Switzerland: Two Days

I couldn't have been more wrong.  What was meant to be one travel day, again, became two.  We loaded all the girls & some parents onto our bus that was to take us to the airport, and after a very long, complicated roll call, we were off.

Once arriving at the airport we hauled ..... wait, I hauled all the equipment off the bus, plus my own luggage.  This team seems to think they have magical equipment.  It magically shows up, and it magically disappears when they are done with it.  Upon letting the team know that they are to be responsible for their own equipment (again), I was confronted with two girls who were missing their luggage.  Due to an astronomical misunderstanding, they had been told by another manager to just get on the bus, and while their luggage didn't fit below they bus, it would be sent on a later bus.  I instructed them to stand outside the airport and double check every bus that stopped.  It was a busy day at the Geneva Airport.  The majority of the 19,000 participants were flying home today.

I went in and started the long process of checking in all of our additional luggage.  This wasn't easy considering Air Canada's conveyer belts were not working and I had to sign each piece of luggage out to different people to keep our costs down.  After this lengthy process, I started another lengthy process.  I was given a receipt for every extra piece and had to go to another desk to pay for them.  Technology is stupid.  The lady had to ring in each piece of luggage separately.  By the time I was 2/3 done, I remembered the girls I had instructed to stand and wait outside to check the buses.  Over an hour had gone by and they had slipped my mind.  The last 1/3 of the paying seemed to take an eternity.

Once finished paying I quickly returned to the rest of the group and was very happy to see my two luggageless girls.  They had searched for an hour and a 1/2 and gave up.  Their luggage was not on the buses.  We were getting close to departure time and still had to go through security. We had no choice, but checked them in without their luggage.  It was going to stay in Lausanne for now.

By the time we got through security and customs we were almost running to get to our plane.  We had arrived at the airport 3 hours prior to our flight!  Disappointingly I had no time to pick up Nate a watch or get any last Swiss wine or chocolates.  We were herded onto the plane for our 7 hour flight home.  I did feel a pang of jealousy as we passed the 1st class seats, would anyone notice?

We landed in Montreal and hit customs and security where poor Julia forgot to put her last minute, age 16, wine purchase into her checked luggage and had it taken from her.  Jumped on to our plane again and headed to Toronto.

I sent the girls off on their own and went to kill our few hour layover.  As you can guess .... wine and my book mixed in with a little bit of supper.

And our plane is delayed, our plane is given a gate change, and finally, our flight has been delayed again, this time departing the next morning.  Everyone took the news fairly good except two girls who were too homesick to hold back their tears anymore.

The other manager and myself quickly organized our free hotel, and got everyone $10 breakfast vouchers for the morning.  Picked up our luggage, stored our equipment in luggage claim area and headed for our shuttle.  Of course, nothing is ever easy when you are traveling with a large group.  The shuttle drivers were clueless!  We showed them our hotel vouchers and asked them to take us there.  They did, on their 3rd stop.  The chaos will never end.  Finally got everyone settled down for their 4 hour nap before heading back to the airport.

In the morning we hauled all of our equipment upstairs to check it again and went to breakfast only to find out our breakfast vouchers were utterly useless because Air Canada made them out for the day before!

Through a little bit of sorting, we ended up with breakfast and boarded our plane where we  received a $75 gift voucher for Air Canada.  Great, I get to travel with them again.

We arrived in Regina a few hours later to find the inevitable......NO HOOP.

Switzerland: Last Day

My prediction was right.  Pretty boring.  We went to the FIG gala, which is an hour and a half show with the best performances of the weekend.  They were good, but the show was still too long for me.  I needed it to be ½ as long for me to keep my attention the entire time.  After the show, I sent the girls on a direct bus to our next location, and took to my walk.  I walked briskly, but it was amazing.  I love seeing the mountains.  The weather again today was awesome.  I actually arrived at our destination prior to the girls.  I took Julia to our gluten free restaurant and all the girls sent out to trade all their Canada gear for stuff from other countries.  I sent Julia out with all of my stuff.  She was allowed to trade stuff for herself if she got me a few specific items.  She was successful.  We headed to opening ceremonies where I sat in a tent and watched the girl’s bags while they performed.  We came back to the school and the girls got changed for the beach party.  Upon arrival I scoped out the only adult tent and spent all my pre-paid tickets on bruschetta, desserts and wine while I read my book.  There seems to be a theme to my best times.  I brought the girls home at midnight and everyone got prepared for a very long travel day.  At least it is only one day instead of two!

Switzerland: Glorious!

Everything was glorious today: the weather, my scenery and the company.   After our performance this morning the girls rushed back to the school to get on our pretty clothes, and I took a group of 4 girls with Klara and Karen and we navigated our way to France.  We took the train to Nyon and ferried over to Yvoire, France.   It was a beautiful Medieval town built in the 1400’s.  It had small narrow cobblestone streets with tons of shops and café’s along the way.  We spent the entire afternoon there.  I managed to pick up my token traveling piece of art at a glass blowing shop.  The atmosphere was incredible.  I didn’t wan to leave.  We ferried back over to Nyon, ate supper and headed back.  It was an amazing day.

            Wrist bone is still in place!  Tomorrow will be boring and long.  We have the FIG performance and closing ceremonies.  There is a party on the beach afterwards.  It may have been 10 days in Switzerland and I will be leaving without seeing all the things I wanted to.  I am leaving behind an incredible castle, and the beach which I never got enough time to go and see, but I heard incredible reviews about.  I did hear good reviews about a walk from one venue to the other which I plan to put the girls on the bus and walk myself.  They are all complaining about sore feet.  It is all downhill with apparently “breathtaking scenery”.

Switzerland: Missing Home

            Ahh … this day started out with me asking my arch nemesis chaperone if I could please use her Internet when her kids were done (the internet I was suppose to be included in).   I applied for a job just prior to coming to Switzerland and since they can’t call me I told them they could email me.  She stared straight ahead, paused for 10 seconds and turned to me “You know, I am not going to treat you like you treat me, and yes, I am going to let you use my Internet”.  At this point, I apologized for upsetting her and explained that we had a miscommunication and I was sorry that I had upset her by coming to talk to her regarding it.  She then went on a 25-minute rant about every decision I have ever made and how it was wrong.  She is convinced I am the person I am because I have never had children.  I hate it when parents use this against me.   While I know having children changes you, I still believe that when running a team a coach or chaperone needs to make things as fair as possible.   She says we will never agree to what “fair” is.  To me it means that if one athlete is not allowed to leave for an afternoon because that is the team rule set out prior to departure that means all athletes should have to follow the same rule, regardless of how much they beg.  My arch nemesis does not agree.  She believes I have never made a decision based on common sense, and that is why she dislikes me.  She cited a time after a competition where I made all the athletes go back to the hotel to eat prior to heading off with their parents for the afternoon even though all parents were already at the competition.  I didn’t think my decision was unreasonable, the meal had been prepaid and preordered and this was how the schedule was sent out to the parents prior to leaving.  I had made a completely senseless decision, according to my nemesis.  Examples like this went on for seemingly ever.  Nothing I do will ever please this woman, nor is it worth my efforts from this point on!  I dropped the girls off to watch performances and went for a cappuccino and Swiss chocolate.  I spent the rest of my day trying to relax in the sun and cheer up.  I miss Nate and my family.  I feel very isolated here.  The people are just really weird.  Everyone but my nemesis is very nice, just weird and not my type.  I have been trying to spend as much time with Klara and Karen as possible.  I need too.  Tonight I am going to the English Speaking show.  I have heard from the coaches it is by far the worst performance, but since Canada is an English speaking country, the entire team got free tickets.  Klara and Karen are there, so maybe we can sneak out for some wine!

