What did I do????

I picked myself up and dusted off and started walking toward where Hobo went. I walked and walked for what seemed liked miles and still there was no sign of him. Turning back seemed to be the best decision since hadn’t thought to bring any water and was already feeling quite dehydrated.
I had brought my phone so I pulled it out of my pocket and flipped it open. “Who can I call for help?” I wondered. Juan doesn’t speak much English and he probably won’t answer the phone anyway and I’m not even sure if he knows how to drive. Everyone else is pretty far away. So I’ll call Hobo’s trainer. He lives nearby and he’ll probably know how to help. I looked at the cell phone’s screen to find his number. NO SIGNAL! Oh %#%@! Now what?
I started waling back toward the main road hoping to get a signal along the way. I was hot and tired and thirsty but I didn’t want to stop and rest for fear of not wanting to get up again. I came upon a fork in the road that I’d never noticed before. Having absolutely no sense of direction I didn’t know which way to go. I looked around for hoof prints in the dry dusty road and thought I could make out a few coming from the right so I went that way. About a quarter mile later I arrived at a dead end. Apparently Hobo is not the only horse traveling this road. Back I went to the split and continued my journey. At this point the sun was directly overhead, the breeze had calmed to a whisper and I needed to stop for a bit. My ribs had started to hurt. I rested a bit, then walked to the next shady spot and rested another minute. I did this for at least another mile, then found an up-side-down bucket on a hill under a tree and sat there feeling quite dejected and depressed. But… my phone made its “you’ve got a signal” sound and I called my friend to come help. He was home and said he’d be here soon. So I waited, and waited, and waited like at least an hour. I called my friend back but there was no answer.
The swishing sound of a machete made me jump up in a panic. When I turned to see where it came from I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a farmer in an orange grove clearing some brush. He spoke no English at all, but did understand that I was hot and thirsty so he went and cut me some oranges. I was ever so grateful and thanked him the best I could.
It was lunch time and the farmer and his helper were going back to the farm and offered me a lift a little further down the road on their tractor. I accepted. When we got to his driveway, we heard whistling and whooping from down the road. The farmer whooped back (apparently this is a form of communication when looking for someone) and there was my friend with a couple of helpers. Yea! I was rescued!
He wasn’t able to bring the car any further than about a mile in because of the ruts in the road and had walked up the road looking for me. I thanked the farmer again and we all walked back to the car which really wasn’t very far away at all. I could see why he couldn’t go any further. There was a huge rut in the road that probably would have ripped the bottom of the Hyundai Elantra right off. That would have been devastating for me too since the car used to belong to me and I was still quite fond of it.
The car was carefully turned around and we all piled in and went back to the ranch for water, frozen treats, a rest and a truck.
Off we went again, this time on a quest to look for Hobo. We managed to get by the big rut and several more potholes, rocks, hills and even a small stream before reaching the dreaded ‘grassy driveway’. The truck scrapped by the brush and I worried that I may never be able to turn around. Backing out of this would take a lot of patience which I’d pretty much run out of by now.
We were now at the turn where I bailed off; the next turn went up a steep muddy hill. I stopped and we all got out. My friend and the boys fanned out and looked in the bush and I walked up the hill. There was Hobo, sauntering back towards me like nothing had happened!
More later…

इ'म बेक ... दोएस अन्योने केयर?

