Camping in the Jungle
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2006
1
16
49
Trip End
Ongoing
Steadfast Village, Belize
Sunday, August 27, 2006
From the minute I stepped in the front door to the second that I left to head back into Guatemala I was treated like I was part of the family, not just a tourist. Mas has 5 little boys running around, dancing to reggae, charging through their yard, and always finding trouble in some way or another.. They are some cute kids though. I took a walk to their local tienda and 2 of the boys followed me and held me hand all the way there, very funny stuff.
Soledad, Mas's wife is an incredible cook. We were eating shark empenadas, all kinds of fried and battered fish and other incredible foods I have never tried before. They live completely off the land as well which is pretty cool. Mas is a fisherman and does some hardcore spear fishing with no diving equipment going down to depths of up to 60 feet, with nothing but a rope tied around his waist and a spear gun in his hand. Whatever grows off of the trees, such as fruits and veggies are sought out mostly by Edward, Mas's oldest son, who is about 10 I believe. It was definitely a way of life that I have never encountered but it was extremely refreshing to see how other people live.
Mas is also a Rastafari, so it's in his religion to smoke herb.. Any religion that allows a young man to smoke herb religiously is something I knew I would definitely be down with.. So from the start of the morning to the wee hours of the night, there were constant spliffs being passed around. I also became friends with some of his friends that came over and hung out for the day, also burning extreme amounts of herb.. They smoke pure L's down here too, no papers, not even regular blunts like philly's.. The use this tobacco leaf they call Funta Leaf, which is just a natural big tobacco leaf you buy for like 50 cents a sheet.. It's safe to say I really enjoy those and made a slight purchase before heading back into Guatemala.
They also took me out on a very cool jungle trek out to this amazing waterfall, straight up in the jungle.. It took about 45 minutes of tough trekking up a river, walking on slippery rocks, holding onto trees and slipping a few times, but when we got there is was amazing.. nice cool water, a great waterfall, cliffs to jump off of and a nice pool to fester in. The walk over was interesting as well.. It started out with just 4 of us, and as we're heading down the Hummingbird Highway, we kept bumping into more friends of Mas's and by the time we reached the entrance we were about 8 deep.. Twisting L's as we walked along. It was a very memorable experience to say the least.
The rest of the night we just sat around, ate dinner, smoked some more, and listened to reggae.. I ended up staying up until about 2am with Soledad making this very cool bracelet she made for me. Although they spoke mostly Creole, I was able to make out a lot of what they were saying, but at times, I was completely lost when they talked amongst thereselves, but they translated when I couldn't understand.. I've never in my life felt so welcome in a home of strangers with whom I have just met.
So after camping out in their backyard for the night in a tent Mas had, I woke up early ate another delicious fresh seafood breakfast and headed back to Dangriga to pick up a stack of funta leaf and take another bus down the coast of Belize to the southern most coastal village of Punta Gorda, where I'll be taking an hour boat ride across the Gulf of Honduras back into Guatemala.
Talk to you guys soon.
Chris
