Austin

We arrived in Austin just in time for Austin’s rush hour traffic, but eventually we reached our destination and were greeted by our dear friend Jerdon Jordaneous Jordanianson AKA cheeetah who was doing well in the desert. That night we met his girlfriend Melissa and their friend Molly. Later Jordan, Melissa and Alan biked up Barton Hill to watch the meteor shower that was going on. At the top with the Austin skyline in the distance the three laid out on a cement table and were witness to the best show any of them could have expected…meteors of every kind, fast ones, slow moving ones, some far away, some incredibly close ones with red burning balls of fire with long glittering sparkling tails spanning halfway across your visual field. Sound like a good meteor shower? because it was a good one. Jordan lives in the apartment building he manages on a great stretch of Guadalupe St. close to the sweet-ass food co-op Wheatsville, where Molly works. Everything is right close to Jordan's--just down the street is Amy's Ice Creams. It’s nice to know Amy’s is a chain because that means there are more of these shining beacons of ice cream excellence out there for the world to love. Alan had to choose between many different coffee and beer/liquor mixture flavors and then combined that with apple pie flavor and you could say he was dancing on a spoon in the high gardens of ice cream paradise. During our three day stay we visited Barton Springs, a natural spring-fed public pool, once at night and once during the day. It's as if you’re at a public swimming pool with a diving board and everything, except it’s bigger and less linear, with fish. A few nights earlier in Princton or Floyd, Alan had dreamt of jumping off a diving board really really high and doing a flip in the air, so in the name of synchronicity he did a back-flip off the Barton Spring's diving board for the first time in his life, and got it on the second try after an awkward back-flop in front of a large crowd of spectators. We also had a night of art-making with the five of us at Jordan’s. Jordan painted a giant acrylic-on-canvass purple and gold cactus for Alyssa, while Alyssa painted a colorful tribute to her spirit animal. We also found ourselves in Veggie Heaven, which Google calls "Vegan-friendly, Chinese, Buddhist, Take-out Vegetarian Chinese restaurant." Another adventure was biking to the mind-blowingly enormous and all-encompassing rock/lapidary shop Nature’s Treasures where Alyssa bought a beautiful amber and garnet necklace. Alan, not wanting to leave the giant crystal palace empty handed, bought some 2012 crystals (sold by David Geiger Minerals! how crazy is that? just noticed that now.) The guy at the rock store gave us each a smoky moonstone meant for travelers. Afterwords we met up with Jordan and Melissa at Casa de Luz, a yummy macrobioic restaurant/Center for Integral Studies. We got to spend a good amount of time with Jordan, who we hadn't seen in a while. Austin is a beautiful city with a young, modern feel, creative and progessive food options, a killer music scene, pretty bike friendly, and everyone we met we liked. On our way out we stopped by Wheatsville and Molly totally hooked us up for the ride, cause she rocks like that. I’m talking about with food of course...

