Friday, January 20, 2012

Sort of in denial

Its the last day for my co-worker that is moving on to bigger things. I should have been frantically working all week to get ahead or least robustly caught up to have some clear time to cover the new duties next week. But I've pretty much been just putzing along as usual. There is a card on my desk that is probably from her and I've skipped opening it in case I can't corral emotions. I skipped the farewell lunch with the excuse that I want to go to the farewell FAC and could not afford to be out of the office for both. In truth I did not want to attend a huge luncheon with all the liberals. M is friends with everyone and I am not sure of her politics, somewhat liberal I think, but more in libertarian sense, her dad suffered under commies and she is going to a big corporation.

Now its later afternoon and I'll probably have to force myself to go to the FAC at all or at least to stay for a polite length of time. The web page review says LOUD, ugh, I think I've been to the place once when the last co-worker left but it was summer so we were outside in patio seating. Sounds like they have muzak on fridays, yuck. Perhaps the outdoors lover will have convinced folks to go outside in the warm chinook weather. Oh well if its loud I do have a great excuse not to chat, everyone knows I have terribly wimpy volume and projection and would be inaudible over background noise.

3 comments:

Gerrick said...

Ok, Belize trip.
Day One.
I forgot my passport. Had to have it taken to the airport.
I slipped on the edge of the boat at the dock. Last year that dock had a 9 foot crocodile living under it. I decided to fall in the boat because I am not a fan of lizards. I am especially not a fan of lizards bigger than myself.
Day Two.
We swam in the river where there are no crocodiles. I jumped out of the boat, onto some rocks where I fell over on more rocks. 1 bruise established.
We went to a lagoon in the afternoon. The water was murky and I had a face to body encounter with a moon jelly fish a foot from my face. I backed off and the stupid thing followed me.
Iguanas are like squirrels there, every tree it seems like has its own. We also saw lots of birds.
Day Three.
We stopped at an abandoned sugar mill from the 1800s. The only thing left is the areas where the machinery was and the machines themselves. What is left of them is covered in mosses and rust. We also saw 2 different species of leaf cutter ants. One has a highway they use and they are quite large. The other uses a covered roadway and are about half the size of the larger ones. I didn’t have time to study them for more than a few minutes.
We also went to the Jaguar preserve in Cockscomb basin. I was expecting a coconut to hit me at this point. Instead a leaf landed on me. I also got a blister on my foot from walking in the jungle.
Day Four.
We left for Wee Wee Caye. Wee Wee is what the British called a species of leaf cutter ants. After arriving and getting huts/cabins at the field station we did a walk around the caye. I got stung when I was walking through the turtle grass. My calf burned like a stinging nettle had gotten to it. It lasted for a few hours. We saw a few fish, lots of coral and dead conch shells. We also saw an octopus that was hiding in a conch shell.
Day Five.
On this day I had mask failures and had water going up my nose and down my throat a few times. I figured out I had to pinch my mask and hold the snorkeling tube in place if I wanted to see anything. That night I fixed the problems with the mask.
Day Six.
We went snorkeling again and when we were headed back to the boat my dive buddy and I found out that what we thought was a clear passage back was really a valley that leads to a coral ridge. I ground ashore with some scratches including a somewhat bad one on my ankle. It healed up quick though.
Day Seven.
We went to San Ignacio for the final part of our trip. I slipped on this Swedish couples blacktop ramp and got a skinned knee, some scratches, and bruises.
Day Eight.
We went to Tikal. We walked around a lot and heard Howler Monkeys. I also saw a lot of graffiti. We saw a couple of spider monkeys too. I was pretty exhausted by this point.
Day Nine.
We got washed out of ATM and Barton Creek tours so the Lodge owner set us up with a tour of what they call the pottery cave. The local name is Chechem Ha. Very nice, discovered in 1989 and it has been largely open to small groups of tourists with local guides who keep a close eye on you. NO graffiti in the caves. Most of the pottery that they discovered there has been left in place. I also saw a scorpion spider in the cave. I got even more exhausted because you have to climb down one ridge and then up another to get to the cave.
Day Ten.
We went home.

My overall impression of the buildings is that Belize is near 3rd world status economically. Most of the areas I saw were small wooden buildings one step up from shacks. It was better than Guatemala though. Lots of Europeans go there for vacations. Not to mention Americans. It was a nice place I think.

Teresa/ride4fun said...

Sounds like my riding vacations. I always need to recuperate back at the job when I get home. I have snorkeled one time in my life. It was fun, I would go again if I was in a place with shallow reefs.

Gerrick said...

You want to go to Wee Wee Caye then. Lots of shallow water and the guides know the best places to dive.