August 18, 1997 Orange Walk, Belize R80G/S 27007 R100GS 18696 I had read in my guide book that Belizean custom officers had the power to deny people entry based on their looks. Also, while I knew Mexico had fired and replaced everyone of their custom officers on their Northern border, and rotated them regularly to crack down on corruption, I hadn't heard the same thing about the Southern border. The insinuation was that they might be corrupt along the Southern border. The thought that a corrupt guard could willy nilly decide our fate and put a cramp in our future is disturbing. In reality, it was nothing like imagined, and was very quick and straight forward. We drove to the border cross which is about 10 km West of Chetumal. Sharon stayed and watched the parked bikes, since we had our tank and seat bag with our clothes strapped on the bikes. I went into the vehicle importation office, and got our temporary vehicle import papers cancelled, and the hologram sticker removed from the motorcycles. I then walked over to immigration and got our passport stamped for exit. We hopped on the bike, and road over bridge crossing the river to the Belize side. The first building on the right is a place to buy the mandatory tourist vehicle insurance which sold for B$10 (US$5) per day, or B$20 (US$10) per week. It started to rain, so we stayed in this little one office air conditioned building and listened to the insurance guy tell us about his beautiful country. When the rain let up a couple minutes later, we walked over to immigration. Since a tour bus had just pulled up, there was a huge line where moments before there was nobody. 15 minutes later, we get to the front, and the immigration officer gives us a 2nd entry form to fill out and tells us to get back in line when we're done. We do so, and then she sends us over to the declaration area. We declare we have two motorcycles, and the officer stamps the license number, make and color into our passport. We hop on our bikes and drive through the gate where an officer checks our passport. Another guy came up and asked to see if we had insurance to which we showed him the new Belizean insurance papers we got, and then we're off. The whole process took about 1.5 hours. Had it not rained, and we missed the busses of people arriving, it probably would have taken total less than an hour. No one checked the VIN numbers on the vehicles like they did in Mexico, and nothing was searched. We left the border post and drove on the nicely paved highway. The road has a very rural feel as we pass through sugar cane fields, corn fields and coconut trees. As we pass through the first village of Corozal, one of the first things I notice is that most of the signs are in English. Also the make of cars ratio is different here. Unlike Mexico which is a 1:4 ratio of VW beetles to all other cars on the road, I haven't seen any here. Most of the cars are American. The ratio of American cars versus others seems more like 80%. However, the dominant off road type vehicle seems to be the old Land Rovers aside from Ford pickup trucks. Construction styles are different. While in Mexico everything seems to be made from cement and cinder blocks, Many Belizeans make their homes out of wood, which are sometimes several feet in the air on stilts. The driving style here is noticeably different from Mexico. People seem more laid back, and not in as much of a hurry. There are few cars on the road. Our guide book says that you should drive on the right hand side of the road (just like Mexico). When making a left turn, one most yield to both on coming and traffic and traffic from behind. If there is traffic behind. the custom is to pull over as far right as possible letting the traffic from behind pass before one can make their left turn. They have Texaco and Shell stations here. That sell regular with lead, premium unleaded, diesel, and kerosene. Premium unleaded sells for B$5.00 per gallon (US$2.50) We had decided to spend the night in Orange Walk. We came up on a turn off in the road where there was a taxi driver and another man talking. They look up at us as we pass, and point off to the right indicating that we should go right. There are no signs pointing that way to Orange Walk. First thought that comes to my mind is, How do they know where we are going... I pass Sharon, and take over the lead. I pulled up to a tall old man of African descent walking along the road, and ask him which way to Orange Walk. He points back and says in a Caribbean Creole ascent "Orange Walk...Da turn over der... Dots dee best way". I thank him, pull up to Sharon and tell her. We had hidden away our walkie talkies and decided not to use them while in Belize since we had heard that CBs were illegal without a license. Even though our walkie talkies don't work on CB frequencies, we didn't want to risk