Writings By Date| Journey to Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
We reached our first stop at Caye Caulker after only about 15 minutes, and I was terribly relieved. The motions weren't exactly making me nauseous, but they were making me uncomfortable — I described it to Erin as "feeling a little tweaked". It could have been my empty stomach (I often get more motion sick when I haven't eaten), but our pastries were stale and not easily eaten on the bumpy water. So before leaving, we moved to the back of the boat, where it would be less bumpy, and hopefully I wouldn't feel so uneasy. It helped quite a bit, but the bumps were still pretty huge. I got sprayed with huge swaths of salt water repeatedly (good thing I had my rain jacket on), and my glasses were so drenched, I couldn't see through them to keep my eyes on land. And actually, that turned out to be a good thing, because there was no land to see for quite some time, and that made me more uneasy. So I closed my eyes, and surprisingly, I felt okay with that. Just felt like a really noisy car. Again, I don't think it was seasickness, but just discomfort from all the sideways movements, lack of breakfast, and probably just being sick for the last few days.
Finally, I saw the mainland, and was relieved for the last five to ten minutes of the journey. We disembarked at the Swing Bridge, which I can now appreciate is pretty neat, but somewhat unimpressive when it's not actively being opened or closed. After a quick run to the bank and grocery store (for more powerful insect repellant), we took a taxi to the bus station. There was a 10:30 bus that went straight to the Crooked Tree sanctuary, but Erin knew of a 10am bus that was cheaper, and would take us to Crooked Tree Junction, from where we should be able to get a ride. At least, that's what Lonely Planet said, and they haven't let us down yet. Erin struck up a brief conversation with Our cab driver, and found out he was from the Honduras. He used to be a primary school teacher there, so now he drives a cab during the day, and teaches Spanish at night. Like everyone else, he was exceptionally kind and helpful about our tickets, which it turned out were a mere $1.50 US apiece for a two-hour ride.
The bus was, as expected, your typical Central American chicken bus: a converted school bus. It stopped almost every couple of blocks while in the city, and filled to capacity for a while. After driving for half an hour, we realized there were virtually no markers or signals of any kind on the road, so we figured we had little chance of actually identifying the right stop. We asked the guy sitting in front of us to help us identify when we were at Crooked Tree Junction; he said sure, he goes there all the time. And spot it he did, just in time. He hollered for us to stop the bus, and we clambored out.
When we were dropped off, it looked like a prank. There were no cars or anything, anywhere. No buildings, except for a concrete bus shelter, and a dilapidated shack on the corner; no signs of life, except for a small, feral cat that came up whining, hoping we'd have some food; and definitely no cars or buses of any kind, except for a few broken-down cars on concrete blocks next to the old shack. Our road was devoid of any markings, save for a sign on the side that read "Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, 3 miles". The road itself was a long dirt road, leading off as far as the eye could see, and with nothing but swamp on both sides of it. We looked around, saw no hints of a "ride", so had little else to do but walk through the hot sun.
