Calamitous Caye Caulker, Belize

We crossed over the border into Belize by bus from Merida, via Chetumal, after a gruelling overnight journey.

Bad-luck-event 1: Right from the minute we even tried to get into the country, we started having problems. Rhi wasn´t allowed in because her son Mac was on her passport, and so the other 4 of us went through. The reason the fishing-hat-wearing immigration official gave was that the lady who dealt with those cases didn´t turn up until 6am: she´d have to wait for an hour. Unsurprisingly, she never did showe up (after waiting more than an hour). The fishing-hat-wearing immigration guy finally said "Oh, I can take care of that... for $50 US". As if that wasn´t enough of a slap in the cheek, she didn´t have enough money on her, and he told her that she´d have to go back to Chetumal (back the way we´d come) to get cash. I mean, this is 6am, Rhi is travelling with lots of heavy bags and she has a 4 year old. Give the girl a break!

Belize City was much poorer and less developed than I´d expected. To be fair, the area around the bus station wasn´t a good area anyway, but at 8am, all the rough edges were glaring, front and centre. It was grey and drizzling, the roads all seemed to be deeply pitted dirt roads and the station itself swarmed with fare-hungry cab drivers. Our Jamaican driver seemed friendly, only to add ridiculous charges for stopping at an ATM while we withdrew cash.

We crossed over an unbelievably murky river to the water taxi pier, which again was swarming with people looking to cash in on tourist confusion. Interesting characters though - white guys with Creole accents, Mennonites (kind of Amish, visually kind of cowboy), Jamaicans, Chinese, East Asian Indians and everything in between.

We arrived in Caye Caulker, which is an hour´s boat ride away (a boat powered by three-250 horsepower outboards) to be greeted by a rain storm that lasted half an hour and left the sandy streets with deep pools.

Bright spot event: After 2 days of saturation from rain and reggae we finally were able to dive the Blue Hole, the main reason for our going to Belize in the first place. This was a 3 dive trip, the first to the Blue Hole atoll, then Half Moon Caye and finally The Aquarium. All were spectactular dives: we saw grey reef sharks, eagle rays, turltles, plenty of Southern stings, file fish, blue parrotfish (and lots more I don´t know the names of) and lots of weird and wonderful coral formations that we didn´t see in Mahahual. There were sponges that could fit at least 2 small children into, some long ones 8 feet long... Simply spectactular diving. We went through some deep swim-throughs to pop out onto an amazing reef wall covered in coral larger and more dense than anything I´d seen. Ah, if only the whole trip was like this.

Bad-luck-event 2: After a night out, one of the girls, Kirsty (she was actually a staff intern in Mahahual) broke her arm. Interesting circumstances, but I´m afraid I can´t divulge them here. She had to go back to the mainland to see a doctore, who told here that she´d need surgery to fix a damaged nerve. Scary news, especially when you´re away. To add to the bad luck, Kirsty had already organized to do her diving intructor´s course in Honduras, but she now has to fly home to properly set her arm, which was broken in four places.

The third piece of bad luck was the most serious. Bel, who had gone to Mexico City while we were in Merida (and so missed out on our Blue Hole dive) booked herself to go a couple of days after we´d been. Some other GVI folks who happened to be there at the same time were also booked to go, all of them set to leave at 6am. Meanwhile, the rest of us were in bed, only to be woken by the most frightening lightening storms I´d ever been in. It turns out that while we were in bed, Bel´s boat was struck by lightening, knocking out the radio and the engines. All of them were thrown several metres and when they came round, the captain and one of the divemasters were unconscious. One of the other divemasters swam 400m to shore to get help, the rest took it in turns to do CPR. Luckily, a British army helicopter was nearby - still an hour and a half away - all the while they performed CPR on the captain and the divemaster. I can attest to at least the physical aspect of how tiring this is: I can only imagine how traumatic it must have been to do it in a real situation. The helicopter took them to a nearby resort, those with less serious injuries returned to Caye Caulker with stitches, bruises, torn eardrums, and scorched skin from metallic jewellery, while the captain of the boat and the other seriously injured crew member were taken to a hospital.

We found out the next day that the captain was fine, but couldn´t see out of one eye due to a splinter. The other crew member didn´t make it. It may sound like an abrupt way to say it, but I suppose that´s the way it must be, especially for a second-hand account.

I´m now in Playa del Carmen, again, and even simply recounting the story of the lightening strike seems surreal. Tomorrow I fly to New York. And on a brighter note, I have an interviews lined up for July 12th with the global HR people in New York. Time to make some money again.