Day 5

Day 5: Wednesday, Belize City, Belize.

By the time I woke up we had already arrived, (got up at noon tho) and people were offloading and heading ashore. We didn't dock like last time, this time we had to take a ferry to the mainland and we anchored off the coast.
I decided to figure out my day over a hearty breakfast. Unfortunately despite their many advertisement about mealtimes being 24 hours a day, you don't find breakfast anywhere after noon. So I resorted to eating lunch instead. I decided to go with Phil and his parents to an island off the coast of Belize instead of going to the actual city. In a way I didn't really want to because I had just done the whole beach thing yesterday, and now I wanted to explore a forigen country. But since I had nobody to go to the mainland with I decided to stick with Phil for now. True to my libran nature I had a change of mind when we met up with Maggie and Abby who were going to the city. Phil had been to Belize city before and didn't want to go, but I decided to go with the girls instead.
(In order to understand the rest of this post you have to realize that before this I had never left the country, the things I say about this place I say from the perspective of a full 100% American having never left the country he was born in)
If you want to see some pictures from Belize check out Ambie's Blog. We took the ferry to the docks, and so far things seemed pretty normal. It was rather tourist oriented since so many tourists stop in this area. This certainly wasn't what I was expecting.
We headed into a large gift shop that had a back door which served as an entrance into the city. I thought it was insanely cool that several armed guards watched the door. The second we stepped through it actually felt like we had stepped into another country. We were swarmed by locals all offering us something, particualarly taxi's. We put on our best, "we're not stupid tourists" face and, drawing from the information of various movies portraying third world countries to guide us, headed down the street into the city.
Several others afterwards were very dissapointed in Belize mostly because of how grubby everything was. I myself thought it was amazing. Every street and building was 3 or 4 times more run down than the dirtiest ghetto I'd ever seen. The locals were dirty, sweaty, their clothes were stained and torn. I guess I would've felt bad for most of them, if they hadn't been trying to rip me off. One woman in particular got on my nerves. She insisted that I braid my hair in little Belizian braids. (This was after I had cut it by the way) I politely told her no, but she wouldn't give up, after all 3 of us had said no at least 10 times, she said "I'll wait until you come back", and left. A little ways down we met up with Linda who was having a great time playing tourist. Not too much else happened there in Belize. We walked around the city, me oohing and ahhing over all things dirty and poor, and the girls spending a buttload on knick knacks and other random junk. This is not to say that I wouldn't have spent any money, (I didn't of course) but that is only because I had only 1 dollar to my name and as you remember was already in debt to Phil.
After about 3 hours of walking around we'd had enough, and decided to head back to the ship. On the way back we met up with several other people, and ran into the hair braiding lady again. She was more persistant than ever this time, in her ranting that we needed authentic Belizian braids in our hair. The conversation went something like this.
BRAID LADY: Common hunny, you look so pretty with these braids in your hair, you really need to git them.

JESSE: No thanks, not interested.

BRAID LADY: It's real cheap, only 10 dollahs for yo' entiah head, I give you good price because you have such pretty hair.

JESSE: Thanks but I don't want them.

BRAID LADY: Common you gonna impress all ya friends with authentic Belzian braids in your hair.

JESSE: I don't think my friends would appreciate that.

BRAID LADY: You don't like braided hair? I do it like, ya know, rows in ya' hair.

JESSE: You mean cornrows?

BRAID LADY: Yea' those, corn rows.

JESSE: Dear God.

BRAID LADY: So whadda ya say baby?

JESSE: Absoloutly not.

BRAID LADY: Ya don't like corn rows?

JESSE: I don't think those would look good on me.

BRAID LADY: Truss' me dah'lin they look beautifool on you!

JESSE: No they look ghetto on me.

BRAID LADY: Ya don' like the style?

JESSE: Not on a white guy like me no.

BRAID LADY: Just do the braids hunny.

(at this point I noticed a t-shirt hanging on the wall of a small kiosk {the lady had followed us to another shop in an attempt to sell us on her idea} which read...
NO I don't want a Taxi

NO I don't want my Hair Braided

NO I don't want a Coconut

NO I don't want a tour of the city

NO I don't want weed

BELIZE

I laughed and pointed to the shirt on the wall to which the lady replied?

BRAID LADY: You wan' the T-shirt insted of mah' awsome braids?

JESSE: No I don't want either one, I'm trying to get you to take a hint "NO I don't want my hair braided".

BRAID LADY: Ahhh hunny, ya' know iss gonna look excellent on ya'.

JESSE: I DON'T WAN'T MY HAIR BRAIDED, I THINK IT'S A VERY UGLY GHETTO LOOK AND THE LAST THING I WANT IS YOUR GRUBBY FINGERS TOUCHING MY HAIR, NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

BRAID LADY: You change ya' mind you come see me hunny.

After this the braid lady walked off and started pestering Maggie and Abby. I think their conversations went the same way.

Nothing else really interesting happened that day until dinner time. It was late and alot of people had already eaten, so us younger guys decided to go to Phil's room and have a "Room Service Party". I took orders for about 10 minutes (there were 6 of us eating) and then asked for this...
6 Waters
3 Milks
3 Iced Teas
2 Coffees
8 Pizza's
2 Fruit Plates
1 Ceaser Salad
6 Chocolate Moose's
10 Brownies
10 Cookies
and 1 Grilled Cheese Sandwich

The guy told me that he couldn't give me any more than 4 pizza's, but he ended up giving us 12 brownies and 12 cookies too.
We gorged, but the sweets ended up tasting awful, way too sweet. So much was wasted.