I love the feeling of vertigo. Since I don’t do drugs, I can only imagine what it might be like to be high on marijuana and watch a segment of CSI or Boston Legal where they fly over the city above some of the highest structures in the world looking down at the streets and cars below. I already find it completely intoxicating watching this while stone cold sober. Perhaps that’s the reason I took up skydiving even though I’m quite terrified of heights. Well, maybe I’ll blog about my skydiving days another time but right now I want to talk about Hobo the amazing wonder horse.
I suppose I should apologize for not writing anything in my blog for a whole year but I won’t. I just didn’t feel like it. It’s not that nothing happened… in fact it was quite an interesting year, so I may backtrack a bit once in a while. In the meantime, I’ll catch up a bit on the chickens:
Gertie is fine but her baby got eaten by a snake. Needless to say, she was beside herself with grief. She did however have 4 more chicks and they disappeared from right under her (literally) the very next day. She seemed to take that in stride but I was very upset. Miguel and I flushed out a 6 foot Blacktail snake from under the coop the next day and disposed of it. I think you can put that all together without explanation.
A very nice lady from Armenia (the village in Cayo, not the country across the Atlantic) who works at Puccini’s in Belmopan gave us 2 small Belizean chickens to replace the two others that died; one from a respiratory illness and the other, a victim of the snake. About 4 months ago, Gertie hatched 6 healthy baby chicks. This was a marvelous feat for a chicken with no rooster. Okay, we cheated a little. Eggs fertilized from 3 different roosters were brought to her from Armenia Village. There are 2 black chicks, 2 yellow, 1 brown and 1 white. Gertie loves them all and they get along together famously.
Let’s talk about Hobo. Hobo went to horse training school and learned all the good things a great riding horse should know. I started riding him and we went together on many enjoyable outings. He did however have a teeny tiny little flaw. It seems he did not like to walk or trot or stop when asked to, so riding him was a bit of a challenge. It wasn’t that he would not walk or trot, but it was a constant struggle to keep him at a comfortable pace. I was given lots of advice of course. “Put a harsher bit on him.” “Run him for miles and miles every day until he gets tired.” “Sell him.” “Shoot him.” The list went on and on. I refused to do the first but did try the second. The result of this was that he was even harder to handle and wanted to run even more and further and became no fun at all to ride. I persisted and still rode him every day. He seemed to be getting better so I decided to take him down Prayer Mountain Road. The scenery was lovely, the road sandy and good for footing as well as tree lined for shade. It couldn’t have been a nicer ride. After about an hour the road changed to more of a grassy driveway with brush on both sides. It was extremely pretty; the perfect laneway, flat and solid. Since Hobo had been such a perfect gentleman, walking, trotting, loping and stopping on cue every time, I asked him for one more canter before turning around to go home. Off we went at a nice steady comfortable pace. A couple of minutes later I asked for a stop so we could turn around and head back home. Hobo’s reaction was “He, he, he… I’m just getting started,” and began to run faster. I leaned back and pulled the reins tighter while asking for a “whoa” to no avail. By this time he was running at breakneck speed and admittedly I began to panic. I pulled on the reins until his chin was touching his chest and he still ran on and on. At this point I was pleading and begging him to stop. Instead of stopping he pulled his head forward, pulling me forward as well, connecting my right ribs to the pommel of the saddle. I decided to give him his head back, thinking that he must be getting tired by now and would stop very soon. This proved to be incorrect. On he ran. Thus far the route was still grassy and straight, but I spotted a sharp turn to the left coming up and since I was using an Australian saddle with no horn to grab onto I thought (funny how the mind works quickly in survival situations) “I have two choices; one: grab his mane and try to stay on (I had long since taken my feet out of the stirrups because I would rather be thrown than dragged), or two: bail”. I opted to bail. Since I hoped he was going to slow down a little for the turn, then jumping off would be my best option. I landed on my feet, did a PLF (parachute landing fall) on a nice soft grass patch and watched as Hobo tore off into the distance and around another corner.
To be continued… If you’re so inclined to be curious

Lunch with the Prime Minister of Belize

Friday March 14th was a big day politically in Belmopan. Ministers & senators flocked into the city for the presentation. I was meeting a few people for lunch and we’d just sat down at our table when the honorable Dean Oliver Barrow, Belize’s new and much better (this is not high praise so much as the anticipation of an end to the corruption of the former ruling government’s upper echelon) Prime Minister walked through the door to join his party. Okay, so I didn’t actually have lunch with him but he did smile, nod & say hello as he passed our table. Needless to say the place was packed with political type people which made the Belizean process of ordering drinks and food, then waiting for the bill even longer than usual but I didn’t mind. The company was good and I got to tell everyone I had lunch with the Prime Minister of Belize.

Spring has sprung in Belize

While some countries are still digging out of snow, here in Belize we have a different kind of ground cover. There’s a big ol’ tree that I can’t remember the name of that has no leaves and looks quite dead most of the time. It stands above most other trees and can be seen along the highway as you drive through the mountainous areas of the jungle. Once a year the tree blooms yellow flowers that look like giant snap dragons and the country-side canvas is dotted with yellow blotches for a few days. Alas, the flowers fall in the wind and are strewn all over the ground. It couldn’t be a more perfect setting for a wedding with the bride making her way to the alter. I do happen to have one of those trees in the yard, but no bride so Cleo will have to do. Even Miguel, who does the yard work commented on how beautiful it was, right before he got out the weed whacker and slashed them all to bits. Ahhhh, say la vie.
Lunch with the Prime Minister of Belize

Hobo gets the Axe!