New Orleans

The drive to New Orleans was wild, with amazing cloud formations and torrential T-storms. At one point lighting cracked only a few hundred yards from our truck, the closest we’ve ever seen it strike. As we drove closer to the city we saw a lot of damaged roofs and residual Katrina damage. We got to Claire’s apartment and met her boyfriend Chris. Claire had just gotten a job teaching elementary students at the International School of Louisiana, providing French immersion instruction under the guidance of a native speaking French lead teacher. Chris does carpentry and volunteer work doing building and restoration projects for Katrina victims. That night we went into the city for some good New Orleans gumbo, delicious. After dinner we walked along the river and saw some of the French Quarter by night. The next day while Claire and Chris were at work Alan and Alyssa took the trolley back to the French Quarter. For breakfast we went to Café du Monde and got beignets with powdered sugar and chicory coffee, which is pretty much all that they serve there. The day was oppressively humid with intermittent thunderstorms, but we managed to stay dry and explored the French Market, a few antique stores, and went into pretty much every art gallery on Royal Street (there are a lot of them!) That night we went out to see some live jazz at Preservation Hall. You’re allowed to drink alcohol on the street as long as it’s in a plastic container, and we drank our cocktails while we waited in line for the show. Alyssa got a potent mint julep and Alan was jealous. The band was great, a tight ensemble and each member a great soloist, too. Claire requested Tennessee Waltz and they played it. Later Claire drove us around more of the city and explained how different parts of town have been dealing with the recovery and aftermath since Katrina. She also talked about the New Orleans tradition of the jazz funeral. When someone dies, after the funeral procession, a so-called “second line” will form out of the mourners and other community members to honor the deceased with a celebratory procession through the streets of spirited dance and music. The passing on of a person’s soul to a better place is seen as something that should be celebrated, and rightly so. It’s a beautiful tradition quite ingrained in the culture and reflected in the art. The next day we went out exploring on our bikes so we could cover a lot more ground and not feel so oppressed by the humidity. Right when we got out there, we saw a wall of rain that was slowly coming our way, and had to take cover and postpone the start of our exploring a bit. When it cleared up we went down Magazine St. taking pictures, hitting up an amazing bead shop, ate lunch at Surrey’s where Alan tried wheatgrass for the first time. Apparently before Katrina this wouldn't have happened--Alan trying wheatgrass...but as a city regenerates change happens faster than normal, and wheatgrass comes to New Orleans. After lunch we spent a long time in a great locally run art gallery called Berta's and Mina's Antiquities that in our opinion surpassed any of the ones on Royal Street. Alan fell in love with a painting by a local New Orleans artist named Adelma Rasch. The piece, titled The Far, Far East, was painted in the 70s, and Alan actually bought it, one of his biggest splurges to date. He never thought he’d spend that kind of money on a piece of artwork, and it's very rare that a piece will strike him so...anyway he knew that this could be the one painting he ever buys and would be happy so he bought it and is happy. He's also done some research on the artist since and has turned up some cool stuff, and hopefully this does not lead to further purchases. Later we biked past the oldest church in Nola, then through Louis Armstrong park, then took refuge in a coffee shop as another powerful thunderstorm came through. That night Claire and Chris cooked us a big hearty dinner, and then we went out to get drinks at a fancy hotel venue. Alan got a Sazerac, one of the oldest known cocktails which originated in pre-Civil War New Orleans. Overall, the more time we spent in New Orleans the more we loved it...beautiful wrought iron grating, Mardi Gras beads hanging from the majestic live oak trees which line the streets, scurrying lizards, insane T-storms, delicious food, and the friendly, relaxed atmosphere. On the drive to Austin the next morning Alan Poe’d some floetry reflecting on his impressions of the city:

New Orleans rhyme

New oilins on my face
oh this humid place
plain for me to see
why it takes a slower pace
no rat race here, but lots of fat kats and beer
greasy gumbo collars ‘long side old time bourbon scholars
big dishes, cat and craw fishes
catchin’ some big mouth brass with long belts and sass.

French quarter for a bus back through humbled lands of crumbled crust and lightening dust and tumbled rumbling sazerac lust.

Gusts of hope in the winds of cope, a lazy river lopes through time in its own second line.

Birmingham, AL

We got to Birmingham, Alabama while it was still plenty light out and were greeted by Alex, Laura, Suzanne, Greg, their black cat and two little chihuahuas. Greg popped open a bottle of champagne and we had a toast. Suzanne cooked up the most unique and tasty of dishes, involving but not limited to fish, shellfish, figs, potatoes, and red onions. The two major subjects of conversation at dinner were developmental disorders and aliens. Later we watched a History Channel special on the evidence for alien involvement in early civilization. After that Alan and Greg stayed up late chatting about explorations of consciousness. The next morning after a traditional Tovar breakfast of eggs in the hole, Greg, Alex, and Alan went bass and brim fishing. It was already approaching 11 when they finally got out there, and the fish weren’t biting under the hot Birmingham sun. After calling it quits, Alan actually caught two bluegill while trolling a beetle spinner as we were bringing the boat back to dock. Back at the house after a quick shower Greg gave Alan some of his funky old ties and we were off, headed for New Orleans, Louisiana.

Floyd, VA

We got to Floyd just at dusk and were welcomed with the openest of arms. I can’t say enough good about Frank and Sally…great people and a great couple. When Alan got out of the truck and looked around standing on their driveway he got the strongest feeling of deja vu he’s ever experienced. He took it as a good sign and moved on. Frank whipped us up some really good pasta with roasted veggies. His son and his son’s girlfriend were also staying over, and we all sat outside talking into the warm mosquito-free Virginia night. The next morning Alan gave their old loving diabetic cat Yoda one final head rub, we bade our farewells to Sally, and Frank drove us to their café, Café del Sol, in downtown Floyd. Floyd is one of the towns along “The Crooked Road,” Virginia’s heritage music trail, and many great acts and a lot of great bluegrass bands come through and play at their venue, The Sun Music Hall, which is in the same building as their café. Anyway, Frank hooked us up with free breakfast sandwiches, yum. Alan was overjoyed when the server agreed to put yerba mate through the espresso machine, giving him a large cup of the dankest mate which lasted him all day. Frank made Alyssa’s cappuccino, and tried unsuccessfully to do the heart-shaped foam thing. Alan bought some artwork they had for sale by a local visionary artist named Starroot. Then we said our goodbyes and drove through a stretch of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway on our way into the deep south.

Princeton and DC

Thursday brother Chris who came in from Schenectady drove us out to Boxford to help load the truck and see us off. We got to Peter and Kathleen’s around 11 at night. Kathleen made us tea and Alan had peppermint tea mmm and we talked for a while before bed. The next morning we had breakfast with Becket who quizzed Alan on his state capitols and showed us some of his iTouch apps. Kathleen was a great hostess as always, and it was great to see her and Becket, as well as Nico and Scout, the now wise old bearded Jack Russells still adorable as ever. We got to Grandma Debbie’s around noon and we had a great lunch with Grandma, Chris, Jamie, Pam, Ran and Stephen Hock, thanks to my godmother Pam for the luxurious lunch. Alan noticed that Grandma Debbie’s toilet bowl had been replaced because the drain was no longer shaped like a 6, which made Alyssa sad. It was great to be back in Grandma Debbie’s apartment and it was a lovely visit. 2:30 and we were back on the road headed for Floyd, Virginia, where Alan’s uncle Greg had arranged for us to stay with his friends Frank and Sally for the night. On our way, Greg had us driving through Manassas so we could see some civil war battlefields.

The Retreat

Next stop, Barre, MA for the 7 day retreat. The dharma center there is beautiful with gardens everywhere, well kept grounds, Buddha statues sprinkled with dana trinklets, trails through the woods, birds, spiderwebs, a beautiful meditation hall, wise loving teachers overflowing with the dharma, a warm cheerful staff, single and double rooms each with a sink and comfy bed, great walking rooms, an old bowling ally where the Dali Lama once bowled now also used for walking, a yoga and work-out room, loose leaf tea of every kind in the dining hall, and delicious and nutritious mindfully prepared vegetarian cuisine.

Excerpts from their website dharma.org:

Who are we?
Founded in 1975, the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is a 501 (c) (3) religious nonprofit organization.
On Valentines Day, 1976, a small group of young meditation teachers and dedicated staff opened a retreat center in an old but stately mansion in Barre, Massachusetts. Armed with minimal resources and less than ideal operational knowledge, yet passionate about the Buddha’s teachings, they set about creating an environment where the dharma could flourish and take root in the West. And so IMS began.
Over its 33-year history, IMS has become a spiritual home to thousands of practitioners, and is now regarded as one of the Western world’s most respected centers for learning and deepening meditation practice.
The organization operates two meditation retreat programs – the Retreat
Center and the Forest Refuge. Both facilities are set on some 200 secluded wooded acres in the quiet country of central Massachusetts.

What is insight meditation?
Insight meditation (vipassana in Pali, the language of the original Buddhist teachings) is the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. Through careful and sustained observation, we experience for ourselves the ever-changing flow of the mind/body process. This awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness that life inevitably brings. As insight deepens, we develop greater equanimity and peace in the face of change, and wisdom and compassion increasingly become the guiding principles of our lives.
The Buddha first taught insight meditation over 2,500 years ago. The various methods of this practice have been well preserved in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, and the retreats at IMS are all rooted in this ancient and well-mapped path to awakening.

What is lovingkindness meditation?
Metta is the Pali word for friendship or lovingkindness. It is taught as a meditation that cultivates our natural capacity for an open and loving heart. With its roots in practices said to be taught by the Buddha himself, metta is traditionally offered along with meditations that enrich compassion, joy in the happiness of others and equanimity. These practices lead to the development of concentration, fearlessness, happiness and a greater ability to love.

