Hopkins

We caught a bus and a taxi to Hopkins, where Garifuna culture rules. The Garifuna is a Honduran tribe that escaped slavery by canoeing to the Belizian coast. And man can they drum. We were hoping to catch some of the festivities.

Our hostel, Yagudah, was run by the effervescent garifuna-speaking Rosie, who took care of our immediate french fry needs. Although the light situation was just a bare bulb plugged into a power socket, we were provided with some really nice bikes to ride about town in. Hopkins is one loooooong stretch of road along the beach, with fancy resorts on the north and south ends, and locals in-between. We decided to find some kind of internet in town to check on our spanish school reservation, and followed the hand-painted signs to Kismet hostel. It turned out to be an eclectic gringo-run hippie hostel. She regaled us with stories about how her monitor was broken, and she spent exhorbitant amounts of money on repairs that never materialized, but we were in good spirits and offered to help fix it. With only electrical tape and a rusty screwdriver, Lucas got that sucker up and running. Just as Lucas was completing the job, she casually mentioned that actually, her internet was canceled. We high-tailed it out of there as she called out that Lucas was ¨the miracle she had been praying for¨. Genius, that boy.

After dinner with Mani et Antoine, we hit the bar. One of the garifuna drummers at the table next to us said ¨I need a bassist¨, and Lucas without hesitation said ¨that´s me¨. Though the man said Lucas´s drumming made him sick, it sounded fantastic to us. He made us hats from palm fronds.

In the morning, we set out to catch the 7am chicken bus. All the public buses in Belize are old 1980´s yellow school buses. So the school buses for children look exactly like the chicken buses for adults. Our cue was the bus the kids lining the streets didn´t get on. Many false starts. Leaving off at the intersection, we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup to Belmopan, the capital city, where parted ways with Mani et Antoine. Another chicken bus to San Ignacio, then across the border into Guatemala.