hassles. We pull into Orange Walk which is the largest town North of Belize city of 10,000 people. We passed 6 of the 24 Chinese restaurants in town, and pulled up to a hotel called Hotel Mi Amor which is owned and run by a French guy. I told him we have two motorcycles. He said we could park in the back where they have a 24 hour locked gate, but it would be safer to bring them inside at night. Even though this would require unbolting the panniers on the R100GS, I agree. Fortunately, his son remembered about the other entrance with wider doors, and it's not a problem. They brought over two boards which we could use as ramps to roll the bikes up the stairs into the adjoining bar which they only use on the weekends. I went back outside to tell Sharon who was watching the bikes. She said some guy looked at them and commented "mucho pesos". While she tells me this two kids ride by on a bike, one carrying a used camera and asks if we want to buy it. No doubt it probably still has tourist film in it. We rolled the bikes up, and locked and covered them behind locked doors. The hotel room has an unusually good door lock (compared to ones we saw in Mexico). Also, the wooden door has sheet metal reinforcing the door around where the door bolt protrudes making a forced entry more difficult. The windows have an attractive cement grate in front preventing anyone from entering. Also, the windows have metal blinds that are so heavy duty that we haven't seen the likes in quality of since Germany where rolladans (sp?) that were designed during world war II for blocking all light and some shrapnel during night time aerial bombings. All this security, and numerous warnings raises the anxiety level a bit. As usual, before we left the room, I cable locked the jackets to the closet bar, and hid or locked away anything of value. I debated on carrying my fanny pack. The guy who had sold us Belize insurance and was going out of his way painting a rosey picture of Belize, told us that we should take "usual" precautions by not pulling our money out in public, nor carry more money than we need to spend for the day. While the fanny pack is beefed up to prevent being stolen by slash or unlatching, the extra visible chains on it are a catch 22. They deter run by thieves, but may attract muggers by saying something must be valuable in their to have so much security. Do I take it with me, or leave it in the hotel? I opted for leaving it under the bed. In it contains my palm top computer, GPS and binoculars. We walked around town and fortunately began to feel a bit over exposed to cautionary warnings. This is a strange little country of population 200k. In this town of 10k, there are Chinese that speak Cantonese, Indians that speak Hindi, Africans who speak English Creole or Garifuna, Mayans who speak various Mayan dialects, Mestizos who speak Spanish, Mennonites who speak a German dialect. Fortunately for us, they use English as the default common second language since it's also the official language as well. Apparently most people are bi or trilingual. Many of the people that we see on the streets look like they are mixtures of the above races with exception being of Mennonites. Unlike the mennonites found in rural Illinois, here, they often wear denim overalls and sometimes black pants with suspenders and a dark blue shirt and white brimmed hats. All the ones we've seen are also tall and skinny with often long beards. The mennonite woman we've seen wear dark blue dresses with black aprons and a black head covering. Everybody we pass seems friendly. It appears to be part of the culture to greet everyone one sees. Driving the motorcycles, we get waves from most people who see us. Walking the streets, most people say hello. At the Hong Kong restaurant, next to the hotel, we had a lunch of fried rice and a coke. It was hot, delicious and expensive. I paid the bill, and when the cashier handed me some mints, I said "Gracias". To which she said "You're welcome". I chuckled. This chinese woman said she didn't speak Spanish, but spoke Cantonese, English and a little Mandarin. I have to keep reminding my self I'm in an English speaking country. I've been catching myself saying "si", and "gracias" when talking to people today. We hopped on the bikes and drove down to Crooked Tree. where there is a bird sanctuary. We were hoping to set up a guided tour for tomorrow morning. The highway down was nicely paved. The last 6 miles however is a rough graded dirt gravel road. We stopped at the information center and talked to the fill in Warden, David. David told us all about the area, who to contact for guided tours, etc. He showed us pictures and skeletons of the animals in the area. He also had a few in formaldehyde (sp?). He showed us some wild life around the visitor center. He showed us some leaf cutter ants which