I awoke rested almost too rested due to the pure fact we were in a safe camping spot and my belly was well fed the night before which had not happened often until this point. After an awkward goodbye where the mother woke her son to have him barely say goodbye as we left their garden we jumped on the bikes and began the day pedaling and pedaling and more pedaling until a car was stuck so we turned around got off our bikes and pushed her truck out of the mud allowing the driver to continue his day. We got back in our bikes and found a small drive up window which had burritos for $2.50 BZ each for breakfast which we ate and at that point decided the food in Belize is not our favorite. I would describe their cuisine as a mix of fake Mexican with a slight hint of american taste or maybe we have yet to find the right spot to stop. All the while I always tell Kevin whenever we sit down to eat that if someone served me cat poop after all the kilometers we have biked daily I still would say it tasted delicious and would be thankful for food to fuel me.
We biked and at one point after looking left to right life changed, we passed a prison where cat calls where yelled and quote hey little girl was yelled as I biked past. I looked back at Kevin and I think he knew exactly what I was thinking, I would not be camping near by and would rather bike all night if that’s what it took. It gets better right? Well, no. We then tried to find Gracie Rock but this town had no food and was surrounded by a military school for troubled youth whom have been in and out of criminal happenings.
We kept biking and I tried to take the workload for Kevin as this day was not his day and the last thing he wanted was to bike more kilometers. We tried to find a compromise yet all the signs in the area read shot if caught trespassing and there were bullet holes in the signs. Finally at what they called mile 24 we found a sanitation dump which had a bus stop to get shelter, feed the beast Kevin whom reminds me daily that we are not on the deprivation train and need more food. Once our mouths had strawberry juice dripping down onto our shirts we kept biking up the mild hill in order to find a campsite because Kevin was depressed, in his head and didn’t want to bike on. This is a reoccurring theme. I could put miles from before sunrise to sunset on the bike but if his head isn’t right or he doesn’t feel like biking he sees no sense in forcing himself to carry on (I get it and don’t all at once).
We pulled into this gated community and as this is an English speaking country Kevin said it was my turn to ask about camping here. I rode up to the lady whose back was to me in order to ask and she couldn’t speak English. All I got was a finger pointed to the store and the word shop. Next stop, the shop. A fully loaded fancy import shop for all things from Taiwan. The shop owner and what I believe to be his wife chatted back and forth all of which I couldn’t understand until finally a yes we could camp in one of two spots our choice. We payed down our mats and played rummy, read, and enjoyed what we thought would be wifi when the older man gave us a password but nope didn’t work and that was perfect because we needed some down time to just be still. It was nearly 16:00 when again the old man popped up gave me a bucket showed me where the water was and said we could shower. I took full advantage of the bucket style shower even making myself.more comfortable by doing our laundry by hand all the while Kevin cooked up some oats with fruit our typical camp out dinner due to ease of carrying, cheap, and filling, well filling for Kevin whom eats double portion and semi filling for me because some days I just feel too tired to lift my spork to my mouth and just want to sleep.
I set up the tent and the gate out front was locked. This gave me false hope I would feel comfortable sleeping and get some rest. Night came and I couldn’t sleep. I closed my eyes I tried to ignore every sound that woke me and yet I sat up and peaked out to see what it was. I hit Kevin to wake him to look. I tossed, I turned, I eternally cried because I just wanted to sleep and still I couldn’t. The alarm rang and I told Kevin to go workout without me that I needed an hour more of sleep and we compromised to workout after biking a few hours and he showered and made coffee and kindly woke me up with a fresh hot cup of coffee tent side an hour later. I was beyond thankful and so happy and excited to start the day. Added bonus the cute old Taiwanese man showed up to unlock the gate and gifted us two perfectly wrapped pineapple pastries just as we were headed to the main road.
Something we started at the begining of our trip was saying three things we are thankful for as we begin ridding each morning. We both agreed that pineapple pastry was at the top of the list. Although I’m still slightly bitter toward Kevin that he first took a bite of mine to try them and then proceeded to eat his entire pastry without returning the bite he took. Mostly just sad because they were so tasty that more often than not I have thought of that pastry and the flavors of shortbread while biking, maybe it is because we haven’t had much processed food or fattening things which just melt in your mouth.
As we left the Taiwanese compound we couldn’t help discussing how Belize has many cultures and private communities making it hard to fully discover what the countries true colors are. Read the next post for the rise after such a horrible night and previous bad day.
BrokeonBike 