            Yes, the best thing happened!  My arch nemesis’s athlete forgot her ticket for the English speaking show.  I quickly volunteered my ticket and was off to find a pub.  This was the best thing that could have happened.  I sat down, ordered a glass of “ven blanc” and began reading my book.  This was close to one of my favorite moments here.  I met up with some girls after the show and took them down to the concert area with Karen.  It was just what I needed.  I feel back on track, my chi has been restored. 

         Tomorrow, France, here we come!

Switzerland: Boring

           Not much to report.  In short we dropped the girls off at training, I had a quiet coffee with one of the other chaperones.  Grabbed a gross lunch and hauled all the girls equipment over to their venue for tonight’s show.  Oh, it rained all day, including the hour I spent making an extra trip back to the school to pick up some forgotten tights (athlete was 15 this time).  As I stated yesterday, I was to be given the breaks because the other chaperones are going to get from 2:00 pm till 9:00 pm off on Friday.  This didn’t happen.  When the athlete told me she forgot her tights, I went to inform her chaperone.  It was then I was told she wasn’t there because she was on a break!  I’m furious, and that is all I am going to say about that!  I went and got the missing tights (two metro trains and a twenty minute walk in the rain). 

I got volunteered to run the curtains during the PAGU (the Pan-American countries) performance.  It was a hilarious experience.  My job was to open the curtain when told.  As I waited for my cue, coaches and athletes were yelling at me and before I got my cue they would race underneath the curtain, forcing me to open them.  It was completely amateur and disorganized; but, since it is a performance, nobody really cares about precision.  

            Oh ya, by the way.  Approximately a week before I left for Switzerland, I was playing ball and on one particular swing I felt something hurt in my wrist.  It felt like a dislocation.  Since I wasn’t done my at bat, I shook it off, and two swings later, I felt it again.  My wrist was very sore for a few days after.  Even after 5 days, it still hurt and I thought something was more wrong than me just being a wimp about a sore wrist.  Nate’s words of encouragement were “you’ll be ok”.  Yesterday while the team physio was working on one of the athlete’s wrist, which was jammed, I casually turned around and asked her if my wrist was jammed.  She checked it out and told me within 10 seconds that I had a bone in my wrist and it wasn’t sitting properly and that is why I had so much pain.  After playing with my wrist for less than 5 minutes we both felt her slip the bone back into place.  It instantly felt glorious.  It was weak and tired, but pain free.  The problem is when a bone has been out for that long; it is hard to keep it back in place.   The muscles get weak.  It slipped out twice more yesterday, but I was able to put it back into place after watching the physio.  When I woke up this morning it was out again.  I wasn’t able to put it back so went back to see the physio.  She wasn’t able to get it back in either due to inflammation.  I managed to get it back in around noon, and with little use of it have been successful at keeping it in place for the rest of the day.  From Switzerland, take that Nate!

Switzerland: Two Hoops!

By the end of today, we had two hoops!  The hoop being   manufactured by our steel worker was delivered to the school at 5:00 pm, and the Genève airport found our hoop this morning and it was delivered at 5:15 pm.  What a mess.  The manufactured hoop cost $340.00 franks, and we should have just washed it down the drain.  Hopefully we can convince Air Canada to cover the cost.

It was another beautiful day.  The girls decided to get their 3-hour mandatory performance watching out of the way first and to shop all afternoon.  We headed to the stages.  I let the girls loose and perched myself on the steps to soak up the sun and people watch.  I also took this time to sew my brand new purse back together.  I bought it before we left, and it didn’t even last the trip without a repair.  I took major flack from a few of the coaches because I wasn’t watching the shows with the girls, but I put my first priority as maintaining my sanity, and that could not be done while watching performances.  I fed the girl’s lunch and we were off to shop.  They decided on a mall.  This was ok with me; I thought it would be the best place to find lots of jewelry stores selling watches.  No luck.  The mall was 4 stories, and only had two jewelry stores, which were not to my taste.  I exited the building and I walked up to an outside shopping center, madly searched for the illusive public bathroom and to continued my watch shopping.  I found some “potentials”, and then realized it was ridiculous for the girls to be inside a mall when most of the same stores were in this outside mall.  I went back to get the girls, rounded them up and transferred them to the great outdoors.  This outside shopping area consists of pedestrian streets lined with shops.  It is where the market is held on Wednesday and Saturdays.  It is an incredible area, my favorite part of the city.  I went back to deliberating over watches.  I finally made a purchase.  It was expensive and one of those situations where you are unsure when you buy it, but hope in the end you really, really like it because it was very expensive!  After the stress of buying this watch, I sat myself on an outside patio and realize how bad my French really was.  I tried to order a glass of wine.  The waitress spoke no English.  I tried “Vino Blanche”.  She was clueless (or was I?).  Finally a kind man rescued me and asked in English what I wanted.  He ordered me “Ven Blanc”.  I sat outside enjoying the atmosphere, my “Ven Blanc”, and my new watch.  At this point I was become surer that I was going to like this watch. 

Chaperones are not supposed to drink, and I was breaking this rule and didn’t much care.  I was relaxing and the girls were off shopping.  I had 45 minutes before I needed to meet them.  During my second glass (I didn’t verbally order it, I simply raised my hand and pointed at my empty glass), I spotted the girls.  Luckily it was my 3 favorites, Julia quickly asked if she could have a sip.  The drinking age here is 16, and this way I couldn’t get in trouble if they were drinking too, right?  They each had a couple sips (I drew the line and did not allow them to order their own glasses).  We took turns showing off our purchases and I sent them on their way, enjoying the last 20 minutes in peace.

We met up with the other girls for supper.  Karen and Klara organized chaperoning so that I could have the night off.  I gave away my Italy performance ticket and headed out for supper with them.  It was awesome to be away from the kids and have some normal adult company.  We had a great time.  We each ordered our meal and ate it.  When we were finished and feeling satisfied the waiter brought over a second portion of the exact same supper!  We were blown away.  Why would we want to eat the same supper again?  It was very weird.  We polished off two bottles of “Ven Banc” and headed to the outside concerts they have every night.  It is official; I really like my new watch.

I would like to personally thank Kara and Karen for saving my sanity tonight.  The other chaperones will take Friday off when the majority of athletes are spending personal time with their parents, and I will have the athletes that do not have any parents here.  I am looking forward to this time.  Klara and Karen will come with the kids and me and we are going to take a trip to France!

Switzerland: 1st Day of Performances

Still no hoop.  Karen called Genève cargo this morning the hoop is gone.  Immediately we got on finding someone to make us a new one.  After a few phone calls by our French mom, we found someone who can have it done by tomorrow morning.  It will miss our first big performance, but will be there for the really important performances later this week.  In the meantime, while walking around the performance grounds, I saw the Swiss team carrying a similar hoop.  I approached them and luckily the girls spoke a little English.  I explained (or at least tried to) what happened to our hoop.  One of the Swiss girls immediately got defensive and stated very clearly that the hoop they had, was not ours.  My communications skills were obviously lacking.  The Swiss thought I was accusing them of stealing our hoop.  After a quick clarification the girls understood that because ours was missing, I was wondering if I could borrow theirs for our show tonight.  They passed me off to their head honcho who spoke perfect English, and I had us a hoop for our performance.  The hoop had a diameter of 6 feet instead of 5, and was made of plastic so it couldn’t be stunted on, but it was the best we could we could get so it was going to have to work! 