looked like a parade of cut up leaves. He said that if one stomps hard enough around the nest, the huge warrior ants will come out. He said he didn't want to do that because there was an African bee nest about 15 feet above us who may also come out and see who's causing all the racket. I asked some more questions about the ants, to which I guess he decided to take the chance. He stomped several times near the entrance, and then an ant almost an inch long came out. He picked it up from behind and stuck the head on my shirt. It instantly clamped it's rather large mandibles on my sleeve. He then pulled the body, and rather then let go, the head popped off from the body with mandibles firmly clenched on my sleeve. He said that the Mayans use to use the clamping power of these warrior ant heads to close up wounds sort of like a precursor to sutures. He showed us a 3x3x3 foot mud blob up in the tree and told us it was a termite mound with covered termite highways that run along the underside of the branches. Apparently, they don't eat the tree, but rather grass from below. He had the head of a great jarabu stork which has a wing span of 10 to 12 feet. They are endangered, but are common around here during the dry season which runs from November until June. Sam Tillet drove by in his van carrying two honey mooners from Detroit, MI. David flagged him down and told him that we were interested in doing a tour in the morning. Sam told us that they would take off at 7:30, but to arrive at 7:00 if we wanted breakfast. We drove back to Orange Walk. When we arrived back, and were stowing the bikes away, a guy who introduced himself as Maurice took an interest in the engine of the bikes. He asked where we were headed afterwards, to which I told him San Ignacio. He wrote down his name and address and phone number and said that should we be interested, we could contact him out there which is near where he was from. He told us that he was coming back from Chetumal on his weekly route and that he's a smuggler. I asked him what he smuggles. He told me, "Contraband like mayonnaise and coffee". He said the duty on these items is 54%. He told us that the starter in his truck had stopped working in Corozal, and that he had gotten a ride to Orange walk where he could get another. The shop wanted B$76 (US$38), and he only had B$70, and they wouldn't let it go for $70. He was indirectly asking for help. Ever since China, I'm really leery of a con. I started beating around the bush making suggestions like trading some mayonnaise for a starter all the while trying to feel him out. His way of asking suggested he had carefully thought out how he would ask and that he was well aware he might be mistaken for a pan handler. He seemed to have some pride, and appeared as dignified as one could be in a position of need. He had made the mistake when starting the conversation of telling me that he had a 1000cc dirt bike at home. I figured he might have meant dual sport since dirt bikes don't come that big, and so asked what kind. He gave a quick reply, "Honda". Honda's dual sport are the Africa Twin and TransAlp neither of which are close to 1000cc. Their largest dirt bike is 750cc; 650cc in North America. I let that one drop. Finally, I decided if this was a con, it was a good one, and worth a lot more than an amount that in this country would buy someone two beers. A good con artist would not have made the mistake with the motorcycle. Being continually accosted by greedy (not needy) beggars, con artists, and people who have taken on begging as a profession, it's easy just to shut down and say "No" to everyone. I began to believe his story. I gladly gave him (US$3.25) to buy the part. He beamed as if that made his day. He didn't make any easily broken promises, like "I'll send you the money." Rather, he suggested that we stop by when we drove through his town, and that now, he wanted to give us a piece of jade. I told him, that it wasn't necessary, and he could pay us back by passing on the favor to someone else... Meanwhile, off to the side a guy was watching. He saw that we hand out money, and so came up asking for his handout. This bleary eyed guy had some liquid induced coordination problems and spoke in a harsh English Creole, which I could hardly make out. He did manage to get his desires across. I said a quick goodbye to Maurice who seemed a little embarrassed, and went on his way. We zoned out in front of our satellite feed TV in our room with 44 channels, and watched "Die Hard with a Vengeance" with Bruce Willis and Jeromy Irons and Samual L Jackson. It was nice to get a little English TV. Despite the numerous satellite dishes at many of the hotels in Mexico, we never saw more than three channels of television all in spanish..... (except in Cancun). We went back to the Hong Kong restaurant. The portions