Yikes! My baby is only 2 years old and he’s already chasing the girls around… I’ve been told he’s a bit of a Casanova and has been trying to mount a certain lady friend. Since he’s not considered “fine breeding stock” (although I can’t imagine why???) his jewels will have to go. I made arrangements for the ‘operation’ and went out to supervise the procedure. After seeing him get an injection to numb him from the pain, being the brave soul I am, I went for a walk. I couldn’t watch. “It will only take 20 minutes,” said Dr. Doom. I walked though the orchard for about 40 minutes and when I got back Hobo was still where he was when I left him. He looked fine. My first reaction was to look under the hood. Yep… Definitely something missing! No blood, no pain, no loss of appetite. Why did something not seem quite right? Again, no cohunes, no blood, no pain, no loss of appetite. I thought to myself, “This guy is good!” After a little more spoiling I put Hobo back in the pasture and went home. I got an e-mail from the lady I board Hobo with the next day letting me know that Dr. D was out on Sunday to geld Hobo. What the… did she mean. Yesterday was Wednesday? Seems Dr. D didn’t want me to know he’d done the deed already and decided to fake doing it on Wednesday. If I ever find out the reason for the charade, I’ll let you know. I just has to be a doozy!

Pelicans in Dangriga

March 7, 2008
Hello. I’m back after a long winter’s nap. This is not an excuse for not blogging it’s just a fact. Today I’m going to tell you about pelicans. These ones were sunning themselves in Dangriga across from the market. I don’t get to Dangriga much but it is a good place to go for Garifuna culture and food. It’s best to buy direct from the little stands if you want to experience real Garinagu food. And… it’s also full of pelicans! They’re big dopey looking birds that hang around the ocean looking for fish. Very graceful in flight, but take offs and landings are more along the clumsy albatross side. They look pretty majestic here and recover quite well from the embarrassment of landing by floating demurely across the water and looking at each other as if to say, “Was anybody watching that Petey? I hope Petunia didn’t see me. I kind of got a crush on her.” Meanwhile Petunia comes in crash and burn style rolling across the water in front of her admirer, shakes herself off and swims away in the opposite direction.
Am I getting carried away again? Some things never change.
P.S. the chickens, cats, dog and horse are fine.
Next blog: Hobo loses stallion status.

Three Days in Mexico

Oops! I never did write about Chetumal, did I? I turned a year older there and didn’t feel a day over 20. Even the rain didn’t put a damper (pun intended) on our fun. The only problem was we didn’t stop at customs. We meant to but we couldn’t find the immigration office and everyone we asked pointed in a different direction. Finally, soaked and frustrated, we said “the heck with it” and just drove on.
We ate, we swam, we drank and we shopped ‘til we were too tired for anything else. Fortunately the evening activity was not too strenuous. Television! You might not know this, but if you want to watch television in the jungle you have to buy and install a big ol’ satellite dish which I do not have. So I got my TV. fix for a couple of evenings while sipping on cerveza.
Mexico makes the best beer in the world. It’s called Modelo Especial and I decided I wanted to take some back with me. I bought a six pack and Ellen picked up a bottle of Baileys and headed off to the border and back to Belize.
“Where is your visitor pass?” asked the stern looking official at the immigration booth. In our flustered, eye batting innocence we explained about the trip across. The official was neither flattered nor amused. We were told it would cost hundreds of pesos as a fine. We pooled out pesos and come up with an amount a little short of what was asked for. I guess they were tired of us so they accepted it and let us go back home.
We hadn’t bought much besides the clothes we were wearing so we declared everything we had at the Belize customs desk knowing it wouldn’t be over the amount allowed.
“You are Belizean residents,” the officer said. “You cannot bring beer and alcohol into the country.”
“Why”, I asked. “Is it dangerous?”
This did not get the smile I was hoping for so we professed we did not know this or we certainly would not have bought it and then been so honest about declaring it etc. etc…
They decided we weren’t going to open a liquor store and ruin the Belizean economy and let us keep it.
I repacked my small suitcase quickly and hurried out to the car with half the contents spilling out the unzip-able container. Ellen brought the car around and we both breathed a big sigh of relief!