Paget's Belize Journal

The Preliminary Trip - It Begins - First days - A tourist trip - Flying, sand crabs - San Pedro 1 - San Pedro 2 - Braids, snakes, dogs - Leaving Dangriga The Actual Stay - Help for library - Books; departure - Arrival; weather - Sensations, housing - Security, more housing - Security, snorkeling - Dock activities - Day-to-day life 1 - Day-to-day life 2 - The Quadrille - The apartment! - Cleaning and culture - Hurricane Irene - Too much reality - Hopkins Village 1 - Hopkins Village 2 - Weather - Minimum wage - Transportation - Food Experiments - The Brits; furniture - Meeting and greeting - Night noise, Settlement Day - Dragonflies! - More noise - A good 19th - Wrapping up the 19th - Traveling to Mexico - Thanksgiving in Mexico - Cockscomb Basin - A Belizean week-end - Tobacco Caye - Is it really Christmas? - This is the life - Christmas wishes - Headwear - Christmas Experiences - Lottery - Caye Caulker haircut - Caye Caulker 2 - Geckos - Red Bank - The last few days		Jun 30, 1999 Leaving Dangriga ------------------------------- Jun 24, 1999 Home again I'm home safely, but busy with a project until the weekend. I promise a good story about getting to the airstrip. Later -------------------------------- Sorry, I've been a while in recovering from my sojourn south. Here's one final Dangriga story. I was to leave on Tuesday afternoon about 2:00 and had lots of things to take care of -- finishing up a project at the office, packing all the hot sauce and belongings, sorting out the tips, etc. So when I left for the office at 8:00 I asked at the desk to make sure -- you have taken care of getting me and my baggage to the airstrip, right? Oh, yes, mum, everything is arranged. Okay. At Naturalight Productions, I worked hard to get the flyer done, tried mightily to make the press release into something interesting and completed as much research as I could on uploading software to ZD Net for evaluation and possible sale. I was a bit taken aback when Therese ordered pizza at 10:20 -- for a final lunch celebration -- but she turned out to be right. The pizza came at 12:15. It was good though. But this did make the timing even tighter. I rushed back to the resort, packed up and went down to the desk to hand out envelopes, pay the bill, say good-bye and get my taxi. Yes, they said, Mr. Marin would go and get my bags and be ready in just 5 minutes. In less, maybe 3 minutes, someone came from the back to say Mr. Marin was ready with the "walking taxi." And indeed it was. Mr. Marin had all my bags loaded into an orange wheel barrow (which matched his fetching orange tennis shoes) and started off down the path. I followed him. After a short amble through the fields (dodging those surviving blue crabs who are by now, extreeeemly cross) we arrived at the airstrip and I checked in. Mr. Marin and the young man in the Maya Airlines shack moved my bags from the wheel barrow to the wagon that serves as a luggage cart. I tipped Mr. Marin $2 and he ambled off down the path again. Simple, inexpensive and no problem with construction projects. On this flight I *almost* got to be the co-pilot since we were all full, but someone else beat me to it. Also, I'm pretty sure you had to be able to get into the plane _without_ the little steps if you wanted to sit in front. Next, one day in Belize City and then home. That was all of the messages until the next trip. This one starts with a plea for help for the Dangriga Library. Next