were huge, and quality and taste of the food we had for lunch was excellent. The price seemed high relative to Mexico, however the food quality exceeded most places their as well. They served several local brews, of which we tried Belikin beer and stout which was excellent. Before we ordered our food, we could see the cooks watching a cooking show off of the cooking channel from their satellite feed TV. good sign! Later on in the middle of our meal, the chinese music all of a sudden stopped, and the chinese people who each knew each other stopped talking. All that could be heard was a CNN story on US FDA's new policy on raw beef handling. ..another good sign. Unlike Mexicans who sell their meat in open air markets at mid 90 degree temperatures, The Belizeans, refrigerate their meat behind closed glass cabinets. I now gag at the smell of mixed blood with sanitizing solution that permeates the open air markets where ever meat is sold in Mexico. August 19, 1997 Orange Walk. Belize The sun comes up around 5:40am. Belize is on Central Standard Time (GMT-6) which is currently the same as mountain daylight savings time back in the states. We set the alarm for 5:45am so we could get up and drive to Sam Tillet's place in Crooked Tree to get some breakfast before our boat tour of the bird sanctuary. The ride there was so cool, I actually had to zip up my jacket. I haven't done that since San Cristobol. Breakfast was delicious, We had fried jack which where soft dough triangles that were fried in oil at a high enough temperature such that they wouldn't soak up the oil. On this we spread some delicious home made golden plum jam that was made from the tree that was providing shade over the palapa's front porch that we were in. We had delicious coffee, scrambled eggs and refried beans. We started the tour from the front porch of the palapa as Sam pointed out the various flora and fauna along the way. As we walked towards the boat, Sam spotted various birds, and iguanas, off in the distance as we attempted to focus our binoculars on these elusive creatures. It's amazing how these like birders like Sam and David can spot and identify the tiniest birds sitting in a bush 50 yards away. The boat took us South through the Northern lagoon. It was like being on the Discovery channel as we pretended to be ornithologist wannabe's. Sam would spot the bird, give us landscape coordinates to pinpoint our binoculars, and then give us the details of what we were looking at. Of the 272 bird species that frequent this area we saw the endangered yellow headed vulture, black vulture, spotted sand piper, Northern jacana + babies (also know as a jesus christ bird since it can walk on water). ground dove, great kiskadee, mangrove swallow, great egret, snow egret, clay colored thrush (robin), yellow throated euphonia, blue gray tanager, snail kite (snail eating hawk), limpkin, vermilion fly catcher, groove bill annie, house wren and a lease grebe. We saw a jesus christ lizard (also known known as a basilisk) named because it can also walk on water. Sam poked it out of a bush, and it ran on it's two rear feet swinging it's front arms like a sprinter as it dashed across the water to another bush. We saw several spine tailed iguanas which are gray and eat meat. Also several vegetarian green iguanas. The main attraction bird around hear is a Jabaru which is an endangered stork with a wingspan of 10-12 feet. They migrate between here and Mexico where they are eaten. Unfortunately for us, they're only here during the dry season which is from November to June, so we didn't see any. At the far South end of Northern lagoon, we pulled ashore twice and found two different black howler monkey troops. Issuing a couple hoots, gets the males all riled up, and they start making a lot of racket hooting in the tree. One has to keep in mind that being below them, these little dung flingers may urinate or drop a load on an unexpecting trespasser. We took a few pictures, and kept them hooting until the mosquitoes got to us, and then headed back to the boat. We had a good time on this tour. When we came a shore, we spotted a dog free roaming that belonged to the neighbors and was wearing a necklace made of limes. Sam said this was for when the dog had a cough. He told a story about a guy who showed up to work wearing a necklace of limes to which his co-workers laughed since it's commonly believed that this is only good for dogs. I tried to take a picture of this dog, and when I squatted, he took off running. Sam said that if a human crouches, the dog thinks you're picking up a stone to throw at him. Sam showed us the mimosa commonly growing around the area. It's a tiny fern like plant that when touched, the leaves fold up making them more difficult to be eaten by a bug. We left Sam Tillet's place, for a mile around his place, the road