them a solution. He said “ya man, my friend is goin to Belize citi and you can go with him man. He’ll take ya to Belize city man.” So Jeff and Tim jump into the car of a complete stranger and drive 30 mins to Belize City. They hear the man’s life story and talk about his wife dying of lung cancer. Tim and Jeff minister to the man sharing their own losses to cancer – Tim’s dad and Jeff’s sister. Through their 3 hours adventure they witness to the man and pray with him and he is so touched he is in tears. While in Belize city they get insurance, make 4 stops for the man’s errands and then get a private tour of the city.

Meanwhile the girls are trapped at the hotel wondering what has become of our men. Are they in jail? Lost? What is going on? We make the most of our time and do a couple bible studies, pray together and chat.

The boys return at 11:30am and we are on our way. We arrive to our destination in San Ignacio, Belize at 2:30pm, almost a whole day later than scheduled.

We check into our nice, clean and friendly hotel and sigh a big sigh of relief, that we’d actually made it!

We went to dinner and had the best BBQ and huge tortillas ever. Sadly this restaurant was the highlight of the trip, just eating and chatting and relaxing. But our server man, was very cranky man.

We decided to explore the town. This turned out to mean we got yelled at in Creole by random men, cat-called by others, flicked off, cussed at, and just generally felt nervous, uncomfortable and scared. We stopped at the only ice cream place in town. Which was one open room ½ of which was a bakery/ice cream parlor, the other ½ a butcher shop, complete with pictures of each cut of meat and where on the animal it comes from. As we were sitting enjoying our below-par desserts, I look up and say “we are on Burns Avenue!!!”. I go on to explain that in the travel book under “Warnings and Precautions” the only warning given was to NOT spend time on Burns Ave due to crime.

The sun started to set and we all decided we were scared and wanted to get back to the hotel before dark. We got back, played with the baby, and relaxed.

First thing in the morning we had a delicious breakfast at the hotel and loaded in to Juan Chuc’s 15 passenger van. Our tour guide was awesome! He told us all the history and data about Belize, including the fact that it has the smallest capital city of a country in the whole world, with less than 3,000 inhabitants. The whole country of Belize has a population of about 300,000.

We arrive to Barton Creek Cave. It has a cute little set up in the valley between beautiful very Jungely mountains! Yes we though to ourselves, this is going to be an awesome, relaxing canoeing adventure! It will be the turning point to make this otherwise disastrous vacation take a turn for the better! So wrong we were!

But before I get to the why of that statement, let me tell the whole story. The guide tells us he has to get the boats ready so while we wait we can play with the monkey, Mango. He is a cute little spider monkey. Kristi walks up, holds out her hands as if he were a toddler and Mango climbs right her for a snuggle! I try the same and Mango wraps his little arms, legs and tail around me! Tim then tries the same, but gets a very different reaction! Mango immediately starts nibbling on Tim’s ankles. Tim starts half yelling and half laughing “Get it off me!!” He escapes with no injuries!! Later, Angelica tries to hold him. Mango happily climbs into her arms but immediately grabs both of her silver earrings in his hands! With Angelica yelling I try and pry the monkey hand off one. He then has one hand on an earring the other on her necklace. I pry the other hand off, and now he has both on her necklace, rips it off and runs away.

There are now 3 adults chasing a monkey while Tim films the whole thing. We finally get the necklace back. Mango’s freak outs haven’t stopped yet. Kristi thinking she was still on Mango’s good-side held him again. This time he grabbed her hair and started biting her hair – Angelica came to her aid, but Mango turned on her and pulled her hair as well. Tim ran up and poked the monkey’s stomach to get him off. This just caused the monkey to alternate between pulling Angelica’s hair and trying to bite Tim’s hand! We all escaped from the monkey and it is time to canoe.

While all this monkey-business is happening, we smell a strange but familiar smell. Turns out Juan, the tour-guide is loosening up with a little weed before our adventure begins.

He calls us down to the river and instructs me and Tim to get in the first canoe: “you man, are gonna steer. He is your paddle man. You hold the light, man. Be careful man because the light gets really hot man and you gonna burn your fingers man. To make the light go on man, just attach the cable to the car battery man. Don’t get it wet man.” Seriously?? The flashlight is attached by jumper cables to a car batter?? In a boat? In the water? Wow.

Kristi and Nicole get in the next boat which is leaking. When they bring this to Juan’s attention he says “ya man, we call this one the Titanic man. But don’t worry man, most people come back before it sinks man. If you got some gum you can just stick it in the hole man, no worries.”

