Belize, 15 December 2006

I am at the Tropical Education Centre, walking a trail in dense, wet forest. Last night it rained, and water is still dripping from leaf to leaf to leaf to ground. A pair of chicken-like birds chuckle as they whizz overhead. Even though I have been here before, more than once, it strikes me how alien it is. Unfamiliar trees are draped, climbed and strewn with oddly familiar houseplants. I wonder what it is that urges us to seek out the unfamiliar. I remember the Northern Ontario bush of my youth: spruce and birch, pine and maple, poplar and fir. There I know what burns when wet, where to make camp, where to fish; there among the beaver ponds and rock, lakes and creeks I feel truly at home. I must confess that I am a little uneasy travelling in foreign lands. And yet I, like so many others, am compelled to explore. And this puzzles me.

Yesterday morning I was sitting with Lorena in the Tucson Airport, as we waited for nearly simultaneous flights from adjacent gates. We were about to part company for many months, and we were talking quietly about anything but that fact, and suddenly her flight was called and in two minutes she was gone. What can you say to someone you share your life with, every day for months, when you are going to be gone for so long, with some unacknowledged risk you may never return? How can you quiet a desperate longing, in a few minutes in a public airport? There can be no satisfactory answer. There is only hope, and a clinging to familiar memories and shared dreams. And you carry on.

I allow he uncertainties of travel to occupy my mind. Will I land in Houston close enough to my departing gate to make the next leg of my flight? As it turns out, I land in a nearly adjacent gate. Weird luck. but it doesn't last. The flight departing for Belize City is late, a creeping delay that grows to over an hour. Last time I flew to Belize my plane was 20 minutes late landing, and I missed my connecting flight to Dangriga. This time, when we land, the flight captain tells us that connecting flights are being held for us. I doubt my luck, as Dangriga airstrip has no lights, and it is growing dusk outside as I wait for my bag to come off the plane. Then Customs discovers my VHF radio (I told them I had one when they asked what was in my case), and tells me I need an importation permit. Or I can pay duty. I respond that I am passing through, and I would pay duty as long as it is refunded when I leave. They don't buy it but agree to hold the radio for me until I leave. There is nothing to do but hand it over in exchange for a receipt, and worry about it later.

Now my plane is gone, it is too late to catch a bus to Dangriga, and my funds are low for such things as hotels and taxis. It costs $25US to take a taxi to Belize City from the airport. Just my options are drying up, an Island Expeditions bus is spotted leaving the parking lot. I run and jump in. Rudy and Albert are taking two guests to the Tropical Education Centre, so I catch a ride, and get a free meal and nights lodging. Soon I will flag down a bus on the highway and make my way to Dangriga. The luggage will follow me in a couple of days. Time to hike out.

I got myself into a little trouble with the government over a bit of money. To prove their point they have suspended my passport. I still have it with me, but I wouldn't want to have to hand it over to an officer sitting in front of a computer. So to satisfy the government and get my passport released, I have decided to return to work in December of this year, instead of February as planned.

I emailed Tim (Grand Poobah) at Island Expeditions, to see about getting back to work sooner. The schedule was already set, but he bent over backwards, and, thanks to the cooperation of Dick, one of the guides, I will be starting in two weeks. Tim also asked me if they could help with my financial troubles. Since I need my passport to get to Belize, I have to satisfy the government before I return to work.

This is the kind of company Island Expeditions is: besides all they do to help with conservation efforts in Belize, and all their efforts to improve peoples' lived their, they also take care of their "family". And so now the money is sent, the gov't is satisfied, and the paperwork is out there to release my passport. Unfortunately, although the gov't can take something from you at the speed of the ethernet, getting it back moves at the speed of the postal service. They say it takes ten days. I have fifteen. Will I make it? Stay tuned...