is a combination of puddles, mud sand and gravel making for some challenging riding. We drove out to the main highway, and then headed south to pick up the Northern (Old) highway that runs from Sandhill to Carmilla passing by Cowhead Creek, Lucky Strike, Santana, Chicago, Maskil, and London. With the exception of the last 15 miles, this road is paved. It's a one lane road in most parts with plenty of potholes. At lucky strike, the road turns off to a graded gravel road to the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha, We pulled up and saw that it was an unexcavated Mayan ruins, which then basically looks like a tall grassy hill with trees growing on top. Still kinda neat to check out though. Unlike in Mexico, there was hardly anyone there. Our motorcycle was one of two vehicles in the parking lot. Even though we passed through all of the above "villages", I really only noticed Maskall and Santana. The other "villages" amounted to no more that a just a couple homes. Cowhead creek probably has about 3 houses, two of which looked abandoned. Back in Orange Walk, we had another Chinese meal at the delicious Hong Kong restaurant. Sharon had been craving Chinese food all through out Mexico, however for some reason, we never entered the few we saw, eating Mexican food instead. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching CNN, weather channel, showtime and cinamax, We watched Red October with Shawn Connery. Having not seen western TV or movies for months, we were content spending our time as couch potatoes surfing our 44 channels. NBC switched over to Belizean news during news hour. The two long stories we saw were a review of the Belizean prison by a representative from the United Nations, and a sports story covering the participants of the central american olympics which because of the age and lack of uniforms of the athletes involved looked more like high school track and field. 8/20/97 San Ignacio, Belize Bought a small box of Jamaican frosted flakes, and a quart of homogenized, pasteurized whole milk (special treat) for $B8.00 (US$4) from the Shell gas station just down the street. It was the first cereal we've had since Austin, Texas. Rain ... We drove SE to Belize city, from there, we followed our way by compass until we hit a dead end and had to ask for directions. Even though we didn't find a sign, it wasn't too difficult finding our way SW to San Ignacio which was our destination for the day. When we arrived in San Ignacio, we parked the bikes and Sharon went looking for a hotel. Meanwhile I sat down at an outdoor cafe in the shade. A skinny tall black kid who looked in his early 20s 8/21/97 Got out of bed at 6:30am, and worked on my journal while Sharon slept for a couple more hours. As I'm writing by the window, there's a guy sewing away on his sewing machine next door listening to the radio which is playing upbeat marching music to which the guy is energetically badly whistling off key. It's so enthusiastic and so bad, that it makes me laugh. We had breakfast, and then put together a lunch of PBJ sandwiches, bananas, caramel popcorn squares and water. We got a late start, but finally left on the R80G/S with panniers removed and headed up into the mountains. About a mile out of town, we came across a police check point. They asked to see my local drivers license, Belize insurance papers, and checked that the motorcycle had plates, and then sent us on our way. Six miles East of San Ignacio at Georgeville, we turned off the highway and headed up to Mountain Pine Ridge which is all rough road riding. The road was in parts graded gravel road, but for the most part, had sharp gravel rocks, erosion run off ruts, some sand, and a few large puddles that I had to part my way across. Sharon hopped off the bike and walked around when I crossed the puddles, since we weren't sure if the bottom of the puddle was sand or mud. Sand isn't a problem except we get wet. With a mud bottom, there's a good chance the bike might slip, and with a passenger on the back, it's difficult to recover. We drove by Francis Ford Copolla's old place with landing strip out front, and then onto the five sisters falls. The five sisters resort is beautifully situated near the falls. It's would be a nice resort place to hang out for a couple days, if we were employed... They charge $65-$90 depending on season for a very nice bungalow. The place looked deserted even though they had three bungalows filled. Good for a honeymoon stop (http://www.belize.com/fivesisters.html). We had some lime-aid inside and talked to Carlos the owner who is from California. He gave us tips around the area. Afterwards we walked down into the valley to the "Garden of Eden" where they have tastefully put together a nice little hangout on a sand bar in the middle of the river just below the five sister falls. It