We start on our journey which takes us into a cave about 12 feet wide and over 200 feet tall which crystal clear calm water running through it! It is stunning! He explains the formations, stalactites and stalagmites that we are seeing. The trip is supposed to take 1 and a half hours, but 30 mins into it Monica starts to get claustrophobic and feels like she can’t breathe. We all understand and immediately paddle back out quickly. Because we had paid so much for the trip, some of us wanted to go back in, but others thought it was rude to Monica. We had a tiny bit of conflict, but decided to just stay and swim instead of going back in. Everyone was happy with the decision. We dipped our hands into the water and realized it was freezing!! However, because this trip had been such a disaster since day one, Tim, Kristi and I decided we HAD to make this fun and make it worth it – so we decided to swim even though it was cold! But, then no one was getting in, so me, trying to make the most of the trip and turn the mood positive decide to be the first to make the plunge into the icy waters.

I get on the rope swing and swing out to jump into the river below. When I am at the farthest point in my swing I realize that I am not out far enough to clear the canoes in the water about 8 feet below. So, naturally I hold on and go back. BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I smash with all my weight and all the momentum of the pendulum into a concrete wall.

Immediately my leg and foot go completely numb and I throw up twice from the pain I am in. For literally 10 mins I didn’t move and told no one to touch me. Finally I managed to muster up the strength to climb up the hill and clean off my very surface cut. The next hour in the car ride home on bumpy, windy, gravel mountain roads was a trail. Every time we hit a bump I couldn’t help but let the tears slide down my checks from the pain. I knew it was more than a little bruise.

On the ride home our high tour guide stopped in an orange grove and stole a bag of oranges. When he got out he told us “If you see a guy with the gun coming yell at me man so I run back to the car man.”

We get back home, take showers and go to the same restaurant for a long dinner watching the super bowl and relaxing. We have an evening in at the hotel and hit the bed.

I wake up in the night and literally fall when I put pressure on my leg. It is amazing how much worse it got in the 3 hours I was asleep. The rest of the night I woke up about 30 times because of pain in my leg.

We left early Monday morning for a relatively smooth ride home. Every stop was a trial for me and my leg, but we finally make it to the Mexican-Belizean border where the troubles hit again.

We are at the border in the 110 heat sitting in the car waiting for Jeff and Angelica for 2 hours. 2 hours! Turns out they were literally being yelled at for the majority of that time. Nicole had overstayed her visa in Mexico and not gotten the necessary stamp before leaving the country, and Angelica being a Colombian needed to get an exit stamp before leaving Mexico in order ot be able to return. They told Jeff to pay a $200 dollar fine and Angelica would be deported back to Belize. Finally after prayer and 2 hours of arguing the supervisor let them free literally yelling for them to just go and don’t make those mistakes again.

Finally we are off!

We stop for a lunch at a nice Laguna, though we are too tired and ready to be home to appreciate its beauty.

We are a couple hours from home when we stop for gas. PRAISE THE LORD we were stopped for gas when the little thingy on the tire where you fill it will more air SHOT out of the tire and the tire started to deflate. We asked the attendant what to do and the car on the other side overhears and tells us friend or cousin or uncle or someone has a shop that can fix it – and that we just need to follow him. So we do. About 5 mins later we pull up to a crappy little house with a few tires and tools in the front. Praise the Lord again, that the tire is fixed in about 15 mins and only costs $3.50 us dollars!

We make it home to Merida at 10:15pm and hit the sack.

What a trip!

It is not completely over for me. I went to the dr and from his clinical exam he determined I have a torn meniscus which may or may not heal itself or require surgery. We are praying for God’s direction to know when I should get the MRI here and how to go about getting home to the US for the surgery if it is necessary. So for me, crutches, taking it easy, and anti-inflammatory are drs orders until I get the MRI and have a more certain diagnosis and specific knowledge about the extent of damage. Please pray for wisdom and clarity in decision-making.

Praise the Lord! This trip was a trial much more than a vacation. But it was so incredible to see God’s hand helping us in COUNTLESS situations. He changed the hearts of so many police and military people to let us through despite our illegal deeds. He gave us safe travels. And with my knee, if it had been 1 inch higher where I hit I certainly would have shattered my knee cap, or if I would have fallen in the canoe below much more could happened. Praise God that baby Asher was an angel in the car sleeping and cooing happily! God allowed us to keep positive attitudes and have no arguments or divisions within our group. We had lots time to pray, do bible studies together and worship God for his goodness. Through all the trials we know God is trying to refine us, strengthen our faith, and make us even more aware of our need for Him and His constant help and presence.

God is Good. All the time!