Be Light vs. Xtralife: No Competition!

I'm quite the fan of sugar free drinks as my last post about the sugar-free, non-fat, decaf vanilla latte probably dropped a pretty big clue. I just figure that I'd rather spend my calories on food than on liquid, it's a personal thing, but at the same time I still like a flavorful drink! While, water is okay, I just have never been a person to crave water. I know I should drink more water to stay hydrated and flush out toxins, but I just can't get my brain to send the right signals to make me think, "hey, you, DUM DUM, drink water NOW!" (I'm not sure why it seemed appropriate that my brain should talk like the big Polynesian head statue in the movie A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, but you get the idea.) Only when I'm working out do I really remember to drink water (thankfully I'm doing that 5 days a week now), but I could go all day at the office or home on the weekends without drinking a sip.

I find I can only really get myself excited about drinking something that has a really good flavor. And I'd like to argue that diet drinks can fall into that category...well,sometimes. In the US, there are a bajillion varieties of diet sodas, diet iced teas, sugar-free flavored waters, etc., you name it, they've got it. Well here in Mexico, I've discovered, that while there are a few varieties of sugar-free drinks, most people REALLY like their full sugar (or extra sugary) sodas, flavored "aguas", and juices. In fact, one of the most popular local drinks, horchata (a beverage made from water, sugar, rice powder, and spices like cinnamon) packs a whopping 100 calories per 8 oz. I have to admit it's delicious, but I finally got myself to stop ordering it at restaurants once I looked up the nutrition facts and saw that calorie count. I can't justify sucking down that many calories on a drink, and the normal glass that most restaurants serve horchata in holds far more than 8 oz. The warning from the french wife of one of my coworkers also helped me kick the horchata habit when she told me she gained several kilos when she first moved here even though her diet hadn't changed, she'd just started drinking horchata every day. That did it for me, horchata was no longer my go-to drink.

So, a few months ago, I decided that I needed to find a good replacement in the form of a sugar-free beverage. I've always been a fan of lemonade, and back stateside I could usually find a good lemon-flavored diet beverage in the form of crystal lite or something like that, but crystal lite was no where to be found here, so I had to do some taste-testing. I discovered there are two main brands providing a lemon (or limon) flavored sugar-free bottled drink: Be Light & Xtralife. Well, the whole point of this post is to sing my praises of BE LIGHT. There is absolutely no competition. Be Light makes an acceptable pleasant tasting substitute for real lemonade, Xtralife tastes like battery acid. There's no nice way to put it! I'm not sure if it's the artificial flavors they use or the artificial sweetner that makes the difference (I'll have to check into that), but Be Light gets two thumbs up from me, and Xtralife, well two thumbs down really doesn't even cut it, I give it, two thumbs, toes, head and nose down. I'd sooner pour Xtralife into my car than into my body.

Fun Related Recent Event: I walked into a local restaurant near my work this week, Pollo Brujo. I'm not a frequent customer, but I go there for lunch about once a week or at least every other week because the serve yummy grilled chicken at cheap cheap prices. Well on this visit, as soon as I sat down, the nice waiter recognized me and brought over a Be Light Limon without even asking remembering my preference for the drink, I'm guessing from my past visits. He got a nice extra tip from me, yes siree bob, and I got to start sipping on my Be Light without even the slightest wait.

Moral of the story: When in Mexico and you're looking for a good drink but want to spare the calories, choose Be Light. When looking for a liquid to clean your car engine with, choose Xtralife.

**Even though it may seem to the contrary, I was not paid by Be Light or Starbucks to write these last two articles. My personal search for the perfect sugar-free beverage provided the inspiration. And yes, I was drinking a Be Light that I picked up at Oxxo (Mexico's most popular convenience store) on the way home while writing this piece. SLUUUUURP!

Sugar-free, non-fat, decaf Vanilla Latte: No, I'm not ordering air!

Thank goodness Merida has a Starbucks, well a few actually! While, yes, the whole idea of living in another country is about getting away from everything you're used to and learning to live like the "natives" in your new country, Starbucks thankfully now crosses all boarders. It wasn't my idea, I swear, but some girls from my office had the weekly tradition before I even moved here last year of meeting at Starbucks on Wednesday evenings to work on Masters Degree and scholarship applications, and as soon as I heard about this, I quickly started to join them. Supposedly this tradition was a carry-over from their recent college years when they'd meet at Starbucks for study-sessions...I guess some things are really becoming universal! I know we had serious cram sessions at Starbucks during my years at Boston University (2001-2005) as well, thousands of miles and half a continent away.