            By this time in the week, I’m exhausted.  It didn’t help that I had to take a quick subway and run 10 blocks to try to find a performance suit 30 minutes prior to one of the performances.  I have had to do this before when managing, but never in my life have I done it for someone over the age of 14.  This athlete was 26!  In the end the suit was not at the school where I was looking, it was at the performance site where she took it out of her bag when she took the performance music out!

Overall, the day consisted of running around after kids and preparing them for their performances.  The day ended with me chaperoning a group of 5 to Austria’s performance.  I am performanced out!  After a full day, I have had enough.  I do not know how I will make it through the next 5 days.  During Austria’s performance (you have to pay to go, $40 got us front row seats), I started frantically searching through my purse for some sort of wake-me-up.  The only thing I could find was two vitamin C’s. I quickly gobbled them up, and was understanding, but disappointed in the results.  I was nodding off in the front row where the performers could see.  I didn’t think it would be appropriate to walk out to get some fresh air.  I was desperate; these performances might be the end of me.  I even considered picking the scab on my knee in order to stay awake.  That’s how bad it was!

Switzerland: Opening Ceremonies

Still no hoop.  Karen was at the Genève airport all morning.  Apparently Air Canada said it was sent on a certain flight, Genève didn’t receive it.  It is officially lost.  We had one of our French speaking mom’s asking every random person she knew on the street if they knew a metal worker that was open on Sunday.  Not only did they not know one that was open, they didn’t know one period.  She did some major research and has set up some numbers of steel workers to call tomorrow to see if they can make our hoop by 5:00 pm when our performance is.  We have given her the dimensions and we are going to cross our fingers. The day started out glorious.  We have been having storms at night, and when I got up this morning the sun was out and shinning.  After showers (cold but by myself), breakfast, team meeting and parent meeting (yes, we have to meet with the parents every morning so they know what we are doing), Klara and I headed for breakfast (her first, my second).   We then had to run a few errands and of course the torrential downpour begins.  I do not have my poncho or my umbrella.  Klara lent me hers and we were off.  I had to pick up groceries/snacks for my group.  

Shortly after our return (12:00) the entire group of 60 athletes, 4 chaperones, 1 manager and a chief headed to eat lunch at our venue.  Lausanne has almost doubled in size.  There are 19,000 athletes here to participate in Gymnaestrada, along with thousands of supporters/parents. All participants and supporters had to eat at the same time and head towards opening ceremonies.  It was more than busy, and still pouring.  Directly after supper we headed to a special area where we were to wait to march in for the opening ceremonies.  We waited there for almost 1 ½ hours; thank goodness by this time the rain had stopped and the sun had decided to make an appearance again.  We then started marching, and we marched for another 1 ½ hours until we finally entered the Olympic Stadium in Lausanne.   This was the coolest part, Lausanne hosted the Olympics in ???? (At the time of writing I didn't know what year Lausanne had hosted the Olympics, more on this point later) and we were marching where the Olympians marched.  I am sure the Olympians were greeted by something more amazing than seniors doing aerobics; at least I hope so.  Opening Ceremonies took another 2 hours (at least) and were falling asleep boring for the most part.  Leaving that stadium after was something else.  I quickly lined up my 9 athletes, told each one to hold onto the other’s backpack, and we were pushed out of the arena (45 min).  The momentum kept pushing us from behind.  We had almost no control; the movement of the crowd was determining everything.  After a brisk 30-minute walk, we caught the bus and were only a short stop from home.  We were one of the first groups back!  My girls did awesome.  (After returning home and doing some brief research on when Lausanne hosted the Olympics, I found out that they never hosted the Olympics.  St. Moritz, Switzerland hosted the winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948, but I could find no proof the Lausanne stadium was the stadium that the athletes march in during opening ceremonies.  Another disappointment).

I had a hard time with one of my athletes today.  Her mother gave me a bit of a background on this particular athlete.  She has anxiety, is on anti-depressants and has been suicidal in the past 6 months.  I was well prepared for this.  I was not well prepared for her eating habits/restrictions.  Her mother never mentioned anything to me.  Neither did the daughter when I asked the entire group about eating habits on the first day.  I learned no one had any nut allergies, and Julia has celiac disease and is a vegetarian.  I found out nothing about this particular athlete until today at lunch when she out right refused to eat.  I told her she needed to eat.  She refused.  We were heading out to spend hours waiting to march in, marching in and watching opening ceremonies before making our way back to the school for supper.  When I picked up snacks, I only got her two croissants and an orange, this was going to have to last her 12 hours.  I didn’t have time to get her anything else this late in the game. I found out, she does not eat salad, does not eat rice if it has anything in it, and does not eat any type of sauce.  It all “makes her sick”.  This was the type of information I thought I should have known in advance.  Lunch consisted of salad, rice (with things in it), and a lemon type sauce on the chicken.  Once we got back to the school we were offered salad, rice (with things in it) and chicken in a curry sauce for supper.  I was furious at her and I was furious with her parents.  She quickly told me she didn’t need to eat supper and that she would just skip it.  This was not acceptable to me.  I called her parents, explained the situation and asked them to bring her supper.  They said “oh ya, she doesn’t really eat any of that stuff”.  They also said they didn’t need to bring her supper because they had bought her fries and ice cream at opening ceremonies.  Well, I know where the kid gets her eating habits.  Oy.

            Tomorrow the park performances start along with a super busy schedule.  Let the fun continue!

Switzerland: The Day of The Hoop

Woke up and headed to the showers early enough to avoid all children.   Ate breakfast and got my girls ready for practice.  The girls practiced from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm, so I had the morning off and was ready to go shopping.  I had a few things on my list, and a new watch was at the very top.  After waiting for Karen and Klara to be done talking with all the parents, we headed out to enjoy the morning.  First order of agenda, we needed to find some wiffy in order to check the status of our hoop.   Here is a picture of one of the acts our hoop is in:

After a very strong European coffee, we still had not had any luck finding it.  The phone number we were given was useless.  For the better part of the morning, I was thrown between a German guy telling me to use the website, and a German guy telling me he is unable to place my call.  The website only told us it was “tracking” our item, but would not tell us where it was.  We were finally booted out of the coffee shop for a reservation and had, at the current time exhausted our entire hoop finding resources. 

Karen, Klara and I headed to the outside market and shopping center.  It was beautiful, but I only had approximately 45 minutes to spare.  I have to figure out how to spend more time in this market, my watch shopping was very time limited.  I headed back, fed the girls and sent the majority of them off to another practice and took the few in my care back to the outside market.  They loved it.  I spent most of my time talking with the parent that works at Air Canada exhausting all of her resources trying to find our hoop.  I was not getting any closer to my new watch.  

By this time I had already phone Sara in Regina, woke her up at 6:00 am and started her on the search for our missing hoop.  We thought it would be better getting someone in Canada to work on it.  We struggle making phone calls and have very limited wiffy, which increases difficulties.  Sara, was super patient with my 6:00 wake up call, and worked endlessly all day between Regina, Toronto and Genève Airports.  None of the tracking numbers given to us worked.  The hoop was officially missing!  I headed back to the school, picked up the rest of my crew (who I had convinced to come to the Jazz festival with me) and headed off.   A short train ride later we were in Montreux enjoying the festival on the shoreline of Lac Genève.

I moseyed around the market, setting the girls loose to shop the festival and finally settled on a silver bracelet.  So, for 19 Franc I had replaced my urge to buy a watch.  I then received a phone call.  It took me a while to figure out which phone I should answer.  I had my Canadian phone, which was completely useless; I had a Swiss phone from Klara and had stolen a Blackberry from one of the coaches because it seemed to be the only one I could operate.  Well, by the time I figured out it was my Swiss phone that ringing, I had missed the call.  Since very few people know my Swiss number and one of them was the Airport in Genève, I was in panic.  I quickly texted Klara (from the coaches phone) and told her what happened.  As soon as I pressed send, I hear my named called.  It was Klara and Karen at the Jazz festival taking a hoop-searching break with white wine and hot dogs.  I joined them immediately.   

After our wine and hotdogs, I gathered the kids and headed back to the school for our official “Team Canada” pictures.  I know I should be somewhat excited about this; it will most likely be the only “Team Canada” photo I will ever be in, but I just couldn’t rise to the occasion.  After an hour and a half of pictures (we have a delegation of approximately 600 people, almost ½ of which are “supporters”, aka parents who paid an astronomical amount of money to get all of their “Team Canada” apparel) I was ready for bed.  After a quick managers meeting to put out a few fires fabricated by one of our managers (later to be referred to as my nemesis), I was off to bed.   Tomorrow morning Karen will head to the Genève airport (40 km) , and see if she can do any searching for our hoop there.  The girls have practice in the morning, I’m going to try my watch purchasing again, but it is Sunday, so I’m not getting my hopes up.

Switzerland: Cheese & Chocolate

Today I got to see Switzerland!  The day was beautiful.  Considering we were told it would be 11 days of rain, this was our second day of sunshine.  I got a group of 20 girls up and ready and headed on a chocolate train tour.  It took a little navigating to get from the metro station to the train station, but by 10am, we were on our fancy chocolate train and touring through incredible scenery.  We were going to get our fill of what Switzerland has to offer …. Cheese and Chocolate.   Our first stop was at a cheese factory. The cheese factory was good, the free samples were even better, although, my digestive system needed anything but cheese, I couldn’t help myself. 

After the cheese tour we hopped on a bus and headed to the town of Gruyere.  This was a beautiful town built around cobblestone roads up the side of a mountain and lined with small shops, bakeries and ending with a castle at the top of the mountain.  The scenery was breathtaking.  By far our 2 hours in this town was the highlight of my day.  I could have stayed the entire 11 days right there.  Lunch consisted of freshly baked bread, some local meat and of course, more cheese; I was going to pay for this.  

After lunch we headed through more countryside to the Callier Chocolate factory.  The majority of the tour was suited for young kids, but the end would suit anyone.  We entered a room where there were 100’s, and I mean 100’s of chocolates sitting around the table. (sorry, broken chain of thoughts, I am sitting in my small classroom working on my computer with the lights out attracting bugs to my screen and a bug flew directly into my eye) We were allowed to have as many as we wanted as long as we ate them prior to leaving the room.  This sampling table left me (and everyone else) sick but prevailing, everyone purchased more chocolate in the souvenir shop at the end of the tour.   

We hopped back on our train, headed back to civilization, had supper at the school and headed to bed.  At this point, still no hoop.

Switzerland: Two Days In One

Intro:


Let me fill you in briefly.  I just attended World Gymnastraeda 2011.  It was held in Switzerland. For those of you who have never heard of it before (I didn't really know until about 2 years ago), this is the biggest "sporting" event in the world.  In fact, there are more participants from around the world than at any Olympics.  Now, please be aware that I am not comparing the two.  I truly believe the Olympians are athletes, and those how attended Gymnastraeda were for the most part "performers", mixed in with the odd "athlete".  This event had 19,000 participants, with an additional 7,000 supporters (coaches and managers).  The average age of participants was 30 years old.


I also need to add a quick side note that Nate is upset I am blogging about my days in Switzerland.  The blog is called "Jes & Nate Vs. The World" and Nate wasn't with me.  I think he is just upset because he went on a bunch of incredible hikes in BC and Alberta while I was gone and didn't write about them, therefore, they will not appear on the blog.  Neither will his video of a mouse crawling out of the hood of his car while he was driving on the highway, unless he decides to write about it!


Travel Days:


July 6^th and 7^th became one very, super, ridiculously long day.  It started with me getting out of Nate’s car at the airport wearing a ½ a bagel with approximately 2 tbsp of melted peanut butter on my pants!  The peanut butter was spread far and wide even covering parts of my fleece.  This was quickly cleaned up with a bottle of water and Nate’s traveling pillowcase.   I departed Regina at 10:15 am after a minor panic attack …. Ok, maybe two.  In order for the athletes to travel international without both parents, they need a notarized letter stating that both parents agree to allow their child to travel ½ way around the world with me.  Most of these letters I have in hand prior to leaving except one.  This athlete did not have it done in time to send in the mail, she was to bring it to the airport herself.  Before even getting on the airplane in Regina (approximately 15 minutes before boarding), she approaches me and informs me that she has lost her notarized letter!  This child cannot leave the country without it!  She informs me that she had it in her passport when she handed it over to the lady at the check-in desk.  I quickly contacted the first Air Canada personnel that I could find and set her on a mission to find the missing notarized letter.  In the meantime, the humungous hoop, which is a key instrument in the girls World Gymnastraeda routine will not fit into the plane.  It is made of solid steel and used to fling athletes around; it could not be bent to fit into the cargo hold of the plane.  Full-blown panic sets in for the entire team.  The enormous hoop is the routine!  Luckily one of the girls parents works for Air Canada.  She had us organized to ship the hoop to Calgary via West Jet, and Fed-ex it to Lausanne, Switzerland the following day.  Phew, crisis averted, hopefully.  In the meantime, our other handy Air Canada personnel had found the missing notarized letter and we are all boarding the plane!  With this start, all I could think was … let the games begin!

The rest of the travel day was very long, but ran smoothly.  We had a two-hour layover in Toronto followed by a one-hour layover in Montreal.  At 6:30 pm Regina time, we departed Montreal for Geneva, Switzerland.  I was lucky enough to catch a few hours of shuteye before landing in Geneva at the local time of 10:20 am.  This is where day one starts blurring into day two.  On the bright side of our first day, everyone’s luggage arrived.  This includes 4 hockey bags full of extra clothing (to be sold by Gymnastics Canada), and 3 extra bags full of equipment.  I should clarify, by all, I mean everything except the massive hoop that is our World Gymnastraeda routine.  We hopped onto the bus and headed to our school in Lausanne (40 minutes from Geneva).  Upon arrival we were read the riot act and handed an air mattress, pillow and blanket and left to set up camp.  I am staying in a classroom with 9 15-17 year olds.  Oh the joys.  These will be my roommates and tour group for the next 9 days.  After setting up camp, having a very lengthy Team “Sask” Canada meeting (There are 12 teams here from Canada), the girls nestled in, and I headed for a shower feeling unbearably grimy after “two” days of travel.  While I knew I was staying in a school, and sharing a classroom for sleeping accommodations, I failed to realize this meant communal showers!  UGH!  GROSS!  I was not mentally prepared for this.  There are over 600 athletes and supporters (managers & parents) staying at this school.  Privacy was going to be non-existent!  The other adult chaperones scoffed at my mention of shyness.  They clearly have no problem getting naked in front of the athletes.  Myself was glad to have brought my bathing suit.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a super huge problem showering naked in front of a bunch of women, it’s the kids that makes it a little weird!  Apparently, the other chaperones did not understand my worries one bit, and very quickly stripped down to their birthday suits and jumped in.  This was going to be a long week!

We had the forethought the previous night to pick up some groceries for breakfast as we knew we'd be getting up before any of the restaurants opened. We packed our bellies full of yogurt and granola, fruits and newts, and we were off to the dive shop early. When 7:15 came and went and no one was there, we were getting slightly nervous. Finally a guy pulled up and I engaged him immediately. The jist of our exchange was that they were already gone to the other shop to prep. "I'm going to burn down their boat", I thought to myself. Fortunately, it turned out that this individual was mis-informed, and the mini-bus showed up a short while later to take us to their dock.

After some meet-and-greet and equipment setup we made our way out to the dive site. I was expecting a bit of a look-around to try and find some spawning snappers, but we basically boated out, stopped and jumped in. They probably would have been well served to have searched a little harder because the site they picked was quite easily the most boring, uneventful, lifeless dive of all my nearly 50 dives. I could count the number of fish on one hand, and after about 45 minutes we surfaced. No fish and, more importantly, no whale sharks. Jes and I both discussed later that we had a lot of difficulty with this dive too. Jes went in really anxious and was scared in the open water. Because there was no bottom and no marine life to use as a reference point, we both had difficulty with depth perception, having a hard time not going too deep or too shallow. I was also having issues with the fins I was given; they were a terrible fit and gave me numerous blisters on my previously-mangled toes. My feet were in rough shape so I found some tape, wrapped them up and crossed my fingers as we got ready for the next dive.

Prior to the second dive we made a quick stop on the reef for lunch and snorkeling. We were served chicken, potato salad and the Belizean dinner staple, rice and beans. Watermelon and cookies followed for dessert. After scarfing down my food I donned my mask and set out to find some marine life on the reef. I left my fins aboard to give my blisters a break and just swam around the coral gardens, poking around at the "untouched" reef, as described by our boat captain/dive master. Apparently no one really knew about this snorkel spot, so I was happy to scoot around our own secret site. Jes stayed on the boat, chatting with our fellow divers, Sean Connery (actually just a sound-alike) and his hot-old-lady wife (Jes still talks about her hot-old-lady body). They were on the roof of the boat spotting spotted rays and turtles. At one point they implored me to race out and play with a nearby turtle, but their spotting abilities were apparently limited to fairly close range as my search was unsuccessful under their direction. I was a bit bitter that they couldn't do their part as I had heroically squeezed into my fins for the hunt, braving the abrasions covering my poor piggies. 

One poor young woman on the trip was basically crippled on the way out by the sudden onset of an intense migraine. Rather than suffer through the next short ride out to the second dive site, she elected to stay with the park rangers, on their boat on the reef. We dropped her off and headed out the site, another deep blue open water abyss. 

This time we hit the spot as there were schools upon schools of mutton snapper swimming around below us as we descended. Localized areas of the fish cluster started spinning in unison, rising from below in tornadoing fish-spires, ejecting a sudden cloud of particulate at the apex before dispersing and re-joining the cluster. Big bull sharks circled below the gathering of snapper, seemingly cruising around just to take in the show.

My cousin Cindy and I had been through an eerily similar whale shark run-around in Western Australia a few years back. We had to book a last minute tour and catch an impossibly tight-scheduled flight out afterward and it worked out better than could have been imagined. We saw one, 6m in length, a baby by whale shark standards, that seemed as big as a school bus. I regularly describe it as the most adrenaline packed moment of my life swimming alongside the great fish, busting past our guide to snap some close up pictures despite his warnings to keep our distance and stay behind him. We also made our last minute flight, the whole trip turning out as a serious of fortunate events.

So I really felt we were in the right place at the right time, a can't-miss scenario for whale sharks. Crushingly, it did not happen. We watched a 45-minute fish sex show and surfaced to a world of massive disappointment. I had some air left so I stayed in the water until the last gasp, head down, camera ready, waiting for a dramatic last-minute appearance. I was last to board and alas, no whale sharks.

The disappointment was palpable, especially after we were regaled with stories of the dolphin show put on for the full length of one of the previous days' dives. They at least got dolphins. We got nothing put horny snapper. Brutal. 

We made our way back to the reef to pick up the migraine lady. During the stop to pick her up, I jumped back into the sea for my 14th urgent piss off the trip. I don't what it is about diving, but I very nearly exploded on the boat ride out, during and after the first dive, after lunch, after snorkeling, during and after the last dive....you get the idea. I surmise that it's something to do with the water pressure on the body, but who knows. All I know is I peed through my undies by that ranger boat for a solid 5 minutes, holding up an impatient boatload of divers. I could have just gone during the dive, but I had one such experience in a wetsuit during my very first training dive. That experience has stuck with me throughout my diving career as something I never want to go through again. And coupled with the general grossness of peeing in a wetsuit, we were about to travel through the night and the entire next day. I did not want to make that journey coated in a film of salty pee.

I remembered that it was me that should be in a rush to get back to shore so I squoze out the last few drops and climbed aboard for the race to shore. We made it back in record time and our favorite shop guy was there to pick us up and take us to the airstrip...the same guy whose memory, the night before, I had to jog about us even being on the trip and needing guarantees for airport times. Well, he forgot our bags. So back to town we went, going from time-to-burn to no-time-to-spare in a blink. Fortunately, as noted in previous posts, the "security" for these domestic flights is preety relaxed, so when we arrived 15 minutes ahead of departure, everything was cool.

We flew to Belize City and cabbed over to the bus station, almost 2 hours ahead of our last-minute, last-minute, last-minute plan. We boarded an earlier bus than we had planned and arrived in Corozal ahead of schedule, but not without event. Part way through, an older, swaying Belizean boarded, holding an open Beliken. This took me back to our bus-dash in Belmopan where I foolishly stranded my nearly-full beer by the roadside. Who knew you could board a public bus with open beer!! I guess I stood out on that bus because he bee-lined straight for me and engaged me in conversation about our trip that was. I humored him, telling him about our trek into the interior and whale-sharking disappointment before he started going off on a tangent about how we saw all the wrong places. When he started loudly repeating himself, I realized just how tanked this guy was. I told him I was sorry to have disappointed him in my trip decision making, threw on my head phones and tuned him out as I watched his mouth continue to run in connection with his wild, flailing hand gestures, now to no one in particular. Shortly thereafter, he started being real shady, ducking under the seat in front of him, doing who knows what. I was in the seat behind him, Jes in the seat beside me, when she motioned for me to urgently move to her side of the bus. She could see exactly what he was doing: heaving that beer all the rest of his recently consumed items all over the floor of the bus. I alerted the bus staff and after some arguing he eventually found a suitable stop and disembarked.

A short while later we found ourselves in Corozal, closest bus stop to the border. We got off the bus and I don't think we actually stepped foot on the ground before we were in a cab. At least I thought it was a cab, Jes was less certain. Might have just been a dude with a van, but regardless, we hopped in asked him to take us to Chetumal, Mexico. He wouldn't go that far, but he was quite helpful in getting us to the border and lining up another cabbie on the Mexico side. 

A noteworthy experience for those planning on duplicating our Belize trip, do NOT pay going into the country. We were given the option to pay upon entering or pay when leaving the country. For some reason we paid going in and I immediately thought we probably made a mistake. Well, we did because we were forced to pay again. The entry guard said to just show the extra stamp he gave us to the exit guards and we'll be able to pass right through. I hope he had a wild night on our US$40 because I'm sure it went straight into his pocket.

The cabbie on the Mexico side didn't speak a lick of english, but fortunately I can piece together a sentence or two of the espanol, so we managed to find our way around. We had exhausted all our funds on planes, busses, cabs and crooked border guards so we had to make a quick stop at a nearby ATM. I'm not gonna lie, I was mildly nervous when I went into the bank while Jes waited with all our bags in a strange Mexican taxi cab. I made it as quick as I could, got the cash and dashed back to the cab. No need for nervousness after all.

We made it to the bus station ahead of time, and tickets were available for the last bus going to Playa that night. We gorged ourselves on tacos and tortas at a nearby stand and were on the bus a short time later, shortly after midnight by this point.

We both did well to catch a few Z's on the bus after a long day of diving and travelling. We found ourselves in Playa del Carmen at a limbo time, too early to get any food, too late to bother with getting a hotel. We spent a couple hours sitting around, with a jaunt or two to check for any open restaurants. By the time something opened, we had just enough time for a leisurely breakfast, a bit of souvenir shopping and headed back to the bus station from whence we came. An hour later we were at the Cancun airport with enough time to spare to enjoy a quick meal and beer at Bubba Gump's restaurant. A little taste of the Americanized world before we headed home.

Belize Day #13

When we woke up, Jes informed me that, for the second time in the last few nights, she had dreamed that we saw whale sharks. I had a similar dream the night before, so we took these as good omens for the day to come. This was sadly, painfully off target however... 

We ate breakfast around the corner from the Splash dive shop at the only open restaurant we could find at that hour. I use the term "restaurant" loosely as it was basically some nerd's computer repair shop that happened to have a small kitchen in it. After charging us BZ$27 for a couple eggs, a slice of ham and a burnt bagel, we left without tipping to live out our previous nights' dreams.  

We got to the dive shop right on time at 8:15am and I immediately found it curious that we were the only divers there. Still, there seemed to be a fair amount of hustle and bustle going on in the shop, so the thought was fleeting. The dive shop steward, a mid-20s Belizean, sat us down and started with "First off, I don't know how to apologize...". Turns out a paying member of the day's dive party had an afternoon flight to catch, and to facilitate him catching this flight, they bumped the departure time ahead by one hour. They were able to give notice to every other member of the group, except the ones who didn't write down their hotel name on their form: Jes and I. Because we had just come right off the boat and took the first place offered to us, we didn't catch the name of the hotel before we waltzed out to sign up for our whale shark trip. So, I suppose we have to take some of the blame for this, but to our credit, we described the location to him with supreme accuracy and also, they never gave any inkling that a time change was even a remote possibility and we should get back to the dive shop later with the hotel name. Bottom line, the boat was gone, and we weren't on it, a crushing way to start our day and even more crushing to finish our trip with no whale sharks.  

After the initial pain of the depressing reality weakened, we started scheming. We had alotted the next day (Sunday) as a travel day back to Cancun, with our homebound flight scheduled to depart at 12:30pm Mexico time on Monday. We thought maybe we could push the return flight back a couple days and not only try the whale shark tour again, but also increase our chances at seeing them, as we had learned by this time that the best chance to see them was a day or two AFTER the full moon. 

We finally were able to get in touch with WestJet after a lost morning of buying phone cards and messing around with pay phones. The only option was to postpone our return until Wednesday and pay them a gazillion dollars for the difference in the cost of flights, plus a change fee of course. 

We nixed that idea and explore another last ditch alternative. We scouted around for some info on flight and bus schedules, as well as allowable border crossing times, and we were able piece together a travel plan that would get us to Cancun in time to catch our flight AND allow us to take the whale shark trip on the Sunday. We did have to consult the dive shop to get a guarantee that we could be back in time to board the 4:25 flight to Belize City, the very last flight out of Placencia. They gave us their word and told us that we would leave an hour early again. "Not a problem, thanks for telling us this time", I sneered, still hot from getting shafted earlier. 

So we had a plan. A far-less-than-ideal plan, an impossibly-improbable-to-go-off-without-a-hitch plan, but a plan nonetheless. We would do the whale shark trip, be zipped back to land in time to catch the last flight of the day out of Placencia, catch the last bus of the day out of Belize City, cab across the border into Mexico and catch the latest possible bus out of Chetumal back to Playa where we'd have a leisurely breakfast, catch a few last warm rays of sun and catch the bus to the airport. That's a lot of catching!

We could have taken the easy route and gone whale-sharkless, but they, along with the blue hole, were one of the defining attractions of our trip to Belize. We were not about to give up that easy.

This left us with an unanticipated afternoon of freedom. We decided to use it to let off some steam from our stressful morning by kicking back with our books on the beach. We spent the better part of the afternoon drinking, eating, and drinking some more, beach-side at the Kozy Korner. We also got in some last minute trinket-shopping and had some soft-serve ice cream on the main drag, enticed by the unending free samples. 

In the early evening we returned to the dive shop to confirm our departure and inquire about the success or failure of the outing that day. Maybe I was wearing my hat differently or something...I hadn't seen a lot of gangly white dudes who didn't fit through the dive shop door without ducking, but no joke, the guy looked at me a bit puzzled, as though he'd never seen me before. I was ready to rip into him when he clued in and confirmed that we were good to go in the morning. We'd leave our big packs in the shop and they'd arrange everything to get us to the airstrip to catch that flight.  

Second order of business was to hear about the million whale sharks they saw that day, that we missed because of their nonchalance. He informed us that they didn't have any luck that day and didn't see a single whale shark. Relief washed over me in an awesome wave. Maybe things were going to turn out for the best after all. 

We left with renewed confidence to go find some supper. 

We settled on a small joint called J.Dee's on the main road that had a live reggae organ performer scheduled. We had delicious meals of barracuda and pork chops, maybe the best of the whole trip, and the musician was quite good. We left in a much better mood than that with which we started the day (the booze helped), and went back to the hotel to await more visions of whale sharks dancing in our heads.

Belize Day #12

We got up early to catch the 7am bus out to Dangriga. It was pivotal that we catch this bus or we'd be hitching on some hick's 2x4s again, just to get to the highway. I thought it would be smart to get back into town anyway to catch the bus at it's starting point rather than trying to fight onto an already-full bus. 

We caught the bus on time and it quickly filled to comic proportions. There were 3 to a seat in spots, 4 if there were kids, and the aisle was shoulder to shoulder with sweaty Belizeans. Jes and I hogged a full seat to ourselves. Not a lot of option as I take up a lot of spaced with my legs spread wide to fit behind the seat ahead of us. As noble as it would be to volunteer my seat to an older citizen, I'd have to hunch over, ear to the ceiling for the entire bumpy 30 minute ride. Not happening.

We paid the fare with the last of our Belizean dollars, so my first order of business was to get some cash which I did after a BZ$10 cab ride into town and back. There were no direct buses to Plancencia for a couple hours, so we decided to take the next one to Independence, just across the water. Placencia is on the tip of a little peninsula so the bus routes don't frequent it as often. We would jump on the water taxi from Independence and be in Placencia before the scheduled departure of the Placencia bus from Dangriga, plus we'd get to see a new stretch of road, so we went for it.

In Placencia, we walked straight in off the dock to the sidewalk and accepted the first room that was offered to us by a kooky but friendly Canadian woman. At the mere utterance of the letters A and C strung together we were sold, as I was sweating profusely in the tropical heat, which seemed decidedly hotter on this day. Upon closer inspection, we realized we may have made a hasty decision as this place was a bit of a dump, but it was too late. We dropped our packs off and cooled off for a while in front of the air conditioner before setting off to book a whale shark trip. 

We went back to Placencia Dive School, the company who had told us to come back closer to the full moon when we visited them during our first stay in Placencia. 

It was 11:30 and there was no one available until after lunch, so we decided to find some grub and try them again later. Jes and I stopped into the Kozy Korner for lunch and ordered a chicken burrito and bbq chicken dinner, respectively (with beers and a delicious nutmeg-infused banana milk shake). Neither us were prepared for Jes's order to come out and cover the entirety of her plate. The burrito was colossal, the kind you would expect a note under on the menu offering it as a free meal if you can finish the whole thing. I've packed on at least a couple pounds on this trip and it's thanks to orders like that. Jes would struggle through half and then, not one to waste such tasty cuisine, I'd take over, AFTER mowing down my gigantic chicken dinner. The oceanside ambience was great and the prices were low for a tourist joint, so it was a pretty good lunch stop. 

We went back to the dive shop and there was still no one around, so we decided that these guys didn't have their shit together and we'd find someone more competent. We went to the end of the sidewalk to a company called Splash who said they had their first April whale shark trip going out tomorrow. We didn't have a lot of options as our flight was on Monday at noon, which left Sunday as a travel day back to Cancun. We had to sign up for the Saturday trip. We plunked down a deposit, signed up and were told to be at the shop for 8:15 the following day. We were going to see whale sharks!!

We had some time that afternoon to scout out some souvenirs as this would be our last chance in Belize with the dive day tomorrow and a long travel day back to Mexico the following day. Jes talked a wood-carver into parting with one of his seracote salad bowls for a mutually agreeable price (don't ask how much).  

We had some drinks and food and listened to some bad loud music at the Tipsy Tuna. Jes finally got to try some conch, in ceviche form as an appy with nacho chips. She enjoyed it, but had to choke back the rum punches to keep up with my Beliken-crushing. An awkward interaction with one of the servers was enough to send us outta there and back to the hotel for the night. Visions of whale sharks were set to dance in our heads....

Belize Day #11

The alarm went off at 4:30, I hit snooze once and headed out to the shore to watch the sun rise over the Caribbean Sea. The horizon had a light tint of color already, so I thought my timing was pretty decent. I'm not exactly an early riser, so sunsets aren't my forte. Little did I know it would be another couple hours before the sun actually break over the horizon, so for the next while I was watching more of a "gradual brightening". 

Jes came out at a more sensible time and we both read our books, sitting on our towels a couple feet from the shoreline, noticing the odd little sand crab poke out of his hole, only to scuttle swiftly back inside at the slightest flinch from Jes or I. The owner-lady was up early to tend to the perfectly manicured sand-lawn in front of the cabins, raking up the debris brought in by the tide. Eventually the sun came up and I was glad to have started my day so early. 

We went for breakfast at Thong's Cafe a couple doors down. We had pretty much conceded that we were not going to make it through the day on our Belizean currency, and so resigned ourselves to dipping into our American Dollar stash that had been set aside to get us back through Mexico. With our thrifty ways behind us, I ordered a big Mexican breakfast, Jes had a meager bagel, toasted, buttered and smeared with jam. Together with a coffee each, the bill was BZ$25. I plunked down the bills and topped it with a couple dollar coins for a tip. I could feel something burning all of sudden when I looked up and saw the stink-eye glare from Jes, aimed directly at me. We weren't on the same page when it came to tacking a tip on top, what with the limited funds available to us. The previous night she was happy to buy BZ$9 worth of jam that could be found anywhere outside of Hopkins, but leaving a $2 tip for these poor folk got me the evil eye every time. We went back to the cabin after grabbing some chips, salsa and fig newtons (hereforward known affectionately as "Newts") for snack/lunch. We mixed ourselves some mid-morning rum and cokes and I relaxed on the beach, trying to capture some color while Jes stayed out on the veranda, both of us crushing our books (and drinks). The better part of our day was spent this way, minus the sunning as I could only handle so much.

Later, around 4pm, and having skipped lunch in favor of chips, newts and booze, I started feeling peckish. We went south to the same location as our supper the previous night, wanting to try the Yu Ga Da Cafe across the street from Innies. We arrived to find it wasn't open until 5, but Jes was adamant we were trying this place, so we popped into Innies and split a burger while we waited. A short bit after 5 we made the switch to Yu Ga Da only to find higher prices and pretty much the same menu. We tried to escape with the excuse that it was too hot in there (which it was, I was pouring sweat out of every gland in my body), but she cracked the windows, opened the doors, turned the ceiling fans on and was generally just a bit too nice to skip out on. We were loaded and feeling greasy, so we ordered another burger and fries each. They were claimed to be homemade, but tasted suspiciously like McDonald's. Regardless, we plowed them into our faces and headed back to continue binge drinking.

Back at the cabin I poured myself a drink and we sat out and read books some more. It wasn't long before Jes decided she'd head inside and lay down, which I found a bit odd as it was barely 7pm. About an hour later, I heard a barely discernible, muffled moan over the crashing sound of the waves. It was coming from inside so I peeked in and it was Jes, curled up in a ball, calling for me. She was in some serious discomfort, similar to the stomach pain that we had taken her to the hospital for less than a week prior to our trip. She had been doing so well for the first 10 or so days of the trip that it wasn't even in my mind anymore, but very clearly, she wasn't 100% free of her ailment. We never did get a definitive answer on what was wrong with her, and this time around, we didn't have a definitive answer on what could have caused this sudden bout of extreme stomach pain. We surmised it may have been the wad of grease she'd just mashed into her pie-hole, but it could have been the fact that she had forgotten to take her meds, which were supposed to be taken on an empty stomach, until after her breakfast that morning, something she hadn't waivered on all trip until that morning. It could have been something else entirely, we just didn't know. Whatever it was, about an hour after her cries for help, every morsel of liquid and food in her body made a swift and sudden break for the nearest exit in an uncontrollable wave eminating from her abdomen in both directions. 

After a prolonged period of purging her body, the pain subsided. At Jes's request I went next door to the convenience store to source out some Tang and water to get some liquids back in her body and keep her hydrated, something without acid to avoid disturbing the bubbling cauldron inside her. Jes has got some weird aversion to drinking just plain water, but after what she'd just been through (and what I'd been through by mere proximity to the bathroom), I was in no position to question the request. Similar to her water-aversion, I have an even stronger grocery store aversion. 

For instance, my arch nemesis is the Real Canadian Superstore. Jes lives pretty much beside one, so has learned the ins and outs of the store quite thoroughly. I, on the other hand, couldn't find bread in the bakery there. She asked me to find a pillow in Superstore for her once, one of those fancy, curvy, memory foam deals. She assured me they were in there, so I went in with confidence thinking there are only so many places to find pillows in a grocery store. I was unsuccessful after a thrice-over scour of the pillow aisle. "How many pillow aisles can there possibly be in a grocery store!!!!", I steamed. I left in a rage, only to be lead by the hand, by Jes the next day, to that very pillow aisle and grab precisely what she had asked for. To this day I swear that it wasn't there the previous day and they must have re-stocked overnight. 

 Back to Belize, and this "convenience" store might as well have been called "Belizean Superstore" because I'll be damned if I could find some Tang in there. I went up and down every aisle twice, knowing full-well that if Jes asked for it, she had seen it in there in one of our previous trips. Eventually, I gave up and assumed that she could only have meant the powder soy-based drink that I was standing in front of, pouring over the contents and mixing instructions. It said mix with water, it was fruit flavored, not acidy....I thought this must be it. A Belizean woman walked past and said "ohhhh, don't get that!!", and made a face like she just swallowed a bug. I was screwed, so I asked for help. "I'm looking for juice, but not juice. It has to be in powder form....powder form? Y'know, to mix with water...?", I quizzed. "Tang??", she asked. "YES!!", I exalted, shocked for some reason, thinking that such a product must not exist here. She enlisted her pre-teen son and daughter to join in the Tang-hunt, and not more than 10s later I heard "found it!" From the center aisle. There it was, almost exactly mid-store. Center of the center aisle, MY eye height, and not just one flavour, it was the Baskin Robbins of Tang, what looked like 31 flavors. I had gone up and down the "Tang aisle" and not noticed the Tang. 

 I bought the goods and quietly left, boiling inside. I mixed the drink, got it to Jes and she promptly crushed it saying, "Oh, you almost should have bought 2." 

 I rolled over and went to bed.

Belize Day #10

Although we knew where wanted to go, we had nowhere in particular to be and nothing in particular to do this day. So, we woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast (actually TWO leisurely breakfasts cuz Jes's first choice was atrocious) before jumping the bus coastward. Our plan was to get to the small, seaside town of Hopkins, of which we knew virtually nothing about other than its geographical location relative to the rest of the country. Nonetheless, we had designs of making our way there and finding us some whale sharks. 

We hopped the bus again and a couple hours later we were at the Dangriga bus station where we'd make the switch to the bus south to Hopkins. We grabbed our packs, got off the bus and asked when we could get on the next bus to Hopkins. "About 4 hours from now", we were informed. No chance we were waiting that long, so we approached the hoards of taxis who were eager to give us a lift out. "80 Belize" was the first quote given, high enough for us to swing around in unison and immediately get back on the bus. We knew the bus was continuing south to Punta Gorda, and the junction to Hopkins was only a short ride from where we were on any bus heading south. The problem was that between the Hopkins junction and Hopkins was a 5-mile dirt road under cover of nothing. We'd have to hike it in the sweltering heat or pray for a lift. 

We took our chances and went to the junction. We had seen an English girl get off there on our way north from Placencia to Belmopan and in the time it took for her to step off the bus and the bus to depart, we could see her already throwing her bag in the back of a pick up. So we were confident we would get a ride as it seemed like there was a solid amount of traffic at the intersection, probably doing regular pick ups of folk just such as us. 

When we got off, a couple of late-adolescent Belizean boys got off at the same time. They were making their way in the same direction. They immediately went and found shelter from the sun under the bus stop at the corner and we probed them as to how to get to Hopkins. "Pray for a short wait", they said. It was a million degrees out and I was sweating in the shade so there was no chance of hauling our packs that far; we were waiting for lift. We busted out our books and zoned out for a short time while the boys kept an eye out for potential rides. Only a few vehicles made the turn without stopping to offer a lift before a beat up old flat deck pick up carrying a big load of 2x4s stopped. "Let's go, if you want to travel the local way!", said the boys. Perfect! We threw our bags in the back and rode those 2x4s into town, eating dirt, rocks and sawdust the whole way. When we got to town we jumped out and the mysterious driver sped off, not leaving time enough even for a thank you, let alone a glimpse inside the cab of the vehicle. We were there and it didn't cost any extra, so we were pleased.

We had done some light research in our Lonely Planet and determined that we wanted to stay at Laru Beya cabins. When we got there, we were more than delighted by these spacious seaside cabins with A/C and verandas with only palm trees blocking the view of the incoming waves and the blue on blue horizon in the distance. At US$55 per night, we were laughing. 

I paid the hotel keeper, a hilarious old lady from Belize City, in to tend for a couple days for her brother, the owner of the place. Upon doling out the loot, I realized we were running a bit low on dinero so I asked where the nearest bank was. "Oh, there's no bank in Hopkins!", she laughed. No bank, no ATM, no credit cards taken....we were in trouble. I did a quick count and found we had BZ$140 (US$70) to get us through supper that night, 3 squares the next day, breakfast and our trip to Placencia the following day. Oh, and plus any drinking we wanted to do...which we wanted to do a lot of. "We can do this", we figured, we'd just have to budget. We really didn't want to make the painful trip back to Dangriga and burn a good portion of our oceanside beach time to go get cash.

With bigtime budgeting in mind, we set out on a booze cruise. We scored a bottle of One Barrel for BZ$12, but the coke mix wasn't our best purchase at BZ$4 a liter. And we had to get 2 to get us through the night. We picked up a chips and salsa snack as well, so we weren't off to a very good start on the budget. We started getting gooned on the veranda, reading our books and crushing rum & cokes. 

I was marvelling at the view when it dawned on me that I could probably grab a coconut from the nearest palm tree from right off the deck. It was a bit of a stretch, but I decided I was going to make that happen. I got up on the railing, wrapped one arm around the rooftop stantion, leaned out as far as I could and plucked that golden fruit right off the tree. It was still warm to the touch from the sun when I started trying to get inside it. We were pretty limited on tools, so I started trying to give it a jack-o-lantern-style top opening with the cabin key. I had the key fully inserted into the coconut in a couple spots but nothing was coming out. This was proving to be a lot more difficult than imagined. Then Jes had a brainwave: "Use my corkscrew!". Having, on a number of occasions on this trip, used my flip-flop-mounted bottle opener, I thought, "That's my girl!". Always prepared if there's an alcohol-opening emergency. I made quick work through the shortest side of that coconut and we each sucked a swig of the sweet nectar from the corkscrew wound before I poured myself a tall glass of freshly uncorked coconut milk. We threw that cononut, plus one more, into the fridge with the anticipation of finding a knife on the cheap at some point and cutting out the fruit from inside. This plan never did materialize, however I did make use of the juice as a cheap (read: "free") mixer, making several tasty rum concoctions. 

Soon enough Jes started getting owly and I knew it was time to feed the beast. We walked to the south end of town to Innies restaurant where we dined on some local Garifuna plates. Naturally, with our budget and our state of inebriation, these choices were very nearly the most expensive on the menu. Still, it wasn't that bad at BZ$37 for both meals, a beer for me, plus tip. 

Revelling in the pleasure of our state of fullness and intoxication, we decided to check out the convenience store for some cheaper cashew wine than the BZ$20 bottle offered in the gift shop. We spotted the exact same bottle for BZ$9 and I guess Jes was feeling sentimental because, despite our monetary misgivings, she decided now was a good time to pick up some jam for Grandma Fritshaw. And one wasn't enough, so we got one banana jam and one guava jam for BZ$4.50 each. So, to recap, after setting aside our bus fare to get to Placencia, we were down to our last BZ$55 that had to last us through the entire next day and we just spent 18 of it on wine and jam. 

We must have been loaded. And the worst part was that the cashew wine was one of the most heinous tastes to ever touch my tongue. I couldn't even finish my glass and we wound up leaving the full bottle in the cabin, minus a drink each for Jes and I. Note to Grandma Fritshaw: You better like your jams!!

We had another early night in preparation for an early morning to watch the sun rise.