started to look like rain, and we wanted to check out a few more sights in this area. so we took off. The rain clouds, got darker, so we decided we better choose between seeing the rio frio caves and the 1000 foot water fall at hidden valley. We opted for the later, headed over in that direction the 20+ miles. While we hadn't gotten wet yet, it was clear it had just recently rained. The dirt was beginning to turn to mud, and trickles of water were filling the erosion ruts. About four miles from the falls, it started to rain, with the clouds ahead looking much darker. When we got to two miles away, we were in a down pour, with the road even in dry conditions looking much worse than the past 40 miles we had traversed. These roads would not be traversable by motorcycle once the ground became soaked. The steep hills and ruts were turning to mud quickly trapping us with over 25 miles to go to get out. Frustrated, we turned around. I was not able to use the narrow but slightly smoother dirt tracks that we used coming in since they had now turned to mud, and now had to drive over the large gravel section with killer washboard waves in the road. It was rough on me sitting in the center of the bike, but worse on Sharon who sat towards the back as passenger. The way to do these kinds of roads (when dry), is one person per bike standing on the foot pegs. Avoiding the mud slides and keeping the bike up took all my attention as we drove down and out. Sharon needed a but brake, and we decided we wanted a bite to eat, so we stopped off at a place called the Central American Institute of Prehistoric and Traditional Cultures along the road. We were greeted by a man who spoke a Spanish I could barely understand. I asked him in Spanish were the museum is, to which Sharon says, "There's no museum Dave". He seemed confused, and then got his son 11 year old son who spoke some English. We asked if there was a restaurant, to which we were told it was closed. We asked where we could eat our food we brought. The man waved to come on up and eat up there. We ate our PBJ's and caramel popcorn in this giant palapa, that he had just built as an eating area for the institute. Our bananas had been pounded into a liquid puree by the the full water bottles and rocky road filling our new day pack we bought last night with a sweet runny goop. The man who ran this place brought us some cooked corn from his garden and sat and talked to us for a while. He was from Guatemala and spoke about as much English as we did Spanish. Sometimes, we would speak in English and he would answer in Spanish. This worked pretty well and we were able to hold small talk for a while. This Institute looked more like a little resort with six bungalows that were rented out, and an oversized eating area palapa that overlooked the valley below with a beautiful view. The last four miles of rough road was a little better having given the road an hour to dry out. When we got back to the hotel, I noticed that the the Al Jesse support system for the top box had broken from the pounding. The top box platform is held by three supports. One being the rear sub-frame while the other two are posts attaching to the rest of the luggage system. One of these two posts had slipped back from the vibrations. The continuous pounding then, ripped slim fractures in the metal that it was screwed into. The other of the two supports had some new hairline fractures in the steel rods as well. Fortunately, it's all mild grade steel that is easy to weld. This determined our fate to stay another night so that we could get this fixed. While Sharon soothed her battered bum with a little nap on the bed, I went and picked up our dirty laundry from Martha's laundry service. Martha's daughter who ran the place was very talkative. We talked for about 20 minutes, as she taught me some Creole, Spanish and Garifuna. The English creole which almost everyone speaks in this town at first sounds like no other language I've heard before. However listening very closely, It's possible to understand. It's actually an English dialect where words just seem to run together and articles sound like they are dropped. Some of the phrasing may sound odd. Just about everyone who speaks Creole though can speak English because of the similarities. A simple example: "wayoufrom?" is "Where are you from?". All signs I've seen are in English, I don't know if the phonetic differences in creole translate into written differences as well. Listening closely, I can usually get the gist of what someone is talking about. I learned how to say good morning in Garifuna, but now have forgotten, It's the spoken language of St Thomas - August 22, 1997 We went to Martha's guest house for some breakfast of waffles with maple syrup, and a side order of fried jack, and coffee. After breakfast, I took off the R80G/S