Two of the Guiding (senior) Teachers are Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, who — together with Jack Kornfield — established IMS over 33 years ago. Today, they are preeminent teachers and authors. Sharon Salzberg’s latest publications are 'The Force of Kindness', 'Unplug' and 'Faith'; she is also a contributing editor to 'O: The Oprah Magazine'. Joseph Goldstein is the author of 'One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism', 'A Heart Full of Peace' and 'Insight Meditation'.

During our retreat our teachers where Rebecca Bradshaw, Chas DiCapua, Anushka Fernandopulle, Amita Schmidt, and Tempel Smith.

The typical day was structured something like this: Wake up early by gong, sit for usually 45 minutes, oatmeal for breakfast with all the trimmings, yogi job (Alan’s job was to gather the trash and recycling from all the rooms and offices of the main building. Alyssa’s was to help prepare and serve breakfast), then meditation with instruction is given by Rebecca, then walking meditation, sit, walk, optional group meetings some days, lunch, yoga, sit, walk, metta (loving kindness) meditation led by different teachers each day, walk, light dinner with tea, sit, walk, dharma talk given by different teachers each night, walk, metta chant and sit, bed.

Alan’s experience:
Alan did a lot of laughing at idiotic thoughts, a lot of watching and accepting a mind that had grown jumpy and subject to a questionable soundtrack as of late. Accepting his monkey mind with amusement seemed to be the best remedy for it. Reconnecting with a relaxed center of being was extremely rewarding physically and mentally. Listening to his body and through his body he found that happiness is always there waiting underneath whatever mumbo jumbo be clouding up the headpeice. Acceptance is always step one.

Alyssa had a very rewarding retreat as well, despite becoming stricken with food poisoning and then breaking out in a rash from a poisonous plant that swelled up her whole face forcing her to go to the Barre clinic and get put onto prednisone. In a few words, here are some of Alyssa’s appreciated present moments:
Trees, suffering, metta, mosquitoes, suffering, feet, smile

At the Beehive

Soooo… After Belize it was on to the Geiger property AKA the Beehive in the White Mountains. We set up a tarp above our tent like pros. It rained both nights and our tent hardly even got wet. The days were sunny and warm, filled with squirt gun fights, playing with Haile and her new rabbit puppet, playing the dice game, and we played two family laddergolf two-on-two round-robin tournaments. Alan and Alyssa decided where the starting stretch of the ATV trail should go and got to work trail building, digging, pick-axing, moving rocks and leveling the earth. Dave flattened it out more on top with the ATV’s plow attachment, and the Double A Trail was complete. Then we kept working with the help of Brian and Michael on the next much rockier stretch of the trail. Some of the rocks were too big to budge, but after we had called it quits, Mike rode the ATV all the way up it anyway. It was lots of fun playing with Haile, so cute and sweet and full of laughter.

Caye Caulker

Days 13 and 14: A vacation from our vacation: 2 days at Caye Caulker off the coast of Belize, enjoying the island and snorkeling the second largest barrier reef in the world.

Pictures from Days 13 and 14

Last days in the jungle

Day 12: Our last day coming to the jungle we took it easy, doing a little here and there. The main thing we did was build a nursery for sprouting fruit trees. With Jorge's help we constructed a big table for our flower pots, and then built a roof with cohune palms to provide a bit of shade and protection from heavy rain storms. Before we left we signed the volunteer board.

That night was the much anticipated Benque town fair, which drew people in from all over Belize. We played a few of the carnival games, and Alan won Jam a rainbow caterpillar by popping a balloon, then Jam won a beany baby jaguar (one of his spirit animals) by catching a fish with a magnet. Cardu followed us around and stayed pretty close while enjoying the sights and smells. When we came across the caterpillar rollercoaster ride that we had been stuck behind on the drive back from Spanish Lookout, Cardu went nuts barking at it and chasing it around. I bet that scared the kids on board more than the ride itself. Later, right in front of the main ferris wheel, Jam took out his lighter fluid in the middle of a big crowd of people and started fire spinning. The average Benque resident is by now quite familiar with this white hippy Jesus-looking fire spinning jungle man, and it's clear his presence is much appreciated.