It really was music to my ears when I learned that Starbucks had already taken up shop in Merida because, really, where else was I going to find my favorite coffee drink: the sugar-free, non-fat, decaf vanilla latte, grande, of course? I learned quickly that if I wanted to ask for this in Spanish I needed to say: Grande "Sugar-Free" Vainilla Latte Lite con cafe descafeinado. Always important to know how to ask for the necessities, right? I will admit that I always feel a little silly asking for this drink because it has so many descriptors, and it sounds like I'm just saying "no this, no that, no, no, no!" But the result is my personal crack...warm, coffee goodness, without all the sugar and fat that most coffee drinks have. I've recently added the decaf request to the drink order because when you already have insomnia you don't need two shots of caffeine fueling it even more just a few hours before you're supposed to be attempting to sleep. I look forward to that overpriced cup of fake sugar, processed milk, and chemically altered espresso every week. I start thinking about it on Monday, in fact, and my Starbucks daydreams get me through until Wednesday. The prices are the only downside to my Mexican Starbucks coffee, and I am personally a little surprised that anyone actually buys them here. I guess the Starbucks brand is just that powerful that people are willing to pay for their overpriced coffees no matter how much they make. My grande coffee costs 45 pesos, which is about the same (maybe a little less) than the same drink in the US. You can get a whole meal at a cocina economic for that price in Merida, so they've definitely not scaled the prices to match the local economy.

I am a little amused because I've become a bit of a "celebrity" at the Starbucks we frequent (the one near the Chapur department store) because just like at American Starbucks, the staff has to ask your name, yell it to the barista, who then writes it on your cup along with your order, and my name is really quite odd to most Mexicans. It took them a couple of tries, misinterpretting my name as Carla or Clara, more common Spanish names, until I finally got them in the last few weeks to realize that no, in fact, my name really is CARA, which translates to them as "FACE". I guess I can understand why it took so long for them to catch on that that was actually my name and not a joke because I don't see kids in the US running around with names referring to body parts either. Me responding "hola, me llamo Cara" would be like someone saying "Hi, my name is Foot" in English, and if someone said that to me I'd probably look at him weird and ask him to repeat that again just to make sure I had heard him right. And even if he assured me that was his name, I'd still probably think he was yanking my chain. When I walked in to order my drink this evening, however, there was instant recognition from the guy behind the register who greeted me with "Que le puede ofrecer CARA!" What satisifaction...victory was finally mine!

Top 10 Best and Worst Things about Living in Mexico

Let's start with best...

10) Winter, what winter? You mean those two weeks when it was cloudy and I had to wear a light sweater...oh, I think I sneezed and I missed it.

9) Everything tastes better with chile and limon on it! Thank goodness because everything, I mean everything, comes in those flavors...there's no such thing as plain cheetohs even, Mexican cheetohs have their obligatory orange powdered cheese and then they are coated in a layer of chile powder for a nice little kick. They even put chile on fruit...mangos con chile, limon, y sal, oh my goodness, words can not even describe how that is just the most perfect snack ever...sweet, salty, spicy, and either crunchy (the green mango variety) or soft and juicy (during the summer months).

8) I can keep putting off being an adult because I can afford to pay people to be my "mom" while at the same time helping support my neighbors and local economy, so it's WIN/WIN...when I don't want to cook, Dona Socorrito's cocina economica across the street will cook me up a full home-cooked meal for 30 pesos (less than $3), the guy 3 houses down across the street has washing machines in the front room of his house and will wash, dry, and fold all my laundry for 80 pesos (less than $7), and my landlord's wife encouraged me to hire this sweet woman named Angela who will clean my house (including straigtening my closet and making my bed, god bless her) for 100 pesos, which is what she asked for, but I always give her at least 150-200 pesos because I just appreciate her too much to pay her less than $10 for all that work.

7) You don't have to rush anywhere because as long as you arrive within an hour and half to two hours of your agreed upon time, you're still on time. I affectionately refer to this as Mexican-Standard time.

6) I have a better tan than many of my Mexican friends because I still enjoy the sun whereas they've had this endless summer their whole lives, so it's totally old news to them and the air-conditioned indoors is more appealing. Plus the beach is just 30 minutes away, what excuse do I have not to have a tan?!

5) Sleeping in a "hamaca" (or hammock) is like being back in the womb, so comfy!

4) Beer is cheaper than water...if I liked beer more this would be closer to #1, but when I am in the mood for a nice cold one, it sure is nice to know the coins in the bottom of your pocket will foot the bill.

3) Mexicans love their two-for-one promotions. And since two is always better than one, this makes my best of list.

2) Someone always knows someone...you need a mechanic, someone's uncle is a mechanic, you need a dress dry cleaned, someone's brother owns a dry cleaner, you need a recipe for mole, everyone's mother has the "best mole recipe ever".

1) Healthcare is affordable and accessible to everyone. There are quick walk-in clinics where someone can see a real doctor for 30 pesos (less than $3) for common ailments, and even the full cost to see a specialist usually runs you only about the cost of a standard insurance co-pay in the US. As an American fully in favor of Obama's healthcare reform efforts, I find the Mexican healthcare system refreshing!

And now the worst...

10) Topes! Mexicans love to keep drivers cautious and on their toes by putting speedbumps called "topes" it seems like every other block within in their cities and small towns. And while they generally have a sign alerting you that there is one approaching and a sign designating their location, occasionally there will be an unmarked one and your car's shocks and your neck will want to kill you after you drive over that unmarked one too quickly because you didn't see it fast enough.

9) There are no standardized street-labeling systems that are city-wide. Most cities, like Merida, developed out of small villages that expanded and ended up joining together into larger cities. You can literally be driving on a street that is labeled Calle 117 on the left-hand side of the road and 49 on the right-hand side of the road and that same street will change to Calle 102 without any notice or turning and then back to 117 again a few minutes later. Giving directions is next to impossible.

8) While Mexican standard-time was on my best of list, I have to put it on my worst of list too because while I have free reign to be late where ever I'm going, so does everyone else, so it means that no one ever shows up on time including service people. I had to wait almost a full week for someone to come install my cable, and I'm told that's pretty standard. My landlord actually had to hire a guy to sit and wait for this supposed cable-installation guy all week on the off-chance that he might show up sometime between 9am and 5pm Monday through Friday.

7) Seemingly exotic sounding ailments like Dengue Fever are common-place; 3 people in my office got Dengue within a month of each other. Before living here, I'd never met one person who'd gotten it. The symptoms didn't sound pleasant at all (high fever, chills, body aches, etc.) and I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't get it.

6) Bugs...this item has two subsections, starting first with the small variety (aka MOSQUITOS, MOSQUITOS, MOSQUITOS!!). I have been the victim of numerous mosquito attacks, even in my own apartment here, and I hate, HATE, itching. I have no self-control against scratching. It took me 2 months to figure out they were getting in through my shower drain so I was being bitten all night long. I spent a small fortune on any insect spray that said "Rapido, se ven morir!" on the can, meaning, "It works so fast you can see them DIE!" I finally fixed this problem by putting a plastic dinner plate over the drain...but someone how a few little buggers still keep getting in.

Now, moving on to the large bug variety, let's discuss how a scorpion showed up in my house one day a few weeks ago. This did not make me very happy. I called my landlord like a scared child and screeched and hopped on top of a chair as he shooed it out of my house with a broom as his wife laughed at me by his side. They told me "oh, it's just an alacran, it won't kill you." That was supposed to make me feel better. I promptly googled alacran and found out that's just the name of the local SCORPION, and while the internet confirmed that the Yucatan variety would not in fact kill me, it's sting still would have made my tongue go numb and it would have hurt like a MOTHER! I feel justified in my distaste in its presence in the same edifice that I sleep in, NOT OK. period.

5) Everything is handled in cash and hand-written receipts. Let me just tell you, buying a used car was quite the ordeal. I've never showed up with a plastic sandwhich baggie filled with money before for any purchase, but $3000 works out to 45000 Pesos, and that was a lot of bills. Took me 3 days to pull that much out of various ATMs because the ATMs all had 5000 peso limits. The hand-written note that I received confirming my purchase didn't make me feel all that secure either, but hey, my rent is paid every month in cash too and I get a nice little hand-written note from my landlord's wife confirming that payment. I'll never feel 100% comfortable with this way of doing business, but I'm dealing.

4) Humidity. I have never acclimated to humidity no matter how much I experienced growing up in Maryland when there were times that if felt like a "pea soup" we used to say back in the good ole MD. It can be close to 100% humidity here in the Yucatan, and let's just say for a girl who sweats for all the people on earth who don't sweat, that humidity factor isn't the most pleasant thing.

3) Machismo. Enough said...I think, it's just stupid. Men need to get over themselves and let a woman be independent without feeling threatened.

2) Drinking and driving...this is very prevalent here and it makes me sad. No matter where you are, getting behind the wheel after consuming alcohol is just not safe and it risks lives. And no one is going to convince me that it's ok because its a cultural norm.

1) Money not being safe in Mexican banks. This is on behalf of a few of my Mexican friends who experienced fraudulent transactions on their debit cards and their banks basically saying "tough tooties" and claiming there was no evidence that they didn't make the charges (even though the charges were "international" and they had passport records that they were in the country at the time of the transactions) and thus refused over and over again to reimburse them. My two friends were lucky because the head of our office was able to negotiate reimbursement for them because he was using the same bank for some business needs and he was able to ask that they be reimbursed as a pre-cursor to using that bank. The whole process took close to 5 months for them to get their money back and while their story worked out happily there are several other people in our office who said this happened to them and they NEVER got their money back. So this makes my #1 worst thing about living in Mexico because everyone deserves to feel their money is safe no matter where they live!

Duece Biggelow was on my plane!

Last month, I flew connecting through Mexico City (DF) into LA for a long weekend to visit my cousin, who is going to school out in California. Now I'm pretty sure it's a common occurrence for celebrity sightings to happen on flights into LA, being that most actors live in or around LA for easy access to Hollywood, but I don't see celebrities on an everyday basis, so this sighting was pretty exciting for me. I was boarding the plane for the connection leaving DF, minding my own business, and when I found my seat and turned around to put my backpack in the overhead compartment, my eyes naturally scanned the passengers behind me and my brain instantly recognized Rob Schneider walking down the aisle right behind me. The biggest goofiest grin took up residence on my face, so I took my seat quickly so he wouldn't notice. No, I am not wealthy enough to fly first class, so this sighting actually took place in COACH! He ended up sitting in the aisle seat about two rows behind me. And I must confess, I did get up a couple of extra times to "stretch" during that flight just so I could take quick glances at him just to make sure I wasn't imagining it. And NO, I did not ask him for his autograph or say "hi" and drool like some stalker while asking if I could take his photo, I just enjoyed the simple "sighting" aspect of it. It certainly made the trip that much more memorable, especially since I've been a huge Rob Schneider fan ever since the Deuce Biggelow Male Giggelo movies. I was very proud of myself for keeping it to myself...well mostly. I had to tell someone right? I was bursting, so I told the two ladies in the seats next to me. They didn't really know who he was, so it wasn't that big a deal for them, but at least I got to share the experience with someone in the moment. I didn't go blabbing to the rest of the plane at least. I truthfully didn't approach him or say anything to him because I do truely believe everyone's entitled to privacy, and when someone, even a celebrity, is flying home from a trip, they deserve their anonymity just like everyone else. Of course, I was still staring a wee bit when we were going through immigration and customs in LA and I saw that he had to go through the American line and his female companion had to go through the foreigners line, so I think his girlfriend (perhaps?), a very pretty much younger-looking girl, may have been Mexican...hence their presence in Mexico City (that was my guess). I saw that a couple of bozos standing behind him in the line also recognized him and kept trying to figure out a way to talk to him. I just kept thinking "c'mon guys, don't do it!! Leave the poor guy alone." Rob was pretty engrossed in a book though (good for him) and was able to effectively ignore them. His one rather celebrity quirk that I appreciated was that he was wearing sunglasses at night, yup, just like the 80s song. I mean, who needs sunglasses at night let alone on a plane? It screams, "please don't recognize me." As if sun glasses could keep me from recognizing one of my favorite comedians...puh-leeze! Good try though, Rob. Hope he had a nice flight, I know I certainly did.

WEEKEND SPOTLIGHT: Belize (2009)

**Since I don't work on the weekends, I've decided it would be perfect to start a Weekend Spotlight section for this blog. I'll highlight one (or more, if I have the time) countries or cities that I've visited and post the articles every Weekend including a photo slide show (if I have digital photos). I only started using my first digital camera in 2007 (thank you dad!), but I may do some articles on countries that I traveled to back before my "digital age" when I was exclusively a film photographer. I promise to still make an effort to find stock-photos to accompany any articles to show the places that I'm writing about which I visited pre-2007. That way, this will force me to upload pictures for trips that I've been too lazy to upload yet, and to reminisce about some of my favorite destinations as well.

BELIZE: I helped one of my clients organize a custom tour to Belize last summer for a group of about 20 North Carolina teaching fellows. Since I work for an educational travel company, I'm allowed to accompany one of our groups on a trip each year. I decided to travel with this group for two reasons: (1) I'd never been to Belize before and (2) since this was an older group (college-age instead of high schoolers like the majority of our travelers), we'd been able to add some really cool activities to the itinerary, like going on 4-wheel ATVs through the jungle. It was a nice change of pace to be going on a trip with folks closer to my age after two summer trips to Europe with 13-18 year olds the two previous years!

This was our itinerary:
Day 1 Hello Belize
Meet your Tour Director and check into hotel
Day 2 Belize City
Boat ride down the New River to visit Lamanai Ruins
Day 3 Belize City
Peccary Park ATV Excursion
Belize Zoo & Tropical Education Center visit
Day 4 Belize--San Ignacio
Travel to San Ignacio
Canopy Tour in rainforest
Explore River Caves in Cayo District
Day 5 San Ignacio--Ambergris Caye
Cruise on Olde Belize River
Travel to Ambergris Caye
Day 6 Ambergris Caye
Snorkelling tour of Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Alley
Free time
Day 7 Ambergris Caye
Free time
Day 8 Flight home from Belize

Belize has the perfect balance of cultural adventure, adrenaline-packed activities, wild-life viewing at its finest, and relaxing beach time to make for a fun and educational vacation. Belize turned out to be even more culturally diverse than I had ever imagined. Before traveling there, I knew that Belize had been a British colony so the official langauge of the country was English because it still held some ties to the UK. I figured since it was right next to Mexico and north of Guatemala, a lot of Spanish would actually be spoken and that a bulk of the population would be of indegenous and British colonial decent. I quickly learned, however, that the majority of the population was in fact of African decent due to the role that Belize played in the caribbean slave trade. They also had a surprisingly large number of Chinese and Indians living there owning and operating the majority of the food and whole-sale related businesses. I even found a full fledged Hindu temple in downtown Belize City and I heard from some locals that you could see women in Sahris walking around that part of town most days of the week. I was lucky to have an extra day before the rest of the group arrived into Belize City to do some exploring on my own. I figured the best thing to do was hire a local taxi driver to show me around, and the $20 he charged was well worth the personal tour. I found out the majority of locals considered themselves tri-lingual, speaking primarily among themselves "Kriol" (an english-based creole), proper English (with tourists), and Spanish. If you listened hard enough to the Kriol they spoke to each other, you could pick out some of the English words and even some of the older English expressions that had remained in tact, such as "Mek aste" meaning "hurry up" based on the old English expression "make haste." Being the linguistics nerd that I am, I asked our guide to take me to a book store so I could pick up some books about Kriol. Luckily a linguist had published both a dictionary and "Travul Buk" containing the most common phrases that a tourist would need. I bought both, and despite sounding like a fool, I made my best attempt at trying out the phrases in the book with our guide and driver. I think they appreciated my attempt, but I'm sure they were thinking "silly white girl" the whole time, but they were nice enough to play along.

For our adrenaline junkies, my client had requested zip-lining, 4-wheel ATVing, hiking/cave tubing, and snorkelling in shark & ray alley to be included in the itinerary. Now, I am a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to heights (I didn't even go to the top of the Eiffel Tower while in Paris a few years ago due to a mild panic attack thinking about being so high up), but I managed my way through the zip-lining without freaking out. I just didn't look down, so I suppose I missed some of the point of seeing the jungle from up in the canopy, but oh well, I didn't start hyperventalating so I couned that as a WIN. Since I'm not a tiny little thing, I picked up some serious speed on the zip-lines themselves and whacked into some brave "catchers" who prevented me for the most part from whacking into the trunks of the trees supporting the launching platforms. I guess it was better to bowl over a few well-meaning men than plow feet first into a tree. One guy sort of missed his catch and I did hit fairly hard into one truck, but it was luckily well-padded so there was no harm done (except maybe to my pride). The hardest part wasn't the zipping and the speed because they just guided you along pretty quick clicking you in and out of the harness system, it was coming down at the end that posed the real problem. They wanted me to sit down backwards off the edge of a platform some 100 feet in the air. In my head I knew the harness would kick in and support me once I got to a full seated position, but the whole sitting down into nothingness so high up had my knees shaking so badly they almost buckled out from under me. It took the staff a good 10 minutes to talk me down off the platform and I wanted to punch the guy holding my rope at the end because he tried to use it to pull me over the edge a couple of times, which I did not appreciate, thank you very much. I survived, and that's what counts.

ATVing and snorkelling probably tied for my favorite activities because they did not involve any heights and both had some interesting surprises. The ATVing took place on a privately owned section of jungle land and was operated by a very nice family. Other than needing to jump start a number of the vehicles, it was a relatively safely and professionally run facility. They also had an undocumented Mayan archaeological cave site on their land that they allowed us to stop to visit, which was an unexpected suprise. They had us unload at a random spot during the ride and then gave us helmets with head lamps so we could check out the pottery and bones still inside the cave. It was a bit of a squeeze and gymnastics act to get through the narrow opening of the cave, but overall very fascinating to get to visit a site that was inhabited hundreds if not thousands of years before and served as a natural shelter. I'm sure the majority of our group enjoyed racing around the cleared-out jungle paths and spraying each other with mud going through the big puddles, but the cave site was my favorite part of that day's adventures. Snorkelling in shark & ray alley on Ambergris Caye (or locally referred to as San Pedro--yes, like the Madonna song "La Isla Bonita") was amazing, I have to admit. I had only snorkelled once before in the Pacific on the island of Aitutaki during my semester abroad's visit to the Cook Islands, and I'd been blown away by the giant clams and brightly colored fish there, but they didn't have sharks. So when they told me there would actually be sharks and sting rays where I'd be swimming there in Belize (hence the name Shark & Ray Alley), I was hesitant to get in the water even though they assured me nurse sharks were small and would not bite a human (the whole they're more afraid of you than you are of them song and dance). They even hung "chum buckets" under the boats to attract the sharks to come closer. I remember thinking "no, no, no, that really isn't necessary, let them stay where they are...hopefully far away from me." I did finally talk myself into getting into the water and as soon as my face went below the surface, I was once again mesmerized by the underwater world in front of me as I'd been the time before. The unexpected surprise came not from a shark or ray, which there were plenty of, but from a barracuda. I was swimming along, minding my own business, following a cute little yellow fish swimming about 2 or 3 feet in front of me when out of the corner of my eye a barracuda darts right in front of me and bites the cute little fish clean in half and swims away just as fast as it appeared. Our snorkelling guide, who was quite the laid-back, island living pot-head, had been swimming right along side me and saw this supposedly rare sight as well, so he came up to the surface and spits out his snorkel to exclaim "Duuuuuuude, that was narly! That like never happens, did you see that Barracuda, man?" I figured since the barracuda didn't bite me in half, I was happy I'd gotten to see it. I was just going to keep my distance from "cute little fish" in the future so I wouldn't become barracuda bait.

The cave tubing was definitely worth doing, though, I didn't particularly enjoy the 45 minute hike up to the launching site. It's not that I don't enjoy a good hike, it was the fact that I had to walk in very worn out water shoes that I rented off a guy and carry the big inner tubes the whole way and there just isn't a good way to carry those things. Plus was really hot and sticky as you would expect the jungle to be. I ended up balancing the rim of the tube on my forehead for a while, but the bouncing on my back got annoying so I ended up carrying it the rest of the way, which bugged the heck out of my wrist to keep it off the ground. I was ecstatic by the time we reached the place we could actually get in the water because I was verging on a good old fashioned "Are we there yet?" whine just as we rounded the bend that apprached the river. I luckily got to keep my adult status by avoiding that statement. Our guides followed along with us in the river to ensure we didn't run into any big rocks in the caves or into the spiny plants along the river banks further down. I was impressed with how they kept their balance walking alongside us and guiding the tube chain that we created by linking one person's feet under the armpits of the person in front of them through the very small patches of rapids to ensure we didn't get pulled to far to one side and hit the riverbank. The rock formations inside the caves were pretty impressive and for the most part it was just a relaxing float down the river aside from the patch or two of fast moving water, which really couldn't be called rapids to be honest. The group found a rope swing near the end of the river and since I don't swing since several embarrassing mishaps on ropes back at camp as a teenager(forgetting to lift my legs high enough...well,not worth getting into really), let's just say I was happy to act as videographer and photographer as they took turns climbing to the top of a big boulder and using the rope to propel themselves out to a deep spot where they could dive in. All in all, it was another worthy inclusion on the trip.

Moving on to wild-life, Belize really had it all. The best viewing was done on the river cruise that we took to visit the Lamanai Ruins early in the trip. Our skilled guides were able to stop the boat so we could photograph crocodiles, Jesus birds (so-called for their ability to seemingly walk on water), and even a spider monkey, which our guide fed a banana to. At the Lamanai Ruins we encoutered two howler monkey clans fighting over territory in the canopy above us and got to hear their lion-like howls as they chased each other from branch to branch above our heads. The sound was actually quite frightening, but when you saw the monkeys themselves, they were much smaller than the animal you imagine that sound is coming from. The guide told us that they produce the unique sound with a specially evolved bone in their windpipe. I really wished I had a video camera because that howl is really hard to describe without hearing it yourself. Other animals that our guide pointed out along the way back included blood sucking bats (they assured us, they just sucked on cow blood), various lizards, and even africanized bees (their hive was really architectural and different from normal honey bees). My client had visited Belize the year before and hand't gotten to see as much wild-life on the boat cruise she'd been on, so she had also asked that we add a visit to the Belize zoo to ensure the group wouldn't return feeling like they'd missed seeing any animals, but by the time we got there, our group was already pretty impressed with what we'd gotten to see out in nature. The one thing the zoo was able to offer that couldn't happen out in nature was an up-close encounter with their jaguar. They got to go into the Jaguar sactuary and get inside a cage while they let the Jaguar out and it climbed all over the cage and did tricks for them, well if you can call eating pieces of raw chicken tricks, but again this was something I was happy to watch, but didn't need to be up-close and personal with. Unfortunately, I would get my own up-close encounter with nature later that day at Pook's Hill Lodge where we stayed out in the Cayo Jungle District. I was getting ready for bed in my private cabana, which I absolutely adored, up until I went to close the curtains. As I pulled the folds apart I discovered a SCORPION clinging to the fabric. It was fairly late, and I was all by myself, so I didn't know what to do. I was going to go try to find our guide in the dark, but I noticed since the bug wasn't moving and there was a spot on the curtain that looked as if it had been squished by the previous occupant, it was probably dead and I could wait until morning. So I just left the curtain closed so I didn't have to look at it, smart right? Wrong! When I did grab the guide in the morning to help me remove the scorpion from the curtain, I went to show him where it had been and...dun dun dun...it was GONE! Luckily, it hadn't gone far, and we found it just a little bit to the left of the curtain. The guide found two wooden hangers in the closet and acted as my hero by killing it, and I could once again breath easy. If being in the middle of the jungle wasn't nerve-wracking enough, did I really need a scorpion trying to sting me while I was asleep?

After that harrowing portion of the adventure, I was more than ready for our beach time out in Ambergris Caye. We got to the island by returning to Belize City and taking the high-speed ferry over. Our hotel was well-located, I felt, because it was about 20 minutes from the busy part of town where everyone lived and the tourists congretated. It was easy enough to get into town by renting a golf cart, which was the only type of motorized vehicle other than taxi vans allowed on the island, and I found a few ladies at the hotel who invited me along for some riotously fun golf-cart cruising. We had a small private beach at the hotel, which I quite enjoyed lounging on as well as a pool, which was good for cooling off in between naps on the beach. A couple days of worshipping the sun and sitting by the ocean was a perfect way to wrap up the trip. With pina colada in hand and my butt parked in a chaise lounge, I finally got to say I was officially on vacation, and it was glorious. I hope to return to Belize in a few years for more sun worshipping and embarassing attempts at speaking Kriol. I truthfully don't expect the country to be much more developed than it was during this visit, although I could be wrong. Life there seemed to operate at a very slow, "we'll do it when we get around to it" pace. So we'll just have to see if they've "gotten around to it" by the time I go back, but fingers crossed, I hope it will be just as I left it, balancing on the edge of development but still untouched enough to still offer some real adventure.

Merida, Mexico 2009-Present

Current location: Merida, Mexico

I first came down to Merida last year for a 4 week assignment for my company, "to improve the working relationship between our Boston headquarters and the customer care office" here in the Yucatan. Now it certainly didn't hurt that those 4 weeks were taking place during January/February when weather in Boston is cold (we're talkin' below freezing), gray, and miserable!! My manager told me that I really "took one for the team" with with that assignment, and I couldn't agree more. If traveling closer to the equator during the coldest months of the year is what it takes to improve business, I'm willing to do whatever it takes. I recently found a journal entry from the first week of the assignment where I had written: "I can't believe that I'm sitting in an open-front restaurant in the middle of January, in short sleeves, enjoying the breeze, and sipping on an horchata. Just four days ago, I was freezing my butt off in Boston...my soul feels refreshed." Merida was most certainly a breath of fresh air after all of the winters I'd spent in Boston (4 during college & 3 as a "working professional" only having a short 2 year stint in between spent living in Virginia Beach, which had milder winters). I absolutely fell in love with the city, so much so that I petitioned to have that initial assignment extended to 6 weeks. And thankfully, the powers-that-be obliged.

With that extension of my assignment, I got to experience my first Merida CARNAVAL (Feb. 2009). Outside New Orleans and their famous Mardi Gras festivities, carnaval isn't celebrated widely in the US, so it was a real treat to get to be here during this traditional pre-Lent celebration. People from all over the city and surrounding towns filled Merida's main drag, Paseo Montejo, for 5 days drinking beer (SOL, seemed to be the most preferred variety, but Corona made a strong showing as well), listening to concerts at various stages set-up at intervals down the avenida, watching scantilly clad girls shake "what their mamas gave 'em" for all kinds of promotions from coca-cola to cell phone providers (not as scantilly clad as the infamous Brazilian topless carnaval dancers--think more along the lines of short-shorts and mid-rif bearing tops paired with "f**k me" boots), and enjoying treats from street-food vendors selling local favorites including elotes/esquites (corn on the cob or as kernels in a cup with the optional toppings of cream, cheese, CHILE, and limon--best with all 4 toppings, I was instructed, and the spicier the better), marquesitas (a thin pancake cooked over a hot flame in an iron press, which leaves a diamond pattern, that can be filled with cheese, queso de bola (the local favorite, which is actually from Holland), nutella, dulce de leche, or jam--or any combination--the best combo being the cheese and nutella, mm-mm-mm, and then rolled into a cylinder as the pancake hardens into a cripsy shell), tacos del pastor (pork cooked in a tasty special red spice),as well as a wide-variety of fried foods. Children and adults alike showed up wearing very inventive costumes for that year's theme (movies), and my favorites were the oh-so-beautiful crossdressers who put all of the real women to shame! I found the crowd to be more eintertaining than the parades, which had floats dedicated to different movies and more scantilly-clad girls, but were overall unimpressive in comparison to pictures I've seen of Brazilian carnaval floats. It was this former-anthropology student's dream experience to be visiting a foreign city during one of its largest yearly festivals.

It is now one year later, and carnaval just wrapped up earlier this week for 2010's celebration. I went and partook in the festivities for a few hours the first night with a friend from work, enjoyed the obligatory marquesita and a few beers, but we left fairly early. The weather was cooler and rainier this year, and since I'd seen it all last year, it no longer felt necessary to stick around to take in everything (and consume needless calories). I've been living here in Merida as a "temporary resident" since the end of August. It took me 6 months of begging and pleading when I got back to Boston, but my employer finally let me move down here to work from this office full-time on a year contract. I'm successfully avoiding the entire North Eastern winter and enjoying hearing stories about snow and cold from my comfortable Mexican locale. I have to admit quality of life is pretty darn good. I upgraded from my tiny one ROOM studio apartment in Somerville (north of Boston), with a rent of $995/month--nothing included, to a one bedroom house (with seperate kitchen/living room and access to a shared pool in the back) for less than $300/month--everything included. I have a car and all the freedom that brings for getting around (couldn't afford that in Boston where the public transportation system was my best friend and worst enemy). And the best thing...the beach is just 30 minutes to the north, Progeso Beach that is. Within the next month the weather should start warming up and by March or April, it will be beach weather again. I can't wait! Stay posted for more about Merida and my upcoming trip to Mexico City next month with a number of friends from work.