Belize Dispatch 2

5 June

The three-hour drive to the airport, no problem. Weather: good enough for travelling. Layovers long enough to hit each Starbucks in every terminal and still get most of the In Box sorted out. The short hop from Miami to Belize City felt like a microscopic trip through a head of cauliflower. For those who've never flown in the tropics, the massive cumulous boiling up into the stratosphere resemble certain vegetables of the family brassica.

I guess you have to see it to understand.

Marcella's newish grad student Miranda Davis, equally laden with gear and equipment, arrived minutes before on a rival flight and cleared Customs first. As Marcella lugged her mountain of equipment, supplies, gear, clothing, computers, and 500 Luna bars through the “Nothing To Declare” line, the Agent sighed, rolled his eyes, and wearily asked: “So den, you wid Miranda dere?”

Marcella shrugged and said yes, and the Agent waved her through with a sweep of his well-tanned hand.

What? No interrogation? No tearing the crates to splinters in search of contraband? No massive and unhappy Agents appearing from nowhere and whisking her away into some unnamed room for who knows what?

Nope. Nothing. A free pass. For once.

Miranda and Marcella grabbed a seat on one of the lodge shuttles and hit the streets. Go West, young ladies. All the way to San Ignacio for supplies, namely wine, and then on down the Chiquibul Road, up into the Pine Ridge and finally to Hidden Valley Inn for some co-ordinating of plans, roads, cameras, locks, gates, and the customarily social glass of wine.

Towards the end of a very long day they finally arrived at Blancaneux. Dinner, perhaps a glass of wine, and afterwards the staff escorted them to their Villa. Au Gratis, no less. Fabulous. That's right, in a word: Fabulous!

The next day the girls awoke refreshed and relaxed. A leisurely breakfast, hot cappuccinos, packed lunches to go, and the chicks hit it. Hit it hard! Yeah, because they can. Through San Ignacio for a cheap rental SUV, on over to the Capital City, Belmopan, for some meetings that basically didn't occur, maybe snacks off the street, a trip to the bank. Then back to San Ignacio for snacks, phone calls, a rendezvous with Chapal that basically didn't happen, a rendezvous with Pete and Kelly which did happen, and finally all the way back to Hidden Valley Inn for last minute recon prior to the morrow's toils.

That night, sequestered in their Villa at Blancaneux and still steaming from the blisteringly hot shower, the girls lolled in down comforters and 300 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets wondering how they got so lucky.

Posted on 12 June 2007