Pictures from Day 12


Day 11: Today at the jungle Alan, Simon and Jam headed off for the caves armed with rope and head-lamps. Alan pulled a big log out of the first one and climbed down. It was about 10 feet deep when you stood in it, and there was a hole going deeper that would need to be widened to fit through, but we didn't have short handled shovels so we couldn't dig. The next cave was right next to the upper milpa, and was by far the most interesting. Back in the day the Mayans used the caves for storage and ceremonies. This cave is much larger and you could actually walk inside a ways. You can see from the pictures the two little bats trying to ignore our flashy lights. What you can't see is the massive stalagmite of bat guano piled below them.

The last cave we went to had actually been uncovered by the road excavation just recently. We brought the rope with us because we knew we'd need it to pull some giant pieces of limestone out of the opening. We were pleased to discover the cave went down quite a ways into some larger chambers underneath the road. We suggested he find someone who could use sonar to locate and map all the caves on the property, as there is likely to be quite an extensive network yet to be explored that would be a great asset to the eco-village community.

That night Jam drove Alan and Alyssa into San Ignacio to pick up some things we needed and catch a bit of the night life. We bought some more rainforest rum bitters and some souveniers, and we met the Rasta who makes and sells the amazing banana wine we'd been enjoying our whole stay. Then we drove out to Jam's friend Sayid's house to buy some bamboo. We needed pieces of bamboo to build trickle charge wind generators that Jam plans on installing all over the eco-village. If you cut the bamboo tubes into half-pipes and arrange them pointing out from a central vertical axis (so the cross-section looks like the arms of a galaxy) they will catch the wind and spin in the horizontal direction, hanging from a tree on a ball-bearing joint. You put rare earth magnets at the top ends of the spinning half-pipes, which pass over fixed copper coils which generate current that you send along wires to the positive and negative poles of a 12V battery. There's a picture of a roughly drawn diagram in the photo album for Day 12.

Sayid was cool, and offered us some home-made noni wine that he had made by fermenting noni fruit, one of the most nutritious and potent fruits in the tropics.

Pictures from Day 11


Day 10: Alyssa stayed home because the welt on her leg was too itchy for the hot sun, so she was able to get her Jagua art done by Aisha on her back and hand. Jagua is like henna, just a different type of plant is used, and is more blue in color. Today was also Alan and Alyssa's 4 year anniversary, and Alan brought home a bouquet of jungle flowers for Alyssa. In the jungle, Alan, Jam, Simon and Candy did a lot more work landscaping the upper milpa, creating more stone walls, and designing a future flower bed. Later, Alan transplanted some banana trees, and Candy and Simon worked on signs to label the various trees of the milpas. Candy also took on the task of setting up a volunteer board for all volunteers to be able to leave their mark.

Pictures from Day 10


Day 9: The end of our second week went by really fast. On Tuesday Alyssa Alan and Jam searched unsuccessfully for some stashed trail-building tools that had been buried (if not stolen) by the road excavation crew during road excavation. We also worked more on the hut for the lower milpa, and began work on the upper milpa, whipper-snipping weeds and landscaping the entrance way by clearing out rocks and roots and building stone walls.

Pictures from Day 9

Rainy Day

Day 8: The night before, in addition to the new volunteers, one of the two main investors of the Better in Belize project, Looey, arrived with his good friend Geoffry and his two sisters Candy and April. Looey and his sisters are from Canada like Jam, and Geoffry is from Barbados. Looey is a real estate agent, and is the head of the Belize division of Remax, the largest real estate company in Belize. It's nice to know that the person in that position is so eco-conscious. If you want to buy some property down here (it's pretty inexpensive), or even better-a lot on the eco-village, go to the Belize Property Center website.

Looey arrived with a lot of things he wanted to get done on the eco-village, and we were ready for our first day of real work. Unfortunately, it was also the first day of real rain. All the volunteers went down to the lower milpa with our machetes and started clearing all the plants that weren't supposed to be there, leaving the banana trees, corn, breadnut, macal, pineapple, papaya, almond, cashew, chili, obel, yuca, mango, lemon, orange, avocado, and grapefruit trees. After lunch, Alan, Alyssa, and Jam went back down to the lower milpa and started gathering materials to make a little shelter for people working on the milpa. We chopped down huge cohune palms for the roof thatches, and give and take trees for the posts. Both are types of palm trees. The cohune produces cohune nuts, which are used for their oil. The give and take tree grows tall and straight, and the trunk is covered in sharp, somewhat poisonous spikes, which we had to strip off before using them for posts. In the process, Alan learned the true meaning of the name "give and take" tree. While stripping the spikes, he pricked his finger pretty bad on one. Luckily, Jam knew that the reason they are called give and take trees is that although they can "give" you a pretty nasty prick that will hurt for days, you can also "take" the remedy to the poison out of the top part of the tree where the palms come out. Since we had chopped the tree down, we found the remedy, pink fuzzy stuff, and Alan rubbed his cut on it and the pain subsided almost immediately!

That night after coming home from the jungle, we all had a lot of fun drumming and dancing (Geoffry is quite an excellent drummer, and Jam busted out his flute collection and Vietnamese mouth harp). Later, Jam treated us all with some fire spinning, both staff and poi, and Geoffry used his lighter fluid to blow fire! Later, Mathias wowed us with his juggling skills, and Geoffry was doing sword dancing and generally being his crazy self. Fun night.

Pictures from Day 8

Tikal

Day 7: The night's sleep at Los Amigos wasn't bad for hostel dorm beds; good thing we were planning on getting up early because these cute little mini pheasant birds were scuddling around the ground chasing eachother and making strange, really loud squalking noises waking everybody up. After a rediculously good breakfast served at the hostel we took a bus to Tikal and got there around 10:30. The site is huge and deep in protected jungle. As such, the place is teeming with wildlife. Just walking from the parking lot to the ruins we saw a long-nosed raccoon-like creature called a coati, I think. We also saw a number of giant woodpeckers. They looked like Woody the Woodpecker, about the size of hawks but with much bigger, bright red tufted heads. We did our best to plan out a route that would take us to most of the major archeological sites, but before long we realized we had vastly underestimated the sheer size of Tikal, and there was no way we'd be able to see everything. We did manage to see most of the major pyramids, and ate lunch on top of one, overlooking the Grand Plaza. Dispite the great number of excavated temples, ampitheatres, etc., much of Tikal is still yet to be uncovered. One of the four largest pyramids, in fact, is still a good deal buried. Climbing to the top you have to take wooden stairs, and on our way up we came across some howler monkeys hanging out in the trees eating leaves, only a few arms lengths away from where we were on the platform.

The photos will do most of the talking for our visit to Tikal. Around 3:30 we returned to the entrance area to check out the ceramic museum. After an ordeal with our drunken bus driver that I won't get into, we were back to the border by nightfall. When we got back to Belize, we were surprised to meet two new volunteers, Woofers, who had arrived earlier that day and would be staying at the house as well: Simon, from Germany, and Candy, from Australia. Good people.

Pictures from Day 7

Flores, Guatemala

Day 6: We decided, for a little weekend excursion, to head across the border into neighboring Guatemala! Benque is so close, that it was only a quick 20 minute walk to the border. After paying our exit fee and getting our passports stamped, we eluded the over-charging taxi drivers and found a ¨collectivo¨bus to take us to Flores for real cheap. Flores is a little tourist-friendly city on an island in the middle of Lake Peten Itza, the second largest lake in Guatemala. We had heard from Jam about a sweet little hostel called Los Amigos, an inexpensive refuge for backpackers from all over, complete with excellent vegetarian-friendly cuisine, a ping-pong table, and resident parrots. We were lucky enough to secure the last two available beds.

The city of Flores is so colorful. The buildings are all brightly painted, full of shops selling beautifully patterned clothing and textiles, arts and crafts. We did a lot of shopping, which was tricky because everything was so over-priced for the tourists, that each purchase involved a drawn-out bargaining battle. Often what it took to get the price down enough was to actually pretend like we were leaving the store before they´d name a price that we were happy with. We ended up getting pretty good deals for everything, but it wasn´t easy. We made our way back to the hostel at nightfall, ordered some brownies, ice cream and coffee, and caught up all the way on our blogging (escargots, we´ve been). We´re looking forward to visiting what is called the most magnificent of all the Mayan ruins, Tikal, tomorrow.

Pictures from Day 6

Spanish Lookout

Day 5: This was a day of driving all around Western Belize with Jam, Aisha, Mathias, and Jorge, the head carpenter on the building project. Our main errand was a trip to Spanish Lookout to pick up more wood and electrical supplies. First stop however was in San Ignacio, where we bought a new bottle of rum rainforest bitters and some copal incense. On the way to Spanish Lookout we crossed another river via ferry, and Jorge indulged us with two tasty vegetarian tomalitos (little tomalis). They were so good, and the fish thought so too as they swarmed like mad to pick off any remaining morsels from our discarded corn husks. Spanish Lookout actually looks quite a bit like, say, rural Pennsylvania. It´s home primarily to emigrated Mennonites, a community that unlike the Mennonites of North America (like Alan´s uncle Michael), are actually quite industrial. The men often drive pickups, the teenage boys drive motorcycles, and the girls generally drive around in ATVs. They look like the Amish of Pennsylvania, with their straw hats and neck beards, and some actually look a little inbread--a problem the community is trying to address by exchanges between the Belizean and Canadian Mennonite communities. Spanish Lookout is full of hardware and agricultural supply stores run by the Mennonites, and Alan got a good deal on a nice little rug for his future apartment. Amidst going back and forth between various supply centers, we stopped at a local ice cream shop, where the dragonfruit and kiwi flavors were something special indeed.

Pictures from Day 5

Back to the Jungle

Day 4: Each morning that we go to the eco-village site, Jam drives us in his red Cobra pick-up truck, and the locally hired workers, a friendly team of brothers, hop in the back to spend the day building what is the first house on the property, the geodesic dome type structure. The plan this day was for us to plant some seeds on one of the two milpas, but we didn´t get around to it. Instead we went to another newly forged road and found even more awesome crystals. Jam then took us through the jungle to see some of the more remote potential building sites, particularly the place he´s hoping to build his own house on, a jungle ridge with huge rocky cliffs with an area that would make a great ampitheatre for throwing jungle dance parties. On the way, while Alan had stopped to take a picture, he soon realized he had chosen a poor spot to stand, as an army of little black ants rushed up his leg and started biting like mad. In his attempts to brush them off, they jumped onto his arms where they continued their onslaught. In the end, the 30 or so bites had hurt quite a bit, although the little buggers didn´t seem too venomous, except that his whole right arm turned red and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Then a bit later, Alan nearly walked straight into a massive spider web, home to a giant multicolored spider that was most likely quite poisonous. Of course, Alan moved in with his camera for the close-up. After some more hiking, some vine-swinging, and more medicinal plant identification, we made our way down to a different spot on the river for some sunning and some swimming. The trail down was a bit treacherous, but Jam and previous volunteers had done some trail building a few months earlier which made it doable. Along the descent we ran into what must have been about a 10 foot snake, black with yellow markings. We weren´t sure if it was poisonous, but we didn´t take any chances. The part of the river we hung out at had a number of little rapids, one of which was tame enough to shoot our bodies through, which was fun. To shoot through, you had to let it pull you under water for a stretch, and Alyssa inhaled a bit of water, so later she was advised to eat some raw garlic as a precaution agaist ¨upset stomach.¨ Since we´ve been here, we´ve yet to have any kind of gastrointestinal turmoil. After sunning on the rocks like lizards, and a river rock power nap, we walked up the river a bit as Jam forged a new trail with his machete. We came across tapir tracks, the national animal of Belize. When we got back to the construction site and the workers were finishing up, Alan came up with a design for a seed-germinating flower pot using one sheet of magazine paper and two staples.

Pictures from Day 4

Xunantunich

Day 3: Jam needed to go into the capital to deal with some immigration stuff, so we had the day to explore on our own. Our town of Benque is within walking distance from Xunantunich, (pronounced shoo-NAHN-too-nich, meaning ¨Stone Maiden¨ after the female ghost seen climbing the temple) a quite impressive Mayan site, so that´s where we went! To get there, a giant iguana saw us off as we crossed the Mopan river in a hand cranked ferry. Since it´s one of the lesser known Mayan ruins, we basically had the entire site to ourselves, free to take some pretty awesome pictures without random tourists contaminating the shots. We climbed the main temple, called ¨El Castillo,¨ a hugely impressive structure, the second tallest in Belize, and the view was spectacular. Dispite the magnamity of the temples, being so deep in the jungle the site wasn´t even discovered until the 1950s when it was excavated and beautifully restored by a team led by an American archeologist. Included in the restoration were detailed stucco friezes of Mayan symbology on the side of El Castillo. Unfortunately for you the reader, we still can´t upload our pictures, so you´ll have to be patient. Although it was a hot and sunny day, once in a while a quick rain shower would pass through to cool us off just enough.

That evening, after another yummy meal prepared by Aisha and Mathias, we watched the movie Zeitgeist on Jam´s projector screen. If you haven´t seen this movie yet, you need to. Chances are it will change the way you think about everything. No joke.

Pictures from Day 3

Day 2: First day at the Eco-village to-be

Day 2: What a day! Our first day on the site was spent with Jam, who took us around showing us everything. He showed us the construction site, a beautiful house on stilts designed by Jam and modeled according to sacred geometry. This will be the first house on the property. He showed us a number of Mayan mounds that need excavating, as well as three of the caves that, when explored, are sure to be filled with ancient Mayan artifacts, mostly pottery. We saw the milpa (farm plot) which is currently growing bananas and plantains, and our first task will be planting more fruit trees of a wide variety on the milpa. A big problem for Belize is slash-and-burn farming, where entire hillsides of rain forest are cut down and burned by uneducated locals in order to grow a year's worth of crops that use up the soil's nutrients and erode by water, becoming useless and therefore abandoned. The eco-village we're helping to create is completely organic and the milpas are refertilized in a way that makes them indefinitely sustainable.

Throughout the day Jam taught us a ton about the medicinal properties of the local trees and plants. We have pictures of each, but unfortunately the internet connection here at the library is too slow to load them. We'll add them soon with captions.

We hiked around the property for a while, howling back at the howler monkeys, and gathering calcite and rhodochrosite crystals from the newly forged roads on the property. Jam also took us on a little excursion across the river to a beautiful hidden waterfall, part of the Pine Forest Nature Reserve. The water flows down from the Mayan mountains so it's so clean it's almost drinkable. How refreshing that was!

It's the rainy season now, which really only means that throughout the day you get sporadic showers. It's been mostly sunny though, and we're already quite crispified. It's hot and humid, but not uncomfortably so, and the mosquitoes are really not as much of a problem as we anticipated, although sweet blooded Alyssa has already had to deal with a variety of bites. Eating bitter herbs (which go well dissolved in rum) and rubbing copal pods on the skin helps a lot. Copal is one of the most sacred of Mayan plants, and the copal oil is used for ceremonial incense among its many uses.

This was also the first day of the annual 9-day Benque Viejo festival, and there will be fireworks going off each night. Good timing!

Pictures from Day 2

Day 1: We're Here!

Day 1: Touch down in Belize to discover our one and only piece of luggage, Alyssa new rucksack, did not make the flight with us. Common occurrence apparently. We opted against the long fumy bus ride and took a 2 hour cab ride instead to Benque Viejo, a friendly little town near the Guatemalan boarder that we would be calling home for the next two weeks. Our hosts are great. There's Jam, one of the most interesting and friendly people I've ever met, who is managing the development of the Eco-village. He's from British Columbia and although he's only been in Belize a couple of years, his knowledge of the Belizean culture, and local flora and fauna seems virtually limitless. Herbalist, eco-enthusiast, energy healer, founder of the Rainbow Religion; he's pretty much the best task manager we could have hoped for. Mathias and Aisha, our other two hosts, have been just as warm and welcoming. Mathias is from Germany and after living in Belize nearly two years, he met Aisha, who's from Belize. Among her many talents (belly dancer, a great cook), she is an excellent henna artist and hopefully Alyssa will be able to show you some of her work. The two were recently married and have already applied for land from the Belizean government, and hope to have their own self-sustaining eco-farm/community. All Belizean nationals are entitled to good amounts of land, which is plentiful here, and often has un-excavated Mayan ruins waiting to be discovered. Also living here are two cats and one friendly dog who stay busy chasing toads and geckos. We had a great meal of "beans and rice" (as opposed to "rice and beans," in which the two are mixed together), and slept very well in our own cozy room. The next day would be the first day seeing, exploring, and learning about the eco-village, a few miles away deep in the sub-tropical rain forest.

Pictures from Day 1