top box removed the fractured top box support platform. Walter, the owner of Tropicool hotel where we stayed, took me to one of the two welders who was just down the back street about 50 feet. It looked like the main business for this welder was making fancy burglar bars for windows. I showed the piece, and told him what I wanted him to do. When I had talked to Al Jesse on the phone before I left, he suggested that any cracks I get, the weld bead should extend at least a 3/4" beyond to prevent subsequent fractures. I asked this guy to weld a bead 1" beyond the fracture points, and had him do four underside runs even though only three of them had ripped open. He ground them down a little, redrilled the screw hole that was slightly overlapped from the weld, and then put some black paint on the new bare metal. I asked him how much I owed him, .. He smiled, and said with a strong creole accent "whatever you think it's worth." Based off of prices in Mexico, and accounting for Belize price differences, and additional effort, I gave him B$10 which he seemed happy with. He had spent almost a half hour on this. When the power went out around 1:00pm we went over to Eva's for lunch who has the best rice in beans according to Fabian.... Eva's rice and beans consist of a generous helping of rice that has been cooked in coconut milk, and mixed with red beans. On top of this is a tender chicken that has been slow cooked in the mildest of curry sauces and coconut milk. Along side is a large grilled sweet plantain, and a generous helping of a delicious potato salad spiced with cumin that blends the flavors with the chicken, rice and beans. It's delicious! Two Belikin beers makes a perfect compliment. San Ignacio has a small town neighborly feel where after only a few days, we feel like we know everyone. While sitting outside of Eva's cafe drinking our Belikin and waiting for a plate of chicken and the best rice&beans in all of Belize, We saw Pete who runs Paac's hotel and does the cave tours... He waved to us from across the street, and came over. We asked how his cave trip went yesterday, and he asked about our trip up into Mountain Pine Ridge. We saw Chim who runs a grocery store/Land Rover parts store across the street getting a couple of tranny gears. Chim looks part hispanic, but speaks with a scottish accent. He asked his wife the other day why they bother with groceries when he does about $30 a day in groceries versus over $200 on Rover parts. He is proud of his cashew fruit wine and ginger wine that he brews and lets customers sample from the caps of the water bottle they are stored in. He just wired his 16 year old only son US$1,000 since he was stuck in Arizona with a broken truck and no money. Jose, a native Guatemalan, who runs the Central American Institute of Prehistoric and Traditional Cultures/guest house in Mountain Pine Ridge drove by the cafe in his red pickup truck with Luna, his happy tailless rottweiler, in the back and waved to us. We saw Fabian the electrician with his princess crown hair doo a little out of place walk by. He was distracted hailing down someone and didn't see us. Walter's sister in law who lived in Los Angeles for a couple years and has scheduled her first trip to go up into Mountain Pine Ridge in three weeks, was outside trying to remember how to use her old SLR getting ready for her trip. Martha's daughter of Martha's guest house, who runs the laundry service zipped by on her scooter delivering some laundry to some hotel. Just yesterday, she was teaching me phrases in Creole. Sam Tillet, the birder from Crooked Tree just arrived in town with the honeymoon couple from Detroit, Etaw and Celine. They had just gotten back from their trip to Tikal where they had a wonderful time, and stopped by Eva's cafe to have some lunch before they head back to Crooked Tree. While finishing my lunch, a kid comes up to me speaking an odd Spanish with a shoe shine box, He attempts to bargain with me to shine my shoes. The only problem is I'm wearing clothe laced Teva sandals. Twice I say to him, I have no shoes. Undaunted, he still attempts to bargain for a 50 cent shoe shine. Ralph, a friendly older looking rastafarian who likes to hang out in front of Eva's cafe says, "deese Guatemalan kids are not like de Belize kids, roonnin around doing shoe shines. Belize kids just seet at home in front of de TV while dey know dat Mom 'n Dad will provide for dem..." We did some shopping for food since we thought we might be camping tomorrow. We went to one place to buy the whole wheat bread, another for peanut butter, and still a third place for some Knott's berry farm strawberry jam. For our dinner snack we had a huge banana shake and a pile of nachos with melted cheese and ground beef. 8/22/97 R80G/S 27410 R100GS 18862 http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered